Guided Meditations

Killing our Anger

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• Get into a comfortable position, then relax your body into stillness.
• Let your eyes fall closed, and then focus on your breath for a few moments, to get the mind settled.
• Now call to mind the last time you got upset, or angry. Replay the event in your mind, so that it is as if you were right there again.
• Watch yourself from a distance then, and check into your mind. Find the wrong view you were holding onto that allowed the anger to arise—watch yourself blaming someone else for something unpleasant that is happening to you.
• Here is the crucial moment: now, call to mind a pure view, and remember how everything you are experiencing comes from seeds you planted in the past.
• Let yourself think back in time to a specific negative action you did to someone else in the past that could have been responsible for this present situation. Allow yourself a moment of regret, knowing the pain it’s causing in the present.
• Now put yourself back in the scenario, but with these pure thoughts in mind, and then let the scenario unfold differently—watch yourself not getting angry this time.
• Feel a sense of true power, that you know what caused this, and in the future you know how to change it. You are no longer swayed by outside events—you are their master.
• This meditation is especially helpful with “problem” individuals in our life—people who always seem to make us angry. You can practice on your cushion, and then watch to see what effects it has in your outside life.
• This view takes practice—it is difficult to remember it in the heat of the moment. When you first start out, you are likely to remember it about 30 minutes after you have already gotten angry. But then the time gap starts to shorten, until one day you are about to open your mouth to yell back, but you remember the view and calmly close it, and smile.