Anger after zazen

[Hoko]

Am I the only one who sometimes feels irritable after zazen?

I have no idea where this is coming from.
I'm tempted to say it's my sore back or pain in the knees or a numb leg or my kid who opened the door and barged in to the room or myself for not locking the door or my wife for asking me to do something before I left the house or...
You get the idea.
I'm sure I could find a million "outside" explanations. I don't care to do so.

It's not that I don't expect to feel angry.
It's not that I don't know WHAT to do with it.
It's not even that I'm ignorant as to knowing WHY anger arises.
I'm just puzzled as to the WHEN of it.
After zazen? Really?

Sure, I could go into a whole psychoanalysis of it or spin it with some Buddhist thing about "returning to samsara" but no, it just IS.
Maybe I'm a fool to even ponder the "logic" of something as "illogical" as emotional states.

I'm curious:
Does anyone else ever experience this?
A little "shared human experience" would go a long way I think.

Gassho,
K2
#SatToday (and got up really annoyed with everything)

[Zenmei]

Kliff,

No, you're definitely not the only one.

I've found all kinds of stuff comes up after (and during, and before) zazen. Based on my situation, I attribute it to some of my delusions unraveling. Unclenching the fist of thought, to misquote Uchiyama Roshi.

I got in the habit of repressing my emotions at a young age, and it was an automatic response for a long time. As I've begun to become aware of these automatic things my mind does, and relax my mental grip, I'll often get these emotional reactions, and I can't always pin down the cause. I try to approach it with loving-kindness, and curiousity. "Hmm. Why do I want to kick the dog now? I wonder where that's coming from." "Why am I crying? That's weird."

I think in the settling of the waters that happens during zazen, subconscious thoughts and feelings can float to the surface. This is really what showed me the power of zazen when I started. By sitting, and just existing without resisting, a lot of the knots I'd tied in myself started to unravel on their own. Zazen creates a space for our mind to clean out some of its bullshit, and sometimes that comes out as emotion.

Gassho, Dudley
#sat

[Jundo]

I think what Dudley says is about as good as it can be said. Stuff comes up in the quiet of Zazen, and after, as the distractions and diversions are dropped away, like lifting the rug on all the junk pushed under or lifting the lid on a steam pressure cooker. The "issues" and crap we repress comes bubbling up.

I wouldn't worry if this happens for a time, or from time to time. It is a phase. This too shall pass. Stuff like this can arise sometimes in (or right after) the sensory deprivation tank of Zazen. If it only happens once in a long while, I would not be overly concerned.

Here is my usual comment ...

This is a good place to mention "Makyo" ...

In Zen Practice, we have to be careful of certain games the mind will play during Zazen once in awhile ... including unusual visual and auditory sensations, brief periods of paranoia or panic, memories arising from deep down in our subconscious. We are not used to the stillness and quiet of Zazen, and it lets certain memories, emotions, fears and like psychological states rise to the surface ... or allows some things (spots in our eyes that are always there even though not usually noticed, background sounds) to be noticed that are usually blocked out by all the noise and busyness in our heads, senses and around us.

The usual guidance on such events ... Observe, allow, let it go. If such events do not repeat so often, I would not worry.

I link to my usual long posting on so-called "Makyo" mind tricks during Zazen ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?12641-Faces-in-the-carpet&p=134634&viewfull=1#post134634

There is a scholar researching some negative effects of meditation called the "Dark Night" project. However, it is my general belief that most truly extreme and powerful negative psychological and emotional states would arise from highly concentrated, intense, very long or focused forms of meditation seeking to give rise to unusual and radically altered mind states. The Shikantaza we sit is rather relaxed, "ordinary mind", low-intensity in style, so I believe that triggering truly extreme negative mental states is unlikely in the way we sit. However, one still needs to be careful for some particularly fragile or sensitive individuals.

http://magazine.good.is/articles/when-meditation-is-bad-for-you

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday

[Mp]

Hello Kliff,

In life there are things that may frustrate or anger us and yet we don't express or see it externally, but those experiences do have an impact on us. The practice of zazen allows us to drop all conditions or restraints and allows us to experience life in all its forms, just as they are. So yes, anger may arise, sadness may arise, joy too may arise ... what ever arise in your practice recognize it, accept it as it is, and allow it to fall away. =)

A simple answer ... when we sit we face ourselves, our true nature, whole and complete. There is no when, where, how, or why ... there is just zazen, there is just that moment and everything that may arise in that moment.

This may not have helped, but some two cented thoughts. =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[alan.r]

Hi Kliff,

I've had this happen, too, of course (also - hello. I'm Alan. We recently had a baby, and I haven't been on this forum too often). What I realized I was doing was this: I was sitting and then I wasn't. It's not that I was "returning" to samsara, it's that I was ending practice, cutting it off, rather than bringing it off the cushion. In other words, I was practicing for myself. I was, as Dogen says, "conveying myself toward all things" in order to get peaceful and enlightened and know reality. Zazen was pleasant, quiet time I enjoyed, a place for me and my understanding, and when I got up, I had to do stuff, dammit, and deal with people, etc, when I'm trying to get calm and enlightened here! When I recognized this over time, my annoyance at the world was because I wasn't allowing the myriad things to come and carry out practice-enlightenment through the self. I was making my practice about myself, rather than practicing for and with and as all beings.

I hope this helps some.

Gassho,
Alan
sat today

[Tanjin]

Zazen is usually the time when I most notice my disagreement with what is arising in the present moment and when I likewise have the opportunity to observe the habituated response patterns (usually based on some attempt to ignore what is unfolding, to pull it closer and hold on, or push it away). Anger is generally my present moment reaction to an unrealized fantasy. Expressed in a theistic sense, it is the result of my attempt to play God and the failure which inevitably ensues when I am lost in the delusion of control.

Just observe.

Gassho,
Jimmy
Sattoday

[Risho]

I never experience anger anymore. This was the last emotional state to finally drop off. Now I just float around sipping the sweet nectar from lotus blossoms.

I never drink beer, eat steak or anything. I don't get this "anger" that you humans talk about. mwahahahahaah

Just kidding -- sometimes after zazen, I stub my toe and bam!!!!! Yep anger, still there man. I think to echo what others have said, zazen is about watching what's going on. For example, I never realized how controlling or neurotic I can be. At the same time, it doesn't mean that I need to "fix" anything even though I should try to fix what needs fixing.

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[Jakuden]

Haha Risho you had me going for a second there [emoji1]
So many good answers here. To use my own typical phrasing, yes a "mind tantrum " sometimes occurs after Zazen probably for reasons others have already mentioned. Maybe it's the ox still resisting being caught and led home! It has not yet become one with other beings.
I sometimes wonder though, if Dogen had a wife and children if he would have been all cool and implacable all the time, or maybe he would have chased them around with the Kyosaku for interrupting Zazen...
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday


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[Hoko]

Lol.
"You roll your eyes at me one more time, little mister and I swear I'll make your body and mind drop off!"

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[Jakuden]

Lol.
"You roll your eyes at me one more time, little mister and I swear I'll make your body and mind drop off!"

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[emoji23]


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[Ongen]

Lol.
"You roll your eyes at me one more time, little mister and I swear I'll make your body and mind drop off!"

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[emoji23]
Yeah I recognise that too. It's fine

Gassho
Ongen

Not sure if is's still today but I sat, and if I don't get sleepy soon I'll sit some more

[Jishin]

Hi,

I been so pissed off after Zazen I could punch a wall. But after I get to work and get settled its all better. You are not the only one. [emoji3]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jundo]

I sometimes wonder though, if Dogen had a wife and children if he would have been all cool and implacable all the time, or maybe he would have chased them around with the Kyosaku for interrupting Zazen...

Dogen? That old grump!? One does not have to look so hard in some of his writings to find him having gotten up on the wrong side of the Zafu! In one famous story, perhaps apocryphal, Dogen once became so engraged that "monk named Genmyo and his companions were permanently expelled from Eiheiji. According to the standard story, Dogen went so far as to cut Genmyo's seat out of the meditation platform in the monks' hall to eliminate his contamination."

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=BnLOFwx1SpUC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=Dogen+%22monk+named+Genmyo+and+his+companions%22+were+permanently+expelled+from+Eiheiji.+According+to+the+standard+story,+Dogen+went+so+far+as+to+cut+Genmyo%27s+seat+out+of+the+meditation+platform+in+the+monks%27+hall+to+eliminate+his+contamination.&source=bl&ots=6QOZAGrWZz&sig=Z41lHeq6jDQIXiidVYiypFohyzs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3hpmSpPLOAhVGLpQKHcZwAPsQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Dogen%20%22monk%20named%20Genmyo%20and%20his%20companions%22%20were%20permanently%20expelled%20from%20Eiheiji.%20According%20to%20the%20standard%20story%2C%20Dogen%20went%20so%20far%20as%20to%20cut%20Genmyo's%20seat%20out%20of%20the%20meditation%20platform%20in%20the%20monks'%20hall%20to%20eliminate%20his%20contamination.&f=false

At this time in my life, I sometimes find anger arising and sometimes (few and far between, thank you) I boil. As the married man and father of a teenage boy, I still have my moments ... my wife will be happy to tell you about the door I punched and put a dent in (worse for my hand, which I would never raise to a person by the way). Sometimes I have sat in Zazen flooded with some angry feeling or resentment (not so often, if I may say, and that is rare). I would say I rarely get very angry, but I do get angry and annoyed at things sometimes. However, compared to years ago, before all this Zen Practice, it is a very different situation. When it happens, I catch it faster, do not as easily become its prisoner, and turn the boil down to cool faster. Years ago, I would fall in and boil away, stewing in my juices or erupting. Now, it drops away so much more quickly, like turning down the flames on the stove.

Anger arises in the most primitive parts of our animal brains. I believe that even the historical Buddha probably felt anger arising sometimes, because he was human (sorry, I am not one to believe that the Buddha was beyond all ordinary human emotions). The difference is what we do with the fire when it arises, for we are not made of ice. I believe that the Buddha, and many modern Buddhists (the Dalai Lama comes to mind) are just much better at not becoming caught up in anger.

The Dalai Lama even said so ... at 1:40 mark here ...

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/dalai-lama-angry-13400561

He is also reported as saying ...

Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way – everything is interdependent, not absolute. So that view is very helpful to maintain a peace of mind because the main destroyer of a peaceful mind is anger.” But he hasn’t quite mastered this himself, he concedes. He gets angry “quite often” with “advisers, secretaries, other people around me when they make some little, little mistake, then sometimes I burst. Oh yes! Anger and I shout! And some harsh words. But that remains for a few minutes, then it’s finished.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...rsh-words.html

Gassho, J

PS - Here is an old post on the subject ...

Playing With Fire

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?8266-Playing-With-Fire

[Meian]

First, Kliff, thank you for raising this topic.

Jundo, thank you for your post. It explained some things.

I sometimes experience a roller coaster of emotions during zazen, usually during high stress times when a confluence of events leads to a lack of necessary quiet downtime. This is a powder keg for me, but Jundo's "mind theatre" phrase and "observe and let it go" instructions have been instrumental in my surviving these times, and in navigating the panic this tends to cause within me. Simply put - I remember they are illusion, not reality or truth, and I loosen my grip and watch them fly by.

Makes the temporary chaos of my life easier to manage

Grateful for TreeLeaf and everyone here.

Gassho
Kim
Sat today

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[Joyo]

When we sit zazen we face ourselves, which includes anger, sadness, tears of joy and everything in between. It has happened many times to me.

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today (at 1 am this morning, as I was up and upset about some stupid mistakes I had done at work yesterday)