Right anger

Is there such thing as anger that’s right and good? Is there such thing as right anger?

The “right” prefix reminded of how the Buddha talked about the Noble Eightfold Path. It’s a guide to end suffering, consisting of right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. It’s essentially a basket of practices for moral conduct, mental discipline and wisdom.

What if emotion—like anger—can be mastered for good and right conduct too?

I’ve always felt anger was dirty. It’s always associated with poor, disruptive and socially deviant behaviour that gets you in trouble with the law, or at least socially. I avoided the emotion like a plague. But yet the more I suppressed it, the stronger it arises. Or it gets expressed in the body, somatically, as unexplanable rashes or pains.

Lately I’ve been thinking different.

Maybe that emotion is there for a reason. Maybe it’s there to protect us. If someone did something that angered you, it’s likely that some personal boundary was crossed, and you should have done a better job at maintaining that boundary but didn’t. So anger comes in to guard you. It drives you to act by pumping you up with adrenaline and blood to your head and hands. You feel hot everywhere, and you can’t sit still till it gets expressed. Or directed at some action. If anger is fire, it can destroy forests and homes, or it can cook a delicious, nourishing meal for your loved one. We can react reflexively, or we respond mindfully. The emotion is morally neutral. It’s what we do with that burst of energy that determines which side of the camp you are.

I’ve been doing it all wrong all this while.

I can use it.

Like a cook tending a fire to produce the best, most delicious results.

I can let it guide me out of unwholesome mental conversations.
I can use it to shake me out of passive victim mentality.
I can tap on it to push me to act fast and decisively.
I can allow it to make me stronger.
I can immerse in it to focus better.

I can use anger.

You’ll like me when I’m angry.

The right sort of angry.