Fourth Tara

Tara on Tour

Tara protecting from fire - and from the suffering and sickness arising from anger. The fourth Tara is yellow and holds a water crystal in her left hand.

I began working with this Tara last week, and have no idea where she's going to take me. I'm drawn to Australia, where bush fires are a regular problem, but the commitment to get there is financially prohibitive and I await further guidance!

In the meantime, I've been looking at the mind poison of anger and seeing how many problems this causes. Just watching the Israelis and Hezbollah launching attack after attack on each other, each side angry with the other and determined to "defend" itself from the enemy. This is a clear example of what can happen when anger escalates, of the mindset that anger gives rise to. Anger needs an enemy, a belief in separation and irreconcilable difference. It is a fire within the mind and if it isn't pacified, it quickly goes out of control and inflicts huge harm. One of the problems is that anger is brilliant at self-justification: its arguments, reasoning, all so convincing to the person experiencing the anger.

What is anger rooted in? It must be fear. When we become afraid, when our sense of self is threatened in any way, we experience a whole number of emotional options - and anger is a very strong and habitual one.

If I look at my own mind, I can see that for many years I was plagued with frequent and overwhelming experiences of anger. There was always a rush of power that came with the anger - and this power kicked words or actions into motion that seemed to protect me. They certainly removed me from the person or situation in question, but usually there was regret afterwards and a realisation that the whole picture had been lost.

Within Buddhism, all the poisons have their corresponding wisdom: in other words, emotions are not a problem if we can "catch" them before they've taken over and allow the essence of them to emerge within the mind. When anger is transformed, there is mirror-like wisdom: a clear, sharp mind that reflects like a mirror. Maybe you know the experience of the mind suddenly becoming very clear when you're angry; I think that's the mirror-like wisdom dawning, but the secret is to have the clarity without the emotion. There is no enmity. No "other". No projection. Just pure anger - which is not really anger in the way we normally know it at all.

I remember hearing that the Dalai Lama still has to work on transforming anger - that, for him, this is still a vulnerable area. He has so much reason to be angry, and yet his message is consistently one of non-violence and non-retaliation. Against the Chinese in his case, but against any aggressor in truth. Meeting unprovoked and completely unjustified violence from others must be one of the toughest challenges on the spiritual path. Jesus was also faced with this one, and his words from the cross - "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" are some of the most powerful words ever spoken, to my mind. They were genuine: his compassion was so deep and his understanding so complete that he knew that such actions would only lead to immense suffering on the part of the people carrying out such harm. He knew that whatever suffering he endured at their hands was temporary and transient.

Living like a Jesus, a Gandhi, a Dalai Lama is not exactly easy....but they provide the most shining examples of the power of tranforming anger into compassion, violence into nonviolence. This must be the only real way to achieve peace in our own minds and in our world.