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Lesson Four: Buddha and Emotional Mastery Our emotions have a powerful affect on our lives. The way we feel influences our performance, thoughts and relationships with other people. It is because of this that it is crucial to master our emotions, particularly Anger. This emotion is the cause of more mistakes, regrets and acts of shame than any other. It is also an emotion that is very easy to be triggered off and very hard to escape from. Buddha once said that being angry is like having a burning coal in your hand. The first reaction that you have is to want to throw it at someone, but in reality, you will only be burning them as well. This statement perfectly illustrates a difficult emotion in a way that is easy to analyze. Anger is an aggressive emotion that encourages us to find someone to blame so that we do not feel bad. When we do find that person, we want to throw our anger at them so that we can remove it from our thoughts. However, what is the point in this? We have a burning coal and we are throwing it at another. When they receive this burning coal, what is to say that they will not throw it at another? How often have you seen a situation where one person becomes angry and all others soon become angry too? They have all been thrown this burning coal and cannot get rid of the negative feeling it brings. The next time that you are angry, do not try to throw this burning coal to the next person. In stead try to 'cool-down' and silence this emotion, so that the next person will not have this burning coal thrown at them! The key to emotional mastery, as Buddha teaches us, is to ensure that positive emotions pass from one person to another freely, whilst negative emotion stop with you and do not harm another. EXERCISE: There are countless ways of beating the feeling of anger. One way is to visualize the burning coal turning from a hot orange glow to a cold blue ice as it rapidly loses its heat. Another way is to change your focus. Anger, like all negative emotions, requires you to play back the same situation over and over. Do not allow anger to let you do this. Simply think of something else, someone else, anything else, that does not produce the emotion of anger. A third way is to change the way in which you use your body. When you are angry, you are physically tense. Shake your body out, stretch, put a huge smile on your face and laugh. This is the quickest and easiest way to defeat anger and other negative emotions. Take some time to imagine being in an 'angry' situation. Go through these techniques in your mind and see how easily you can defeat anger. That way, the next time someone throws this burning coal at you, it will no longer burn you. |