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Yesterday Geshe-la and I were going over a passage in Chandrakirti's supplement to Nagarjuna's "Treatise on
the Middle Way". And it was talking about the effects of getting angry and what it does
to us. There's a lot of math involved about which kind of bodhisattvas... get mad at which
kind of bodhisattvas and how many eons of merit is destroyed.
But aside from the math of the issue, okay, which you can really get hung up in, the main
point is that we work very hard to create merit and to put goodness into our consciousness
and when we get angry, it- or when we generate wrong views- it just obliterates it. You know,
when we get angry, even if we've dedicated the merit before, you get two main results.
One is that, that you get, of course, the negative result of the anger, you know, the
bad rebirths or hindrances and, you know, obstacles in your practice. But
also if you're about to attain a new level or, you know, gain some kind of insight, the,
anger inhibits the ripening of the good karma that you've created before so that
you have to start all over again creating that good karma, okay? So, there might
be still some residue of it, it's not- if you've dedicated it before- it's not like
the good karma's completely wiped out, okay, but it's definitely damaged and you have
to, you know, start all over recreating a lot of the causes for, you know, the insight
that you might have just been on the verge of getting.
Okay, so when you think about this, it's kind of scary. Yes. At least if you get angry
at the rate I get angry at, you know? If you wonder how you ever have any merit left, yes?
Because it just, you know, inhibits here and damage there and block there and destroyed
here and you know, so, so- and then you think: okay, all those mornings, like Jampal, you
know, I got up at four thirty to go do prostrations, you know, got up at five o'clock to go med-
all those mornings, one after another after another and I put in so much effort and then
I go and get angry at some idiot (L)-- you know, who might be a bodhisattva and we just
don't know that he's a bodhisattva, not an idiot, you know. And then all that effort
we put into creating so much good karma- it's just, you know, it's blocked, you know,
and it's damaged. So, I find that very helpful to think about-
you know, just especially when you're angry- you know, regardless of whether the person's
a bodhisattva or a genuine idiot. At that moment (L)- an inherently existent idiot,
you know those kind? (L) Yes, the only kind there are, so, you know, regardless of what
the person really is, at that moment our mind is totally hooked into: "They're an inherently
existent idiot from their side independent of us, has nothing to do with us, this is
just who they are." And then you have to ask yourself, you know, or I ask myself: "Is
this person, getting angry at this person, worth destroying all the merit that I've
put so much energy into creating?" You know, especially because I have such a bad view
of that person at that time. So, you know: am I going to waste my energy getting mad
at somebody that I have a bad view of if it only damages me? That's like crazy! You
know, that's totally nutty. I mean, if it were a person I respected then maybe I could
waste some energy on them, you know? So, are you getting what I mean? Yes?
And so then it's like there's absolutely no benefit in getting angry at this person,
and then of course as soon as you set down the anger, you stop seeing them as an idiot
anyway, you know. And you start realizing: "Oh this is all coming from me, it has nothing
to do with them. This is just totally, you know, my berserk-y angry mind, that's creating
the cause for suffering." So I think this is good to remember, you know, and
sometimes- I mean we might think: "Well, it's just a little bit of anger, you know."
So actually it's not anger, it's just irritation, (L) you know, I'm just irritated
at the person, so that's okay because I'm not destroying merit if I'm just irritated.
Well, it's not exactly like that. You know? And- and then if we- we look in our mind how
much we're damaged by the irritation and how miserable we are with it, you know? Even
if it's not full blown rage or anything, I mean, being irritated is not fun. Yes. I
know from a lot of experience. So, you know, when you think about it, it's just- it's
like not worth this! Because I'm trying to go this direction in my life, you know,
I'm trying to go towards Buddhahood and I'm trying to cultivate compassion and wisdom.
And why am I letting this one, you know, mental state completely, you know, destroy everything
I'm trying to do? It doesn't make any sense... It's not good for me. And since
we cherish ourselves more than anybody else ...(L), yes. This is the time when cherishing
our self can, it can be useful, okay, yes? And so, you know, out of our own sense of
integrity and respect for ourselves like, let's not bother with this, it's not worth
it. Okay.