12-01-2010, 12:00 AM
Somewhere I encountered the comment that all anger is a defense. If that is true, then there must be an element of self-importance involved in the process.
In my own efforts to deal with anger, I was directed by my teacher at the time to deal with tailgaters. I was on the road, with a truck camper, not the fastest vehicle on the road, but it often drew tailgaters for one reason or another, sometimes so close I could not see the front of their vehicle in my side mirrors. My reaction always was anger, sometimes to the point of taking action against the tailgater, such as taking my foot off the accelerator and allowing the truck to slow to a crawl just to piss them off, or hitting the brakes hard, then accelerating. The confrontations occasionally led to other gestures when they finally passed me.
My teacher asked me why I was angry. Key question. Bottom line, I was being disrespected, as they say...the tailgater was not only invading my "territory", he was purposefully expressing his own dislike of my being in his way, slowing him down. The key thing was my own self-importance. It then took some conscious effort to deal with tailgaters, to recognize what was going on and why. At that point, I then began looking for turnouts to pull into to let other faster traffic go by. The key thing was the release of the anger, and a palpable relief in doing so. That lesson affected other driving attitudes as well, so that whenever someone cut me off, or aggressively "dissed" me, I found I could let it go.
To me this really connects with the story about Hakuin from which I've taken my signature line.
In my own efforts to deal with anger, I was directed by my teacher at the time to deal with tailgaters. I was on the road, with a truck camper, not the fastest vehicle on the road, but it often drew tailgaters for one reason or another, sometimes so close I could not see the front of their vehicle in my side mirrors. My reaction always was anger, sometimes to the point of taking action against the tailgater, such as taking my foot off the accelerator and allowing the truck to slow to a crawl just to piss them off, or hitting the brakes hard, then accelerating. The confrontations occasionally led to other gestures when they finally passed me.
My teacher asked me why I was angry. Key question. Bottom line, I was being disrespected, as they say...the tailgater was not only invading my "territory", he was purposefully expressing his own dislike of my being in his way, slowing him down. The key thing was my own self-importance. It then took some conscious effort to deal with tailgaters, to recognize what was going on and why. At that point, I then began looking for turnouts to pull into to let other faster traffic go by. The key thing was the release of the anger, and a palpable relief in doing so. That lesson affected other driving attitudes as well, so that whenever someone cut me off, or aggressively "dissed" me, I found I could let it go.
To me this really connects with the story about Hakuin from which I've taken my signature line.