One day, the Sakkha, the ruler of the gods, came to the Buddha and asked, “Every time people want to be happy, peaceful, and harmonious, why do they get embroiled with anger, resentment, and enmity?”
“It is because of the ego.” Answered the Buddha. “It is because of personal and selfish desires. It is because of the wanting to have powers—wanting to be number one.”
When we look at the world—the wars that happened in the histories—the wars that are still going on are all about wanting to have powers or wanting to be number one, aren’t they?
I don’t want to discuss the wars here, but I want to write about the anger, enmity, and resentment.
I want to write why anger sometimes makes us look and sound so stupid.
Venerable Bodhi wrote in his book called “The Buddha’s teachings on social and communal harmony.” “The chief obstacle to social harmony is anger or resentment.”
Because of the anger, the enmity grows. That’s why the Buddha always gave special training for the management of anger while practicing. There are times he even said that the angry man looks ugly like an angry tiger. The other times he exemplified saying that the angry man looks and sounds so stupid since he is unconscious and doesn’t notice what he is doing and speaking.
There is a beautiful story I read in Ajarn Brahm’s book called “Mindfulness, Bless, and Beyond.”
Ajarn Brahm wrote that he had devotees from Canada who were working on a real estate project in Australia. When they completed their projects, they decided to go back to Canada by ship. So they bought the ship and sailed.
They traveled day and night.
When they reached the middle of the sea, the engine of their ship was broken. There were four of them—two men and two women. The men went down and started fixing the engine. While fixing, one man got frustrated and started shouting at his friend, “It is all because of you that we have to go through this. If we had traveled by plane, we would have reached home already.”
Both of them started arguing with each other and the frustrated man said, “Whatever you want to do, do it. I am out of here. I will just go by the plane.”
He went to his room, packed his bags, and came up on the deck shouting angrily. “I can’t do it anymore. I will just go by the plane.”
The women were laughing.
The confused man looked at the laughing woman and then around. He realized that they were in the middle of the sea and he couldn’t go. He felt so ashamed and stupid.
He went down and put his bag inside the room and down to help his friend.
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