Ezra Bayda and Elizabeth Hamilton: Transforming the Energy of Anger

**This talk was originally written up in April 2011. I became so frustrated with the difficulties of posting it (see below),  I abandoned it. Now it is a lazy August afternoon and I am idly looking through my blog drafts - and here is this one, in much better shape than I recalled, and needing only a little polish to be published. So here they are finally: Ezra Bayda and Elizabeth Hamilton.

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A couple of weeks ago, Ezra Bayda and his wife Elizabeth Hamilton were the guest speakers at Long Beach Meditation. I arrived early to help set up the church space for their talk, and was surprised to find our guests standing on the sidewalk along with the senior sangha member who had invited them. She was looking a little pink and very relieved to see me. She said, "We can't get in!"

No problem. I knew the code to the lock box hanging on the fence and for once put a combination lock through its paces without messing up. Only when I opened the box, the spare keys inside were missing! Now what? Ezra Bayda is a popular speaker. He and his wife have written books, plus articles in many publications, including Yoga Journal and Tricycle magazine. They attract a crowd. Said crowd began to gather. 

We learned that meditators can handle such a setback with aplomb. It was quite lovely to see how calm we were, how pleasant the atmosphere, as we did the best we could to solve the situation. The Baydas sat on the steps of a shady front porch a couple of houses down from the church and waited. There was no question of canceling the talk - our speakers had driven up from San Diego specially for us. An athletic man in our number scaled the high wire fence not once but three times to try doors and windows. That trick of sliding a credit card down the door jamb to open a locked door? Not so easy. We called various phone numbers to no avail; we tossed out the idea of walking up to a nearby park, or going to somebody's house; people asked local businesses if they would consider renting us space for an hour. 

Finally somebody called a locksmith. Still people milled about on the sidewalk, the atmosphere rather lighthearted, especially once the locksmith arrived and things began to move. He broke the padlock on the chain link fence in no time at all. But the lock on the side door of the church took effort: he had to drill it out. We cheered when it was done, and filed in, only an hour and a half late. We abandoned the idea of reconfiguring the church and setting out our cushions as we normally do. We settled in unfam-
iliar upright chairs to listen to a talk entitled appropriately... "Transforming the Energy of Anger." 

The disturbances didn't stop there. Twice during the presentation, a rogue battery beeped loudly, unnervingly. And the chap sitting next to me, the most laid-back man in the room, the one who has been practicing Zen for thirty years, his cell phone went off, not once but twice, with a loud up-tempo musical ring-tone. Well, at that point, you just had to laugh (we did). What a comedy, life itself providing so many marvelous opportunities to practice the very techniques we were there to learn. 

Once again, my notes were skimpy - I thought we had the talk recorded but it seems there was a problem, only one of our speakers had a mic, and what with the distractions of fire alarm battery and cell phone, and later complications of uploading the talk on the website, I thought I'd better type up my notes before much more time passed and I forgot the plot.

The problems have continued. Twice I have typed out my notes, found photos, edited and revised, only to have the whole thing delete irretrievably, as it has never done before. I am beginning to think this talk does not want to be published! Or else life is continuing the lesson, providing me with plenty of angry energy to transform.

So here we go. Both husband and wife spoke, and I didn't distinguish who said what, so:

Ezra Bayda and Elizabeth Hamilton:

Why is it so hard to maintain awareness when we're angry?
When we're angry we're not very awake, not feeling much equanimity.

All day we leak energy. If we pay attention when we express anger, we can experience the anger leaking away our life force. We squander large doses with large outbursts of anger. But we also leak energy in those moments when we get impatient or make judgments with an angry or righteous tinge towards others or ourselves.

One important aspect of all spiritual traditions is how to close these leaks.

Think of this analogy: the food we eat provides nourishment for our body. There is another food, everyday impressions, that provides for our spiritual being.

Every experience can nourish or deplete us. When we react to an experience with anger, it poisons us. It's like toxic waste. We spew it back out at the world or to ourselves. We fuel our anger with the thoughts we believe, particularly, "Why is this happening to me?"

What is your favorite? We must disengage from letting ourselves get provoked into the story-line of our thinking.

How do we do that?

Three Practices:

1. Reactions revisited! When you have time at a later date, come back to the physical expression and work with anger itself. 

Stop the expression of anger and instead, experience its actual energy: this energy can be transformed from the heat of anger into actual nourishment for our being, our growth. We're NOT suggesting that anger should not arise or that we should repress it. 

We're saying refrain from spewing it out as poison - as words, as body language or inwardly, as thinking or excessive rumination. This is how we can live more in accord with our true nature.

When we are cut off in traffic, we feel an instantaneous jolt of anger. We know we are not in a harmonious state, but we feel justified in feeling irate. We can learn to relate to these instances very differently.

When we realize what we're doing, ingesting and spewing out bad food over and over again, poisoning others and ourselves, we must be motivated to NOT continue living in this way.

Anger is like a fire: every time we indulge one of our angry thoughts, it's like throwing a log on the fire.

Refraining is NOT repressing. Refraining means not feeding it. We're not talking about letting go - it's not so easy.

We feel our anger is justified. Anger is NEVER justified! There is never any reason to make ourselves right, the other wrong. Is that the path of waking up? BUT objective reality has to be dealt with. We must deal with it first inwardly.

Expressing anger is a detour - a spiritual excuse!

Look inwardly and see the harm we cause.

If underneath the anger is pain, how can we work with that?

First, be honest. "Yes! I have anger!" There are many flavors of anger: self-pity, a victim stance in life, radar for being disrespected, playing the martyr. Anger abides there. Is there some expectation that we have? Entitlement? Do we feel indignant if we hit red lights, or we have no bottled water? We don't even know it - if we feel a twinge of anger - ask, how is it supposed to be? They're our expectations - therefore our anger is ours.  It is common to believe that someone "made" us angry. But the anger is coming from inside you. Sometimes reaction would be compassion and strong action - BLAMING. Anger can be triggered by events - what gets triggered? Our own landmines of thwarted pain. We add anger to feel safe. It is counterproductive to focus on outside situations. First we must do our inner work so we can work more diplomatically instead of denying.

Why are we so attached to our anger? Addicted?

We don't want to feel the pain, we're wanting to be right. Anger reinforces the ego. It's juicy - it seems to offer protection, it has aliveness, vitality. Anger is a protective shield in order not to feel pain. Inner protective shield - we stuff pain down and  it stops us from falling into a well of anguish. Either way, it doesn't work as a protective shield! Whether our approach is to dump it or stuff it, it doesn't in any way serve us if we want to live wisely and compassionately. Separate and disconnected - keeps pain away.

Beware of "should" or "must" - either directed at the other person or your self.

Ask yourself, "How is it supposed to be?" You must see your own expectations!

Anger is a red flag to stop, pause, and ask yourself, "What am I believing right now?"

In meditation, get to know your expectations and the fears that arise in you. 

When we are angry, we don't feel our body or our mind;  we need to go back afterwards and revisit our reactions. Turn away from "thinking" - later come back to the physical expression and work with the sensation of anger itself.

Recognize you're angry. 

Refrain from its expression.

Return to it later, in your breath, body, environment. Feel the anger.

2. Non-expression of anger.  

Decide to do this in advance. Years ago, I [Ezra] had the nickname "Prince of Negative Emotions". My children called me the "Dark Cloud". Then I began this practice. Every Monday, I make a conscious effort that when anger arises, I will make a choice not to express it either outwardly or inwardly (through spinning thoughts). Of course anger will arise, those little moments of frustration, but I make a really strong effort to refrain from indulging it.

This is not about repressing anger, this is about awareness. Be aware of what's there. We want anger to arise so we can work with it. Usually you can catch it in its inception. When you feel anger arise, refrain from thoughts and turn away. Sometimes it won't dissipate - sometimes you can see then what's at the root of it.

For example, in the nanosecond when we're driving and we get cut off, we are afraid we're going to get killed. From the evolutionary point of view, this makes sense. Feel that subtle fear in the body, see what's really there.

Here's a warning- the anger will catch you off guard. You'll blow up and then you'll remember you weren't supposed to react. Don't add a second layer of beating yourself up. Bring metta to yourself and persevere. If you can stay with it, one day a week for several months, you will find you don't have to be angry. This is a very freeing discovery!

If you can't feel your anger, if it's too upsetting, tell yourself,  "I'm going to feel what's there for the duration of three breaths." Just three breaths.

3. "Don't go there!"

On those occasions when anger comes up quickly and strongly, and only then, say to yourself, "Don't go there!" until the cycle of anger breaks. When the cycle breaks, return to the quieter practice of bringing awareness to the body. If you sit with it, you will find that anger turns into just another energy.

Sometimes we have to say, "I blew it." Have yourself a little remorse and reconciliation ceremony. With practice we can take action with the energy of resolve. Do it from a much more harmonious connecting place. This takes practice! We have to practice when we're not in the heat of the moment. Practice with our tendencies of emotional attachment in the solitude of our meditation.

There is no easy fix for anger.