anger & fear

If you're not in the mood for this kind of introspection, skip down to the next post for some fun knitting pix

I was thinking this morning that anger can come from fear or it can come from compassion. Anger from fear makes your whole body clench up into a scrunched, hard fist—it makes everything hurt. Anger from compassion is different...or is it? What do you think?

I was also thinking about how fear is the root of so much suffering. Many times if I stop & ask myself, why am I thinking or acting like this? (when I don't like how I'm thinking or acting) it's because I'm acting in fear.

I might be afraid that something will happen that I don't want—that's the kind of fear we're used to thinking about—fear of death (fear of a tornado or plane crash), fear of pain (fear of rejection or disrespect).

But sometimes I'm afraid of things being different from how I think they should be.

I think we're less accustomed to thinking about fear this way. But our set ideas about "how things should be" can seem so important—we take them as seriously as death and pain. It can be small things (I sorted my papers into three piles and if anyone messes them up I'll die) or bigger things (teachers should teach like this, and if I'm near someone who's not teaching that way, I can't stand it, I'll die).

Yes, this is kind of a paraphrase of Pema Chodron's From Fear to Fearlessness, for those of you who have read that. I've been listening to it in the car a lot and I'm just kind of assimilating it into my own language. For those who aren't familiar with it, I recommend it!

That's all for now.