What I Learned About Anger

Years ago I went to a meditation retreat in Vermont run by several Buddhist nuns.

After I checked in, I drove to the little cabin I was assigned to, and standing outside, was a woman hanging underwear on a laundry line.

I smiled and said hi and she stopped what she was doing, but only to glare at me. “I will not be responding or smiling to anyone,” she explained. “I am at this retreat for peace.”

I smiled again, a bit taken back, and went inside to set up my mattress on the floor in the collective sleeping space.

Moments later this woman stormed in and asked me to move my mattress much further away from hers, that my essential oils were making her nauseated, and that she really needed the space surrounding her aura untampered with. I gladly moved over and retreated deep inside myself wondering how I was going to make it through the week.

The woman’s behavior continued for the rest of the day. At meal time with the nuns, she broke the silence saying she wished she had known the meals would be spicy. At meditation, she complained the cushions were too hard, that the room was too cold, and then too hot.

With each complaint, I waited to see the nuns’ reactions, and each time, instead of being annoyed, something different happened: the nuns smiled lovingly, apologized for her discomfort, and gave her everything she asked for—newly cooked meals, more cushions, the temperature adjusted.

At one point after what seemed like the hundredth interruption, I looked over at one of the nuns, expecting her to finally kick this difficult woman out, but she only winked at me before getting up once again to accommodate her. I was quite intrigued. But by the third day, I understood.

At the dining table, we’d all been in silence when the difficult woman made a sudden choking noise and burst in tears. Two of the nuns put down their chopsticks and gave the woman their presence, then so did the rest of us.

In tears, spewing phlegm, the woman sobbed, “I’m so sorry I’ve been so rude. You have all been so patient. No one has ever been this kind to me. No one has ever cared so much. Thank you. I hope you can all forgive me.” Together, we sat there giving her space. “We are glad we are able to give you what you need,” one of the nuns smiled gently.

And then, this woman, no longer in anger, began to laugh. It started slow but turned hysterical, like a drunkard’s. It was quite interesting to watch the release of all that anger exposing all the sadness and under the sadness, all the joy and humor that had been buried for who knows how long. And we all joined in because it was contagious, this release for us all that she provided.

By the end of the week, this woman was a different person. We all were. Because we had learned together the function of grace. That when you are on the side of grace, you don’t need to react and join in someone else’s battle. You can instead choose to provide a safe space in order for them to work it out themselves.

I learned when you are committed to peace instead of war, you are able to look at someone’s abominable behavior and separate it from their best self, because you know, without a doubt, that their best self is still there, buried deep, maybe way deep underneath a bunch of pain. If you don’t engage in their battle, they’ll soon have no one left to fight with. And they’ll get a chance to deal with themselves, uninterrupted.

So many of us are afraid of getting taken advantage of that we forget the option of offering grace. This doesn’t mean taking punches. But I learned from those nuns that if we are in a position to share our peace with someone who’s forgotten how to access it for themselves, we can give them a gift that probably no one else ever has.

And perhaps even more importantly, if we don’t have peace for ourselves, and don’t know anyone else who does, we can practice giving grace to ourselves. By sitting with our own anger until it has enough space for us to acknowledge it, and give it what it needs. And instead of running away from our anger or judging it, to be there with it, until all the sadness and laughter that’s been buried underneath feels ready to come out.

—JLK