We have a saying in Japanese that goes “Keep a lid on smelly things” which can be translated as “sweep troubles under the rug”.
Speaking for myself, there are many things which I want to forget immediately, such as my dark past, stupid failures, incessant anger etc. I wish I could put a lid on these emotions.
Someone once said, these stressful memories and emotions stay with us for a reason, however unpleasant. The purpose of these feelings is to prevent us from repeating the same mistakes or judgements from our past.
There is a fundamental concept in Buddhism that says “You should gain wisdom, and improve wisdom “. It doesn’t mean “increasing knowledge”, but rather “Doing something based on your reasoning skills and not doing things emotionally “. In this sentence, it stresses that “emotions” are the most powerful things within ourselves and they strongly influence us.
In our lives, we come across different types of emotions such as happiness, anger, sadness and fun. Among them, anger is the most powerful and uncontrollable.
I can say that “anger brings nothing but harm”. It only has negative influences. It might destroy everything that we’ve worked so hard to build; such as relationships, businesses, etc. Eventually, it may bring about a strong feeling of regret or the so-called “It’s no use crying over spilt milk” result.
If we are able to control or release these angry emotions in a targeted manner towards the worst history, relationships etc we have experienced, we might be able to forgive and let go of them sooner.
I believe that “controlling anger” can be seen synonymously as “forgiveness”.
Photo: Even dogs fight with anger…