Once there was a general of the imperial Japanese army, a brave samuri, who wanted to learn the essence of Zen. He sought out the advice of the renowned master Baso who lived alone in a mountain hut. He approached the master as he was meditating on a rock, and asked him, "What is the meaning of heaven and hell, honourable master?"
Baso stood up and spat in the general's face. The general was astonished and overcome with rage. He unsheathed his long sword and raised it above the master's head, readying to strike a mortal blow.
Baso lifted his finger and said, "You are now at the gates of hell." The general's face relaxed and he lowered the sword. Baso continued, "You are now at the gates of heaven." The general became a disciple of master Baso and soon achieved true awakening.
What is the source of anger? This Zen story teaches us how the problem of anger exists on several different levels.
The general was a warrior who had lived his whole life training to channel his anger into acts of violence in order to subdue others. That's what war is all about - violence is resorted to as a means of gaining victory over people.
Such is the soldier's way, and whole societies come to understand violence, and its source, self-righteous anger, as a justified norm. On the most basic level, master Baso spits in the face of that norm. He rejects the general and all he represents, the expression of anger and the killing which comes out of it.
Anger is essentially impatient, wanting to force a change now and not wait for any process to fulfill itself. The general wants an immediate answer to his question, he wants to understand Zen and the path of life in an instant, to force his way through the door of heaven, so to speak.
He is used to getting his way, and if his will is opposed, he beats his opponent down. Doesn"t he sound very familiar? When we look around, and inside ourselves, we can find many examples of this form of anger. The general didn't ask the master for a spiritual practice, or a teaching that will guide him, he just wanted to strike gold in one shot.
He wanted the meaning of life without any effort, a kind of fast-food enlightenment. Just bring it all on. He made his trek up the mountain, wasn't that enough?
We take a course in meditation, sit for a few weeks, and then wonder, what's wrong? Why aren't I enlightened yet? That impatience is another form of anger lurking under the surface, aroused when life and other people don"t serve us what we ordered and expected.
The deeper teaching master Baso succeeds in transmitting to the general is of what anger does to the person who feels it. Most bluntly, it makes a hell for him or her. Even though it can create a rush of energy which is usually thrust into destructive action, anger always burns whoever experiences it.
It makes an enemy of the world, with other people as threats. It completely warps our judgment, just like the general who was about to kill the master just because he felt insulted. If his mind wasn't deluded by anger, would he have resorted to the sword, or would it have been more effective for him to just laugh at the situation? He missed the humour of a small, defenceless monk spitting at a huge, armed warrior.
Anger alienates us from the world and from our own ability to look at life and ourselves with less defensiveness. It burns up our sense of perspective. Anger hurts.
What would we be like without anger? Well, master Baso points this out to the samuri: life would be paradise. Not the paradise of an oasis with beautiful music, people, and perfect conditions, but the paradise of being able to live with an open, receptive heart and mind.
A mind unobstructed by the flames of anger is a beautiful thing. Of course, the master tells the general when he drops his anger that he is at the gates of paradise. That doesn't mean he has entered paradise. Letting go of anger places us at the entrance of other qualities we want to cultivate, like lovingkindness and compassion.
Ending anger is the initial step which readies us for other spiritual practices and insights. That is why the samuri became a disciple of Baso after he let go of his anger, for he was able to more clearly perceive just how much he could receive from this teacher, and how much he had to learn.
In his anger he was still attached to his own sense of being right (meaning someone else had to be wrong,) and when he released his anger he no longer had to be in the position of right or wrong. He became a simple student of life.
You don't have to want to kill someone to know the effects of anger in your life. It arises any time we're sure we are right, and someone else is wrong. And more than that, we want to show them we're right and change them. We want to win, and for them to lose. But beyond winning and losing, being right and wrong, there is a unity we can only begin to perceive after we have let go of our anger. That places us at the gates of paradise.
To get to that point we first have to explore our experience of anger and become acquainted with all the ways it arises. How do you feel when things don't go according your expectations? What is your response when someone says something difficult or upsetting, or just plain rude, to you? What does anger do to your body and mind?
How does anger affect your ability to decide and act? And, more importantly, how do you feel when you let the anger evaporate? What does it feel like the moment anger vanishes? How do others appear to you when anger is totally absent?
If there is one thing master Baso teaches, it is that heaven and hell aren't out there somewhere, but they are conditions of the mind itself. Anger is hell, love is paradise.