3 Buddhist Teachers on Difficult Emotions

 

09.05.2025 3 Buddhist Teachers on Working with Difficult Emotions   Maybe you’re anxious. Maybe you’re angry. One way or another, it’s a good bet you’re suffering at least a little — you’re human, after all. The great thing is, our emotions, taxing as they may be sometimes, can lead us to a better understanding of who we are and how we can be in harmony with the people around us. Below are three teachings to inspire you to do just that, including easy-to-follow meditations you can try for yourself. May they bring you wisdom and comfort. —Rod Meade Sperry, editor, Buddhadharma The 4 Noble Truths of Emotional Suffering The Buddha laid out a four-step path to freedom from difficult emotions. Anyen Rinpoche says the secret is understanding why our emotions cause suffering. Most of us start to practice Buddhism because we feel dissatisfied and disillusioned with life, in a general way or for some specific reason. Indeed, it is rare to meet someone who has turned to the dharma simply out of curiosity and not because of a real need to alleviate some discomfort or a painful situation. What else do we dharma practitioners have in common? The fact is that most of us have done everything we can to alleviate our unhappiness, but we have been unsuccessful at finding the happiness we thought possible. One reason is that we are often mistaken about the true cause of our unhappiness. ADVERTISEMENT You Can’t Get Rid of Your Anger — And That’s OK Denying anger or giving in to it only makes things worse. The middle way, says Josh Korda, is to live with your difficult emotions skillfully so you don’t harm yourself and others. Anger is an agitated state of mind that can easily lead to hatred and violence if unchecked. Yet I don’t believe it’s possible to get rid of anger; it is a universal emotion deeply rooted in ingrained survival reactions. My goal is to live with anger — as well as other difficult emotions — in a skillful way so it doesn’t cause harm. How do I practice with anger in order to achieve that? How Do I Put My Mind to Rest? Like the student in this famous Zen koan, we constantly face the challenge of emotional turmoil and restless mind. You don’t have to cut off your arm like he did, says Karen Maezen Miller, but you do have to cut off your conflicting emotions at their root. Thoughts — and feelings triggered by thoughts — are mutable and impermanent, and yet because we humans incorrectly identify our being with our thinking, we construct a false notion of ourselves out of ideas and memories that have no actual substance. No wonder the ego is called “the false self.” The false self — the thinking mind — is continuously talking to itself, disturbing itself, even lying to itself. Reimagining the past or fantasizing about the future. Setting up expectations that aren’t met, then casting judgment and blame. Struggling every step of the way to stop struggling. Naturally, it doesn’t work.