Dealing with Anger at Those Who You Feel are Causing Injustice and Pain

Thank you. I need this and will check it out tonight. It couldn't come at a better time...

The Shambhala Prophecy:  There is a 12th century Tibetan prophecy about how the world at some point will hang in the balance.  It says that two giant barbarian powers will be at war with each other. All hope for the fate of the world will come from a great warrior, called a Shambhala Warrior, also called a Bodi-satva or heart warrior.  The heart warrior will save the world, not with weapons, but with love.  It has also been said that the heart warrior will come in the form of millions of people, not one person. I heard this story from my teacher, Joanna Macy.  You can watch her tell it here. 

I just watched your teacher Joanna Macy speak, it is so powerful what she said and also very hopeful. We do not know how it will end, but I love that it will/ could be millions of heart warriors who can save this world. Thank you for sharing!

Lola, you are one of them. 

The tone at the beginning and end of the video and Hahn's voice alone convey a sense of peace.  Thanks.

If you like what Joanna Macy has to say, watch the trailer of her film:   https://vimeo.com/91432290.  

Jeanne, thank you for sharing the videos on Joanne Macy, excerpt from Charles Eisenstein book, and Thich Nach Hahn's approach to anger. I decided to wait a few days to ponder on all of this, rather then being impulsive. All three people touch a heart chord. Joanna Macy's telling about The Shambhala Prophecy rang so true. Charles Eisenstein "A Gathering of the Tribe" was very interesting. I always had a interest in learning more about Shaman. I always believe they were misunderstood because they were connected to everything. Thich Nach Hahn's approach to anger got me thinking about my own anger, and much more I need to work on it. When I look at my own anger, it stems from guilt, and things I can not control. I can not control someone else action, but I can control mine. Guilt is only good when you did wrong and learn from it, then guilt serve no more purpose after that. Also our own thoughts which we are responsible for. If you think less about yourself, always putting yourself down, high expectation that is what you project out into the world.

I remember months back, trying to visualize, that all people would put down their weapons, and just hugging each other and realize they were not their enemies. Instead of being army of war, being army of peace. The Shambhala Prophecy gives us hope.

Jeanne, my youngest daughter and I are starting to do your "Loving and Kindness Meditation together these last two nights. She loves it and ask to do it again tonight. It took awhile for her calm down before we could start because she has so much energy, a lot ideas in her head. They are like a whole lot sling shots ideas bouncing of the walls, floor and ceiling. She can spend hours up in her room, in her mind creating things. One is creating a mindcraft world. She does not need a computers to do that when you got a imagination. lol. After the meditation, she went to bed(yay!!!) because many nights it not like 1 or 2 in the morning because her wheels in her head is turning.

Jeanne,  Thank you for reminding me about Joanna Macy!  I was privileged to be at two retreats with her years ago and she was amazing.  I still remember from time to time the lessons I learned from her.  I can't believe I haven't thought of her for so long.  Thank you!

Thank-you, KC and Kim, Grace, Lola, and Tee. It soothes my heart to read your responses.  Kim, so nice you and your daughter are getting into Loving Kindness. What a wonderful child. If she has trouble falling asleep with all that energy, I found a wonderful app -- Insight Timer -- that has guided meditations.  The one I love the best is the most popular one of all and it's for falling asleep.  By Jennifer Piercy. It's called Yoga Nidra for Sleep.  It's amazing for relaxation, whether for sleep or just to calm down. She has others on the app.  It's all free!

Jeanne thank you, I'm going to start this weekend with the meditation app for my daughter and she is all for it. 

I wrote this in the comments of the Prediction Page today. But wanted to put it here so it wouldn't get lost. 

Judy wrote: I can not understand how much evil is growing in the world. It seems like good will never overcome so much bad.

Judy, thank you for naming what so many of us are reeling in right now. I know you already know what I’m about to say about the evil. I’m saying to myself as much as to anyone else who needs to figure this out right now:

The evil is part of the human condition, but it is concentrated right now in a tiny minority.

The good is in the majority. But that tiny minority has amassed so much power. I’m not saying that those people are evil. They have beating hearts, and can love, and each one has within their souls an inner child who is good. But they have cut themselves off from the whole of humanity. They live in so much darkness, and allow evil ways to dominate their behavior.

But we must never think they are evil or we will suffer and spread the infection. Evil is a force that flows through us. It is NOT us. It’s a force of ignorance. It comes from being wounded and not able to connect to all of life because of fear and a need to protect ourselves.

Their actions are anti-life, and as such will be their own undoing, although not without causing massive damage.

The biggest mistake is for us to hate them. Then the evil is infecting us too. Hatred will cause suffering in us, even when we believe it’s justified. All of the great spiritual masters and thinkers have shown this to be true.

If you get caught up in hating them, find a way to nurture yourself. Take care of yourself. Love yourself. Take a walk, breathe, be with good friends, or a pet, or among the trees. Do this for as long as you need to turn away from hate.

And when you feel safe and happy, focus on those you were hating, and you will not see evil. If anything you will see wounded children. Wounded children cut themselves off from the whole in order to protect themselves. Try not to be like that. Send love and healing to yourself so you can be whole and love the world and all who are in it.

This does not mean you can hang-out with people who spew hate, however.

This tumultuous painful time will end.

Last night I did a timeline reading with some of my local students and we saw a shift in the mid 2020s. I could feel a return to peace at that time. People will adjust and find a way to thrive. We will get our bearings and begin to build anew. We will thrive and breathe again. We will have to deal with the destruction — a new hostile climate mainly, and less wealth probably. But connection and love are what matters most. We will take care of each other.

At this time, we can’t adjust because so much negativity is happening at once. It’s a wild rapids ride, an earth quake that keeps coming. The stability is gone. Every day the press is going nuts with crazy news. And much is from the king of crazy – the U.S. president. But he is only part of this situation.

While evil has a stronghold right now, the seeds of love and healing are here in the majority.

Go through the Timeline Predictions in the Body of this Page, and just read the positive predictions. Those are the seeds that are sprouting. They will take hold and grow and flourish when they reach maturity.

Thank You Jeanne, for your positive and inspiration post. Haters have not really truly felt love. They believe it it is in all the material things, the personal things they gain over the years, and they believe they can control the things around them, and they feel it is the only way, others will love them back. My only hope is they will feel what really love is someday, that is not contain but everywhere around us. I am hopeful they will. You can not hold on to hatred forever, but love is eternal.

I came to this thread feeling lost, and I'm therefore grateful for the wisdom I've found here. My family is from Puerto Rico, and Trump's actions with regard to the devastation there has reignited my rage - not only because his behavior and lack of action has been atrocious, but because my parents voted for him (despite my best efforts to warn them of the terribleness his presidency would unleash). They have convinced themselves that the delays to help our trapped family members in Puerto Rico are a result of a do-nothing Congress, instead of Trump's own unwillingness to speed the recovery unless the public outcry is great enough.

After the election, I didn't speak with my parents for a month because I felt so betrayed by what they'd done. They were moderate Republicans who had once voted for Bill Clinton, but somehow over the last 8 years, they've been radicalized by Fox News and conservative pundits; I couldn't believe the same people who had instilled so many progressive ideals in me were now electing a sexual predator and unabashed racist just because Hillary did not embody the patriarchal, traditional ideal they'd been brainwashed into idealizing.  

And now, with Puerto Rico, the land where my mother and grandparents were born, razed to the ground or underwater, I feel my fury returning with a vengeance. Only part of it is directed at Trump; most of it is directed at my parents. Because in addition to feeling disempowered, I feel orphaned. 

Vida, I hear you. I hear your anger and see your heart is breaking. I know you love your parents. And I get how painful it is not to be able to reach them. To be so disconnected from them.  

I think that's the hardest thing - not being able to accept that people you love can't see what you can so clearly see.  And feeling let down by them for their failings.

I pray you will find a way to accept that they can't see what you can see and find peace in it. Perhaps you stand on their shoulders.  

I know you will figure this out because your heart is so good.

Years ago I learned that the Civil War was the most painful most wrenching of all our wars. It was because people felt torn apart from each other. 

Thank you, Jeanne. I can definitely believe that the Civil War would have severed families along partisan lines. Sometimes I think I can penetrate that wall between us - the bulk of my work experience is in marketing, and there are times when I've been able to successfully persuade them by framing conversations certain ways. With regard to Puerto Rico, I was able to convince my parents to call their representatives to urge Trump to waive the Jones Act by talking to the policy in terms of deregulation. By leaving Trump out of the talk, they did the right thing and ultimately, Trump caved to the public outcry. But had I brought his name into the discussion, they would have shut me down, as their loyalty to him is stronger than their trust in me.

I want so badly to just sit down and talk about our values, which I know are basically the same. I'm a progressive voter because of ideals they instilled in me, which is part of why I'm so dismayed. For instance, we can talk about gun violence where we share our mutual grief and outrage, but as soon as I begin to discuss regulations, they freeze up and switch gears as though they aren't even allowed to think about gun control. (They don't even own a gun!)

Anyway, I wonder often about how I'd approach such a conversation if they gave me the opportunity, but my sister keeps talking me down, claiming they are a lost cause.  Perhaps you're both right about accepting their "radicalization" and routing my energies elsewhere. It's hard to even contemplate it.

(Thanks for letting me vent here. It's been a rough week.)

Vida, thanks for posting. Your issue is everyone's issue. 

This quote from Moby Dick has been much with me. When I listen too much to the news and lose my grounding, I can become as Ahab--not with a White Whale, but with the Orange Julius.

"Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; - Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred White Whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

It's too easy to go there. The spiritual struggle is to calm the intemperate heart.

-R1-

Wow. Thank you for posting that paragraph of perfection.  

...all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung.

Tonight I read a recent story of forgiveness in the Washington Post that moved me to sobs.  A man forgave the man who brutally murdered his beautiful and innocent 23 year old son. It was as if for a moment a dam in my heart broke and I felt what it would be like for it to be whole.