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**furillo** · 03-30-2012, 04:35 PM

Simply put, it is hard for me to understand compassion. I understand on some basic level that it is good, but in my life, I have become rather paranoid, and see compassion as weakness. This coupled with my familiarity with anger has brought my practicing to a halt. While I can understand why anger is wrong, and why it causes suffering, I am so used to it, that it feels like home.

A very disconcerting thought.

Basically, I realize that I need to meditate on WHY anger and violence are bad, but its hard to come up with reasons as to why they are so, when I have been raised to believe that they are necessary in this rather dangerous world.

A few thoughts:

1. Maybe instead of meditating on why anger and violence are bad, you need to meditate on why you are angry and need to resort to violence in order to solve a problem. Many time, people resort to anger and violence because they have encounter a situation that they felt they are powerless to resolve. So the key, often, is to develop power (maybe in the form of knowledge and wisdom or even martial arts.) within you so that you can handle the situation without anger and violence.

2. If it is hard to understand compassion, then don't worry about it. You can start by understand greed, anger and ignorance and how to reduce them within you.

3. Some situation might require a projection of strength, but can you project strength without anger? (See point 1.) For example, if you are involved in an argument, can you extricate yourself from the argument without any negative consequences? People on the other side may not always let you walk away cleanly, so when this happens, can you be forceful without a tint of anger in your heart and mind?

4. In the West, many people think that Buddhism is all about meditation. It is not. When you found that you are stuck in your progress, it is a good idea to work on other aspects. For example, within the 6 paramitas, you can work on Dana, Sila, and Ksanti, if you are finding that you are not making progress in Jhana (Dhyana, which is meditation.)

03-30-2012, 04:35 PM	#24
furillo Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 439 Senior Member	Simply put, it is hard for me to understand compassion. I understand on some basic level that it is good, but in my life, I have become rather paranoid, and see compassion as weakness. This coupled with my familiarity with anger has brought my practicing to a halt. While I can understand why anger is wrong, and why it causes suffering, I am so used to it, that it feels like home. A very disconcerting thought. Basically, I realize that I need to meditate on WHY anger and violence are bad, but its hard to come up with reasons as to why they are so, when I have been raised to believe that they are necessary in this rather dangerous world. A few thoughts: 1. Maybe instead of meditating on why anger and violence are bad, you need to meditate on why you are angry and need to resort to violence in order to solve a problem. Many time, people resort to anger and violence because they have encounter a situation that they felt they are powerless to resolve. So the key, often, is to develop power (maybe in the form of knowledge and wisdom or even martial arts.) within you so that you can handle the situation without anger and violence. 2. If it is hard to understand compassion, then don't worry about it. You can start by understand greed, anger and ignorance and how to reduce them within you. 3. Some situation might require a projection of strength, but can you project strength without anger? (See point 1.) For example, if you are involved in an argument, can you extricate yourself from the argument without any negative consequences? People on the other side may not always let you walk away cleanly, so when this happens, can you be forceful without a tint of anger in your heart and mind? 4. In the West, many people think that Buddhism is all about meditation. It is not. When you found that you are stuck in your progress, it is a good idea to work on other aspects. For example, within the 6 paramitas, you can work on Dana, Sila, and Ksanti, if you are finding that you are not making progress in Jhana (Dhyana, which is meditation.)
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