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Comment by Tosh108 | Hacker News Reader

There's a difference between discontent or frustration and hate & aversion. In buddhist view: hate and aversion will create enormously negative mindstates that will cause suffering to the person acting on this emotion. But the vajrayana schools (mainly tibet) also claim that there is clarity and energy in this emotion, and if it can be detached from ego it can be transformed to a positive "wisdom". I think this view encaptures the sentiment of both people here, anger can be positive, but also very negative.

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  > the vajrayana schools (mainly tibet) also claim that there is clarity and
  > energy in this emotion

That's probably because Tibetan Buddhism became a tool of political domination.

The earliest Buddhist records explicitly recommend suppressing anger, even by sheer force of will if necessary (but only as a last resort.)

  If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion —
  still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of
  thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth
  clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat
  down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As — with his teeth
  clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he is beating
  down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil,
  unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he
  steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.
  Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the
  shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, and crush him; in the same way, if
  evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still
  arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication
  with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth clenched and his tongue
  pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat down, constrain, and
  crush his mind with his awareness.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.020.than.html

That's quiete a leap there. True, there were a lot of politics in Tibet, same for all the other buddhist countries. But to counter your point: anger is probably best surpressed if you want to easily dominate people.

Your sutra is from the theravada traditions. The vajrayana tradition is not recognized by the theravada tradition, the vajrayana does recognise the theravada sutra's, but in vajrayana there are a bit more tools for dealing with disturbing emotions. How that came to be is a discussion on it's own.

The method in your passage is recommended often as a last resort in these schools. So I'm not claiming you should let anger run it's free course, definitely not, better there are other ways of dealing with it.

It's not a leap for anyone prepared to do some independent research, or consider the profound contradictions between Buddhist spiritual goals and the realpolitik necessary to forge and maintain a nation state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy#P...

Characterizing Tibetian Buddhism, practiced by many people around the world, as "a tool of political domination" is, to say the least, a bit of a stretch...

One obvious counter point is that the Dalai Lama, as the main representative of Tibetian Buddhism, is far more interested in political reconciliation than any sort of political domination. There are no tibetian lamas Buddhists that I know that seem interested in political domination. Quite the opposite, in fact. They are generally the most accomodating and open minded people. I know.

Also, I think the quote you are using is misleading for several reasons. First, for several paragraphs befor the exerpt, that particular sutta talks about being skillful with regard to those thoughts, abandoning them, ignoring them, questioning them, and being mindful of them without reacting to them. Also that passage is from a later translation of an early text, and the passage about crushing down or forcing your thoughts doesn't exist in the earlier text itself. This strongly suggests that beating down unskillful thoughts wasn't an original teaching, but was added later by a translator.

One last point, in general the idea of forcing your mind to do anything in particular isn't in-line with Buddhist teachings.

  > that passage is from a later translation of an early 
  > text, and the passage about crushing down or forcing your 
  > thoughts doesn't exist in the earlier text itself

Where can I read more about this?

>if it can be detached from ego it can be transformed to a positive "wisdom".

I doubt it can be detached from the ego in anyone but the most advanced practitioners, if at all.

Anger creates a cognitive bias and narrows your attention to the object of threat. It distorts your perceptions.

I think the best way to handle anger is to acknowledge it and consciously try to let it go. Even the strongest anger will dissipate this way, because in order for anger to persist it has to be maintained by rumination on the object of the anger.

You're right, if you don't give the emotion any energy it will not persist very long, simple but hard.

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