Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Anger and Clarity

A nice quote, sent in by Christine:

Anger gives the illusion of clarity, as Buddhist teacher Dzigar Kongtrul writes:
“The difference between the clarity we believe we have when angry and the clarity that results from actually seeing clearly is that aggression has its own narrow logic, which does not take into account the deeper level of causes and conditions that surround each situation.”
Think about what happens to us and our relationships when we feel a sense of urgency. We work harder and harder, we push our plans and agendas, we shove aside or disdain anyone with an alternate plan or point of view. We push forward because we think we have no choice, the situation demands it, there’s no time to lose.

But lose we do. We become exhausted. We alienate people. Our own fierceness creates opposition and resistance. We shut down and stop taking in information that could be useful to our cause.

3 comments:

Christine said...

Thanks a lot for sharing that, Matt.

I very highly recommend Margaret Wheatley's book "Perseverance" and her website. Her focus is broader than ours, in that she deals with the larger "troubling times" we are in, but I've found her writing to be very inspirational for my animal welfare work. And just motivation for hanging in there in general. :)

http://margaretwheatley.com/

http://smile.amazon.com/Perseverance-Margaret-Wheatley/dp/1605098205/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451568525&sr=1-2

Joseph T. Espinosa said...

Lies, lies, lies! And how dare you say the word welfare Christine! Kidding. Thanks again for bringing in an important issue that certainly affects us. Happy New Year.

Christine said...

Welfare! Welfare! Welfare! lol :)
I think the animals would rather have welfare today vs. nothing today, but holding out for their rights. ;)
Happy 2016 to you and Matt, too!