Anger Can Be Power, Don't You Know That You Can Use It?

"Be aware of yourself, as you are, without judgement. See What Is. If you can do this, then you have no further problems." - Krishnamurti via Alan Watts

One of the things that drew me to Zen Buddhism are the concepts of reality and truth. These are two of the main (and only) "goals" of the practice of Zen Buddhism. You seek the truth and accept it. Sounds good but incredibly difficult in practice. @FAKEGRIMLOCK has a pretty excellent Ted Talk that addresses the subject a bit. One of my all-time favorite talks.

I define frustration as the difference between reality and what we believe reality "ought" to be. Wait But Why has a good read here on reasons why Gen Y (my generation) is generally a bit unhappy with their place in the world. I'm more interested in looking forwards than looking back, but I think it's important to understand that the major things addressed in the article are issues of perception and perception and thought processes can be refined and conditioned.

I don't have a fantastic solution or new way of thinking that's going to magically end frustration, nor would I want one. A world of "enlightenment" or "liberated beings" would probably be a bit boring and nothing would get done. On the contrary, friction will (and SHOULD) always be there and it is healthy. Friction and frustration generate anger and, as the Clash told us many years ago, anger can be power. Anger is the sort of thing that leads to real behavior changes. Behavior changes when the pain of changing hurts less than the pain of not changing. This is productive anger.

Productive anger gets you up at 5am to train before going to work. It gets you to work a little earlier during the week so you can hang with the kids on the weekend. You burn Friday night studying instead of doing keg stands. It gets you to do all that extra stuff that 90% of people don't do because you're clawing for every little advantage you can find to do whatever it is you want to do. Like Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday, those extra inches we need are all around us. People don't see them or they choose not to reach for them, but they're out there. To use a term from Steven Pressfield in Turning Pro, those inches are the difference between being an amateur and being a professional.

Unproductive anger is snapping at someone for chewing too loudly, yelling at the dog for being a dog or snapping off at a kid for just being a kid and doing kid things. This is displaced anger due to some friction or a perceived wrong in some other aspect in life; the proverbial shit rolling downhill. This is the stuff that doesn't matter. To paraphrase Chuck Palahniuk in Fight Club: let that which does not matter truly slide.

Things that truly matter are the greatest sources of friction and need to be addressed in some way, shape or form. These are the big things that trickle down into all of the other aspects of your life. When we address the big things, we don't even notice the small things; they'll have already slid away.

Zazen (or Why I Stare At A Blank Wall Every Day)

Two places that I look for some peace and quiet are zazen and the weightlifting platform. For me, those are the two main places where I can get some peace and quiet. There's no Facebook statuses, Twitters, text messages, emails, friends, girlfriends, telemarketers, overpriced gas, etc; it's just me and a wall or me and a barbell.

Something that is tough for people to wrap their mind around is the idea that successful zazen IS zazen. By that, I mean that there isn't some sort of end goal. The point of the journey IS the journey. The whole point to doing zazen is to do zazen.

I will make this point: when I first started doing zazen, it was the exact opposite of what I expected. I pictured this tranquil, quiet time to not think. What I got was the exact polar opposite. My mind ran a million miles an hour and it felt like Heathrow with thoughts taking off and landing constantly. I learned how to calm things down a bit after a couple weeks of consistent practice, but this is a constant battle for me in zazen. This also illustrated a great lesson for me: if you want the fire to go out, stop fanning the flames.

When I'm doing zazen, thoughts bounce in and out of my head pretty much constantly. But they aren't really coherent thoughts; more like thought fragments or a half-molded piece of clay. When I latch on to one, it starts molding into something coherent. Once I figured out to stop giving these thoughts energy, they just fell away. Rinse, repeat and apply everywhere. Those little thoughts can be death by a thousand cuts and leave you exhausted when important, real life shit comes along. I think we tend to self-destruct by giving additional energy and stoking the flames on some things when we could simply let them go. To borrow an over-used and under-appreciated quote from Chuck Palahniuk (via Tyler Durden in Fight Club) that I'm still trying to really figure out:

“No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.”

In short: for me, zazen is like training my ability to distinguish between important and unnecessary and let the unnecessary go. So try it: sit down, shut up and see what happens.