For the most part, the situations in life that make me need an anger guard are when dealing with other people in crowded places. First, I am particularly sensitive to people hurrying me, or even perceiving that people are hurrying me in any public situation. Using verbal judo in these instances is helpful insomuch as I can recognize the situation as it arises, and I can politely ask the person if they would like to continue, pass, or whatever the situation might require without having to allow a minor frustration to grow to anger.
Secondly, the next biggest requirement for an anger guard is when I quickly judge people or their work according to secret expectations that I have about them or the work that I have also not advertised or discussed with the person. This hot button is much less about being angry at a person and more about being angry at my own snap judgement and unarticulated desires. The anger guard very much helps in this situation as it reminds me to stay calm and realize that the source of frustration is my own mind, and certainly not anything external.
Both of these hot button’s demonstrate, for me, how difficult it is to maintain Mushin. In one instance, the actions of others represent an antagonism – and one probably not premeditated, and certainly not malicious – while in the latter my own mind and judgement create the anger. In this light, the practice of Mushin must be on guard against distracting thoughts from others and from myself. However, despite how difficult it is to be always alert to these hot buttons, it is immediately satisfying to be able to keep an appropriate mental perspective on them, as was the case this weekend for myself in the supermarket.
As my wife and I walked the aisles of the supermarket, deciding quickly between this item and that, another shopper kept very close behind me as I was pushing the shopping cart. At one time, this lady bumped into my wife with her cart, the kind of thing that would normally cause me to make unpleasant comments in a volume that simply begged the offender to address me and therefore, in my mind, willingly enter into an argument about the substandard nature of their behavior. Instead, at the end of the aisle, I slowed down and pulled my wife aside and then politely invited the woman behind us to go ahead. This not only avoided a potentially unpleasant conversation it also saved me (and my wife) from being in a bad or angry mood and it made a hot button issue into merely another mundane detail of an average day.
Comments
“Using verbal judo in these instances is helpful insomuch as I can recognize the situation as it arises,” and “how difficult it is to maintain Mushin.”
Good points. So much of our anger arises without us realizing the triggers until after the fact. Even if we recognize and neutralize the trigger, we must maintain the cool. Good job in the supermarket!
I’m really glad to see that lessons in our class are being applied outside of the dojo as well. Training in the martial arts may not change exactly how we live. We will still eat and go to work, but if we continue to integrate these lessons into our lives, it might change how we see and experience our lives. Well played sir.
Mr. Oliver, isn’t the change in experience, in how we see and experience our lives, changing how we live them? A shift in mindset almost always inspires change in behavior. Even if the change is as simple as driving a different, less direct route to work as an attempt to avoid the heaviest traffic, and the road rage triggers, the change is still a change in how that person lives their life?
It reminds me of the question of time travel or the butterfly effect. The simplest actions in the here and now, may inspire great change later and elsewhere. To go back in time and change something may also elimnate the great change it inspired in that time’s future, our present. The anger guard exercise has made me realize how much more pleasant the simple experiences can be without the negative effect of anger. If you want to put it in karmic terms, the anger guards are inspiring good karma by averting the negative. Who knows what effects those good karmic waves are creating for our future? How much more so are those simple anger guards, the simple waves of good karma changes us and the way we live our lives, one practical application at a time?