Anger and perception

Of course, we are not always willing to take up the cudgels on behalf of others. As Śāntideva explains:

“If you argue that your dislike of one who speaks ill of you is because he is harming living beings, why then do you feel no anger when he defames others in the same way? You tolerate those showing disfavour when others are the subject of it, but you show no tolerance towards someone speaking ill of you when he is subject to the arising of defilements.”22

We are often capable of hypocrisy when it comes to occasions of anger — we may well have no emotional response when we see others experiencing something which angered us when the same treatment was directed our way.23 This highlights another important point about anger

22 _{BCA 6.62, 63.}

23 _{It is not only anger which is highlighted as a source of hypocrisy by Śāntideva — he also}

highlights our hypocrisy with respect to praise of others: “When your own good qualities are being praised, you want others to rejoice as well. When good qualities of someone else are being praised, you do not want happiness even for yourself. Upon generating the Spirit of Awakening out of the desire for the happiness of all sentient beings, why are you angry at

which seems to be reflected in the Buddhists’ treatment of it: that our angry responses are dependent upon how we perceive a given occasion of anger.

We noted above (section 2.1) that Reeve argues that insults are bound to the notion of honour, and that honour is tied up with our own perception of self. However, beyond this idea (which will be addressed in Chapters 2 and 4), there is the matter of our judgements regarding who is to blame, and to what extent, within occasions of anger. The cases discussed above are all cases where our anger appears to be more or less justified; many modern philosophers, in fact, focus their discussion on moral anger in particular — where anger has been triggered by a morally wrong action. The approach taken on this sort of view is one which suggests that we evaluate the action itself, judging it to be immoral, and respond with anger. However, the Buddhist approach emphasises instead the perceived harm to the subject (and the people, things, etc. close to the subject). By emphasising the notion of perception when it comes to anger, the Buddhist approach captures the complexities present within all occasions of anger. As with perception proper, we are susceptible to error and illusion. For instance, we might react angrily when we believe someone to have harmed us, even though this may not actually be the case (e.g. when we falsely believe that our partner has taken the only set of house keys with them, and left us unable to leave the house as we are unable to lock the door — the reality being that the keys were in the house all along).

Acknowledging this possibility of error aligns with much work in contemporary philosophy, specifically those who believe that anger should be preserved, albeit curbed, in appropriate situations, or as I call them ‘moderationists’, which draws the line between anger that is reasonable and

sentient beings now that they have found happiness themselves?” (BCA 6.79-80) It seems to me that Śāntideva observes how we are often envious when others receive praise. In fact, Buddhism appears to have a category of emotion opposite to envy: muditā, or empathetic joy, the feeling of happiness when seeing other people happy, even if one does not contribute to it. Buddhaghosa specifies different states of emotions rooted in the hateful temperament that actually includes anger and envy (as well as enmity, disparaging, domineering, and avarice; see Vism XIV, 172), and thus anger and envy are derived from the same root for the Buddhist.

unreasonable, warranted and unwarranted, or justified and unjustified. In other words, there is a kind of anger that is acceptable and the other is unacceptable. Such distinctions are not made explicit in the Buddhist account of anger, and yet by emphasising perception they tacitly

acknowledge that there might be occasions of anger where our judgements are impaired. Nonetheless, distinctions between appropriate and

inappropriate anger are ultimately redundant for the Buddhist — as we shall see in Chapter 2, according to the Buddhist we should simply eschew all forms of anger. We are advised to simply disavow ourselves from any actual, attempted, or simply misperceived, harm that comes our way:

“We — who do not abuse, who do not scold anyone, who do not rail against anyone — refuse to accept from you the abuse and scolding and tirade you let loose at us. It still belongs to you, brahmin!”24

In this way, the Buddhist acknowledgement of the similarities between perception and the occasions of anger still leaves the advised response to these occasions essentially untouched — it simply notes that we might sometimes be angry for a reason, and sometimes not, but regardless of this, a right-minded Buddhist should still refrain from anger altogether. For orthodox Buddhists think that there’s actually never a good reason that justifies anger. I pick up on the reasons for this in Chapter 2. Now, however, let us turn to the subjective aspect of the occasions of anger — its

phenomenology.