While in the UK I've been at a number of Buddhist teachings on anger / patience. I think at almost everyone someone asked a question or made a statement along the lines of:

"It's all very well to talk about practising patience but if it wasn't for anger we would lack the power to get things done. Also if you just practise patience you will become a doormat and people will take advantage / not respect you."

Since moving to Thailand I've talked to a number of educated intelligent Thais who imply that many of Thailand’s problems stem from the sabai sabai / jai yen attitude promoted by Buddhism.

What do you think, does anger have its uses or is jai yen the way ahead?

I suppose it depends on what is meant by "getting things done". Anger may move things along in the worldly sense, at least temporarily, but anger being a product of akusala citta (unwholesome/unproductive mind-moments), it's not getting things done spiritually.

Then again it may depend on the definition of 'anger'. In its most simple Buddhist definition it's considered non-productive, no question about it. Yet one might feel 'righteous indignation'about a situation ...

This is related to another thread on the topic of how socially engaged a Buddhist can or should be. But even those who promote 'engaged Buddhism' do not advocate anger as a way to engage, or at least I don't think so.

Ultimately, from the Buddhist perspective, it comes down to the question of what most needs doing. A few famous verses come to mind.

One is the quest for worldly gain,

and quite another is the path to Nibbana.

Clearly understanding this,

let not the monk, the disciple of the Buddha,

be carried away by worldly acclaim,

but develop detachment instead.

Dhammapada 75

Having killed anger you sleep in ease.

Having killed anger you do not grieve.

The noble ones praise the slaying of anger

-- with its honeyed crest & poison root --

for having killed it you do not grieve.

Samyutta Nikaya II, 70

Though one may conquer

a thousand times a thousand men in battle,

yet he indeed is the noblest victor

who conquers himself.

Dhammapada 103

Since moving to Thailand I've talked to a number of educated intelligent Thais who imply that many of Thailand’s problems stem from the sabai sabai / jai yen attitude promoted by Buddhism.

I'm not so sure if Thailand's problems are related directly to passivity encouraged by Buddhism so much as it's selfish apathy, same as everywhere else. I guess you could ask the same question of any country: "Is the X religion the cause of many of X's problems?"

It might help to have a point of comparison, too, when talking about Thailand's problems. Does Thailand have more or fewer problems than, say, the USA, the UK or Australia? Is there another country that has it more together because of another religion, or lack thereof?

Just throwing out some ideas, I don't really have a global answer to your question.

Anger must be the most destructive force known to mankind. All wars-without exception-have been caused by it. However,all strong emotions have a negative and positive aspect. Negative anger has ,as the other other side of the coin, righteous indignation. Righteous indignation; at say injustice, can have positive results that need not engulf one in a self-defeating poison.

Respect others,and others will learn to respect you.

Perhaps it's a case of turning poison into medicine?

As for the 'jai yen' phenomena in Thailand. I'd suggest that many Thais hold that to be the best practice in a cultural contex,that has it's roots in Buddhist practice. To have reached a certain stage in Dharmic practice, then one cannot help but acheive an inner peace that is reflected in our dealings with the external world..

Although one still needs to be aware and mindfull of the arising of these emotions and deal with them accordingly.

However,my experience of Thai people in general ,who do not practice Buddhism to any meaningful extent, do in fact hold deep and seething grudges that can last for many years.

'Jai yen'', in it's cultural context has ,as your friends point out (more perhaps 'mai bpen rai' ) can have a negative aspect on society as a whole. In so much that it takes on a powerless type of fatalism,or karma. Much of the same can be said of the Portuguese btw,with their fatalistic 'Fado' attitude to life.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but 'gum' (karma) for Thai people always takes on a negative aspect ,and not an active one that can be changed.

So perhaps, 'jai yen' is not that meaningful as it doesn't really reflect a peaceful heart,but finds that Buddhist teaching has been restricted to those who don the yellow robe-without encouraging or teaching lay people -that they are alone responsible for their own Karmic developement and in directing them to the true path in realizing this.

I would suggest that it's not so much 'jai yen' that holds Thailand back from developing,only personally: but that it's the 'mai bpen rai' attitude that may do so more.

Whose mind is like rock, steady, unmoved,

dispassionate for things that spark passion,

unangered by things that spark anger:

When one's mind is developed like this,

from where can there come suffering & stress?

Udana IV, 4

'Tantra' is a concept widely misunderstood but in Tantric Buddhist practice the practitioner works on the energy that emanates from anger and other negative qualities (such as lust) in order to transform it into a positive virtue. Thus the energy that is created by anger is not lost but becomes an energy for practising compassion.

There's a difference between getting angry because you don't get your own way or things are going the way you don't want them to go, and laying down submissive. Thai's tend to just accept bad things like corruption etc. without doing anything. How about a positive constructive response, without anger.

There's a difference between getting angry because you don't get your own way or things are going the way you don't want them to go, and laying down submissive. Thai's tend to just accept bad things like corruption etc. without doing anything. How about a positive constructive response, without anger.

Do you think this is a Buddhist response or is it something cultural unrelated to Buddhism?

'Tantra' is a concept widely misunderstood but in Tantric Buddhist practice the practitioner works on the energy that emanates from anger and other negative qualities (such as lust) in order to transform it into a positive virtue. Thus the energy that is created by anger is not lost but becomes an energy for practising compassion.

Indeed in all Strong emotions, being anger, sorrow, lust ect you can suddenly find your own centre.

Most people don't even get angry enough to experience this special phenomenon. The trick is to be complete in all you do even when angry but still be able to restrain your anger so you not physically hurt someone. Go kick at a sand bag, pounce at a cussion, or something. Cry for 8 hours in a row, you will find your center as well.

For the Yai jen story , for me it's just a sugar coating on thai culture.

The real dealings with anger are much more prenounced as in the west and lead often to terrible situations. In all i would say that tha asian "restrictions" on showing emotion just have the opposite effect. When something happens it just gets pushed underground to surface in a extreme manner later.

"To be able to transcend emotion you first have to experience it."

Darknight, your post reminded me of the discussion on emotions that occurred in the thread having to do with neurophysiology and Spinoza, etc, elsewhere in the Buddhism branch.

This is a bit off topic since the original question was, more or less, whether anger was of any use to society. That one is hard for me to grasp. On a personal level, though, I have a limited understanding of the Buddhist way of dealing with akusala or unwholesome/unskilful mind (when I have enough presence of mind - sufficient sati - to do so, that is)

Anger isn't a unitary phenomena. Our perception of anger, of being angry, is nothing more than nama, or conceptualisation, and lasts only as long as you're thinking about it. The actual physical experience of anger -- the rupa or form (the symptoms - faster heartbeat, knit brow, etc) -- is also temporary. The nama and rupa of anger arise and fall together. The Freudian/post-Freudian idea that emotions are somehow 'stored' doesn't accord with the Buddhist idea that they exist only as they're happening, and that they're only temporary.

All our feelings, good or bad, are encoded in physical symptoms, yet we often ignore these physical symptoms to focus on our perceived emotions, and these perceptions lead to other emotions (or recurrences of the same 'emotion' though in reality no two experiences are exactly the same) in an endless cycle. As a result our perceived emotions may end up controlling us rather than vice versa.

If we observe the physical set that accompanies anger mindfully, we can see that the whole complex arises according to our (mis-)apprehension of nama and rupa, mind and form. This applies to all our thought processes, not just those linked to emtion. We might not be able to stop anger (or other emotional state) from arising (nor should we necessarily try), but we can see how the process works, and we can choose not to react in an unskillful, unproductive or unsociable way.

The Buddhist way of exploring emotions or feelings counters the common Western notion that you need to express your feelings or else they will somehow be 'repressed' or 'sublimated'. That sort of Freud-derived psychological theory doesn't seem tenable anymore in the face of psych studies that show that people who tend not to act out their negative emotions show much lower levels of stress (as measured by perspiration, heartbeat, adrenaline in the bloodstream, etc) than people who report that they try to express or act on their negative emotions in order to 'purge' them.

When one focuses on the real heart of such strong emotional experiences as anger- the physical response - they seem to pass more quickly. In Buddhist counseling, learning to examine the physical side of anger and hate - the secret life of emotions as it were - is a powerful technique. "Like poking your finger through the layer of foam atop a bubble bath," is how one teacher presented the idea to me.

I'm not saying punching a pillow won't do the same thing. But it might not be a release so much as it is a distraction, a moving from one physical state to another. At the very least, awareness can accomplish the same thing. And maybe conserve a pillow or two ...

Back to the original question, the way some of my Thai friends and relatives talk about emotions, I think they have a pretty good idea about how emotions work, from a Buddhist perspective, and understand that it's often best not to act on them because then they will pass without disturbing the social fabric.

I can't say whether that's a widespread understanding among Thais. In Thai society, the way I see it anyway, there's fake jai yen, and there's real jai yen. I really respect Thais who are truly jai yen, and have had the good fortune to have known a few. So yes, I'm a fan of jai yen.

Would Thailand be better off if Thais expressed more anger? I don't really think so. Westerners are famous for being able to express their anger, and I don't see that it does them a lot of good.

First of all a big thank you to everyone who responded to my original post. There has been a lot of interesting stuff for me to think about written here.

Personally I think anger is a very negative and destructive emotion, by anger I mean -

Anger is a mental factor that observes an animate or inanimate object, feels it to be unattractive, exaggerates its bad qualities, considers it to be undesirable, becomes antagonistic, and develops the wish to harm the object.

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Joyful Path of Good Fortune

For me the important bit in the definition is that anger exaggerates the bad qualities of its observed object. I'm sure many of us lesser mortals have had experience of this. You feel some upset and then you brood on the person or thing who you feel caused the upset and exaggerate their bad qualities. Thus your anger has created a generic image of that person (if we are talking about a person as the object) which is distorted. The next time we meet them our anger will be much quicker to arise and possibly more heated. This is one of the dangers of allowing anger to dwell in our mind it creates horrible images for us to encounter in the future and get angry with all over again. It's the same if we suppress i.e. turn our anger inward or express it. Maybe of the two expressing it is marginally better as it is usually shorter lived? However if we express to much we may perform a terrible action that will haunt us for a long time.

The best solution is to inwardly practise patience or jai yen or what ever you want to call it. Keeping the mind calm and relaxed and trying not to exaggerate the situation but trying to perceive it as it really is.

If we can do this then we may well outwardly exhibit, shall we say, a wrathful aspect. By this I mean that outwardly we appear angry but on the inside our mind is not disturbed by anger. A good example of this is when a mother scolds her child for not being mindful of the traffic. Externally it looks like anger but internally the mother is acting out of love, compassion and wisdom.

So who can tell if Westerners are angrier than Thais maybe the Westerners are practising wrathful actions

As for using Tantra to transform anger, I've never heard of this being scripturally advocated although I have heard it being discussed. Usually it is attachment / desire that is transformed.

Thanks again and much love

Steve

Hi - this is an interesting topic

Sabaijai stated

Would Thailand be better off if Thais expressed more anger? I don't really think so. Westerners are famous for being able to express their anger, and I don't see that it does them a lot of good.

Couldnt agree more - and I would hope that the foreigners who go to Thailand gain an appreciation of how negative anger is.

I find that anger and, what I describe as forms of negativity such as, complaining or moaning, to be toxic. If it is not directed at me then I try to block these out, as I do not want it to effect my well being. For example - over hearing other conversations at work.

I find that when commuting being able to tune out helps to find some inner peace.