When Compassion Is Hard
Beginners Buddhism, Anger and Attempts at Transformation
I am struggling to even write this article. I am struggling, period. I am a Buddhist. I say I am. I do Buddhist things. I read Buddhist books. I attend Buddhism services every Sunday.
And yet here I am watching the news in anger and disbelief almost every day. People are not caring about people and this makes me mad. People are hurting people. People are killing people. People are being ignorant about science and health. People are putting profits before human life.
Where’s my compassion now, right? No really. Where is it? I am telling you of my struggle because I am certain I am not the only one having a very hard time with things, in general, surrounding the American response/lack of response to COVID-19. I see white men armed with weapons screaming in the faces of government officials and police officers and I am livid. For so many reasons — from the fact that wow, that is not social distancing, to the reality that if any black or brown person dared get that close to a police officer with a weapon, or not, they would have a very different portrayal in the media and a potentially fatal outcome.
There is not a lot of justice in our nation when it comes to race, class, and gender. And now we have a divide between those whose political ideology is anti-science, as well as anti-public good and anti-humanity, and those who would like to listen to science, protect the public good, and value human life. What a time to be alive!
And that is the point I think, I can make for sure: we are alive. All at the same time. We did it! And that might be it for any reflection on common humanity right now. It is a starting place, I’m sure.
The Use of Anger
The thing with being this angry, this upset, this downright hurt about what is happening is that again and again the Buddhist lessons shine through — is my anger, my rage, my pain over what some folks are doing in this nation right now doing anything to stop them from doing it? Or is it giving them more power in my mind, my heart, my life if I devote this emotion to them?
What is the use of anger? Now, I might have a lot to say about that — I am a radical feminist, I draw from Audre Lorde, and her words on anger, and silence are life affirming and real. Because people who are oppressed have justified reasons for burning anger. But we can use this anger as Lorde says
“But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision af!d our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies.
Anger is loaded with information and energy. When I speak of women of Color, I do not only mean Black women. The woman of Color who is not Black and who charges me with rendering her invisible by assuming that her struggles with racism are identical with my own has something to tell me that I had better learn from, lest we both waste ourselves fighting the truths between us. If I participate, knowingly or otherwise, in my sister’s oppression and she calls me on it, to answer her anger with my own only blankets the substance of our exchange with reaction. It wastes energy. And yes, it is very difficult to stand still and to listen to another woman’s voice delineate an agony I do not share, or one to which I myself have contributed.” — Audre Lorde, The Uses of Anger Women Respond to Racism, 1981
This approach to anger can be useful. But we are still left with the whole fact that anger and all of this emotion when just left inside of us tends to hurt us way more than it hurts anyone else. In all areas of life. So, me raging inside over white women screaming to get haircuts in the midst of a pandemic and then just raging about it with words and in conversation, well that is not helping me, and it is also not compassion for anyone. However, how to have compassion for this woman is — oh many, what a struggle. How dare she? How dare they? Do they not care about other people?
I think I am arriving at the tension between anger and compassion. And how maybe we have to deal with it. Not in a way that weakens us to the realities of injustice, but in a way that frees us up to tear down the injustice without being so utterly ruined and destroyed by anger.
The Personal and the Political
In my own life I have a major source of deep cutting anger. I have written about it before, but in brief: I was in an intensively abusive relationship with a person who abused me emotionally, financially, verbally, and used tactics such as gaslighting, isolation, shaming in private and public, and who I share a child with in a high conflict custody battle. I have not yet reached a “I have compassion for this person” point. But I have reached a “I cannot let my anger about this issue ruin my life, day, hour or minute, or seep out into the relationships I have that are good and beautiful” point.
How did I get there? A lot of work. A lot of better choices. Instead of engaging in fights with this person over things that never get resolved, I have simply stopped replying to aggressive emails that shame and blame, often with false accusations and outlandish statements. And while it makes me angry, and while my stomach drops with the PTSD of abuse when I see emails come in from this person, I do not, as the narcissistic abuse recovery groups say, “get into the ring” with this person anymore. The quote that spoke to me from Ross Rosenberg’s work is this:
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it! George Bernard
When anger meets anger the person fueled by anger wins. And narcissistic people, and I would venture to guess the folks out protesting public health, or equality — well they just might be fueled by anger too. It shows in their faces, that’s for sure.
Worth repeating: When anger meets anger the person who is fueled and feeds upon that anger response wins. So, that right there is a motivator, right? Stop feeding this person with your anger because they love it and they need it. Deprive them of this and free yourself. And potentially, though harder, lessen the problem.
Non-Violence and Kindness
This might be why non-violence as a social movement tactic has such great power and potential. Yes it takes longer, but the not fighting anger with anger part presents a strong visual and moral case to those who might be on the fence or unaware of the issues at hand.
Last week our local online Buddha service was about letting go, and forgiveness. It was about not hanging on to things that hurt, or disappoint, or that made us angry. It was about this burden — this carrying of the things, and how when we let go life immediately improves for us. Carrying hurt and pain and rage just prolongs it for us. We relive it. The moment or incident or event is long over but we are the ones holding on to it. And it is only hurting us more this way. So, hence the whole let go. Put it down. Switch your focus. Practice mindful awareness. Practice the self compassion of liberation from these painful things.
And as mentioned, I am struggling. I am not oh let’s give these white people with guns a hug that will help. I am more like okay, it is going to help me more to stop being so angry about it and to see what else I can do.
There are things we can do. Write emails or letters of support, perhaps to scientists or any Government officials who are making sound and right choices. Inform friends and family about the realities of this pandemic, based on science, based on history, based on compassion for human life. Meditate and take care of ourselves so we can be here and sane and solid for our loved ones as we isolate together.
Kindness, of course, she’s always thrown in. Because it just might actually work. When we are kind that is compassion in action. We do not have to go out of our way to be kind. Sometimes just ignoring something is the kind thing to do. Not to excuse the thing. But to not give it power and attention, to deprive it of the fame and glory it seeks. To use our actual important energies for better things that might diminish that not so great thing or those not so great actions.
Some Resources
Things that have helped me both in the big and small angers, the personal and the political angers, are here: