Ask a Ninja: How to Meditate: 3. Anger

Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, Five Mental Hindrances and Their Conquest: Selected Texts from the Pali Canon and Commentaries

Think. What is a ninja but an stealthy expert of Asian secret knowledge.

Meditation in glass pyramid where no one can bother (Tierney Gearon/lightbox.time.com)

This year, rise above it (AB).

This is Part III of a seven-part series (See Part II) on overcoming of the Five Hindrances, culminating with what to do as an enlightened Meditation Ninja. Reaching enlightenment may take from seven days to seven years of effort depending on dedication and consistency. Overdoing effort is not as good as consistent-effort. There is much more to be gained by practicing 10 minutes a day rather than piling on 70 minutes every Sunday: Consistency was the tortoise's secret as the hare assumed there would be time to catch up.
  

2. Ill-Will
(dosa, harm, anger, fear, annoyance, aversion)

A. Nourishing Ill-Will

There are objects that give rise to aversion. Frequently giving unwise attention to them -- this is the nourishing of the arising of ill-will that has not yet arisen and leads to the increase and strengthening of ill-will that has already arisen (SN 46:51).

B. Denourishing Ill-Will

What a cute kitty cat when you smile!

There is the liberation of the heart through loving-kindness. Frequently giving wise attention to it -- this is the denourishing of the arising of ill-will that has not yet arisen and to the decrease and weakening of ill-will that has already arisen (SN 46:51).

 

Cultivate the meditation on loving-kindness (metta)! For by cultivating the meditation on loving-kindness, ill-will disappears.

Cultivate the meditation on compassion (karuna)! For by cultivating the meditation on compassion, cruelty disappears.

Cultivate the meditation on joy in others' happiness (mudita)! For by cultivating the meditation on joy in others' happiness, listlessness (lack of energy for striving) disappears.

Cultivate the meditation on equanimity (upekkha)! For by cultivating the meditation on equanimity, anger disappears (MN 62).

Six things are helpful in conquering ill-will:

If only there were a happy app.

1. Learning how to meditate on loving-kindness;
2. Devoting oneself to the meditation of loving-kindness;
3. Considering that one is the owner and heir of one's actions (karma);
4. Frequent reflection on it (in this way): Thus one should consider: "Being angry with another person, what can you do to that person? Can you destroy that person's virtue and other good qualities? Have you not come to your present state by your own actions, and will you not also go according to your own actions? Anger towards another is just as if someone wishing to hit another person were to take hold of hot glowing coals, or a red hot iron-rod, or of filthy excrement. In the same way, if the other person is angry with you, what can that person do to you? Can that person destroy your virtue and other good qualities? That person, too, has come to this present state by that person's own actions and will go according to such actions. Like an unaccepted gift or like a handful of dirt thrown against the wind, one's anger will fall back on one's own head."
   
5. Noble friendship;
6. Suitable conversation (Commentary to the discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Satipatthana Sutra).

These things, too, are helpful in conquering ill-will:

1. Rapture/bliss, one of the Factors of Absorption (jhana-anga);
2. Confidence/faith, one of the spiritual faculties (indriya);
3. Rapture and equanimity, tow of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment (bojjhanga).

C. Simile

Boil, boil, with toil and trouble.

If there were a pot of water heated on the fire with the water seething and boiling, a person with a normal faculty of sight, looking into it, could not see and recognize one's own face properly reflected in it. In the same way, when one's mind/heart is possessed by ill-will, overpowered by ill-will, one cannot properly see the escape from the ill-will already arisen. Then one does not properly understand and see one's own welfare, nor the welfare of another, nor that of both. And also texts heard and memorized a long time ago do not come to one's mind, to say nothing of those not memorized (SN 46:55).