I’ll posit a (very poorly and drunkenly abridged) story from the Buddha that I actually think of on a somewhat daily basis, in contrast of all the Buddha-bad comments:
A man approaches the Buddha in the city. He says to him, “I hate you Buddha, you are always telling people how to live their lives and what they need to do to be happy, how can you have all the answers?”
The Buddha says, “I will ask you a question. If I give you a gift, would you accept it?”
The man says of course he would not.
The Buddha asks, “If you do not accept my gift, then to whom does my gift belong?”
The man says, “The gift belongs to you, because I did not accept it.”
The Buddha replies, “Then I treat your hatred as a gift. You offer me anger, and I do not accept it; therefore, your hatred and anger belongs only to you, and only you may suffer it’s consequences.”
So when people get angry at me over things that are beyond my control, I reject their anger, let them yell at what they think is the problem, and move on.
Then the Buddha punches me in the face and I am enlightened.
As heartening and insightful as this story might be, I find it difficult to imagine that someone with this much hate would at the same possess enough composure to state his problem clearly, take part in the Buddha’s spiel about it, and then not punch him in the face at the end.
And I’m not suggesting that this would be a better outcome by any means, rather, that stories like this are sadly sometimes woefully inadequate to deal with the amount of anger and rage that continues to pervade modern society.
No I get that. I’m just saying in a real life situation, the other guy might not give a damn about whether you accept his hate and let you have it anyways.
I mean, there IS the story of Angulimala, a vicious murderer who had already slain 999 victims and was looking to make it a round thousand when he ran into the Buddha, but try as he might, he could not catch up to him, even though the Buddha was walking calmly.
So clearly, he does indeed NGAF because he is in possession of some mysterious force powers likely reserved only for the enlightened, but what is an average person to do in such a situation?
Laugh at their stupid anger? Fuck em dude, I do this shit regularly, it’s not worth getting upset over. I work in IT, dealing with ignorant angry people daily.
You can win them over sometimes, but sometimes they’re just an inconsolable asshole and that’s really more of a them problem than a you problem.
Buddhism is several millennia old proto-therapy. I’ve found much wisdom in a variety of koans even though I’m not Buddhist. But if koans don’t work on you then yeah I bet they’re real annoying
Metaphysics is a blind man in a dark room trying to find a black cat that isn’t there. Religion is the man shouting “I found it!” So yeah, none of it makes any sense.
In my experience, metaphysics is more like being in a dark room that you are certain is empty, feeling a black cat run across your leg once, and then spending a lifetime trying to make it happen again.
A Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog stand. The vendor says “what would you like on your dog buddy?” The monk thinks for a moment and then says “make me one with everything”
The hot dog vendor says that will be $7.50. The monkey hands the vendor a $10 bill, which the vendor puts in the cash drawer. After a moment the monk asks “what about my change?” The vendor bows reverently and responds “change must come from within.”
Not about to be swindled, the monk the pulls a gun from within his robe. “What’s that?!” the startled vendor asks. “Ah,” replies the monk, “this is my inner piece.”
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