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Aggression
By Ven. Thubten Gyatso

As a child I was often puzzled by anger, wondering why parents so frequently

hurt each other through their nonsensical arguments. Later, I was dismayed to
observe this destructive emotion within my own mind. Then, as a medical officer
in a psychiatric hospital, I saw depths of anger, both manifest and suppressed;
that I had never believed could exist. I remember suggesting to the psychiatrist
in charge that we set up a gym with punching bags to allow our patients to give
vent to their feelings.

Resentment, grudge bearing, hostility, hatred, and even fear, all derived from
anger, lay behind many of my patients' problems. My scientific view was that, as
anger is acquired through evolution, it is necessary and must be allowed to arise
and be expressed because suppression of this natural emotion would lead to all
manner of psychological problems. Evidence supporting this was right there
before me in my patients.

At the end of the sixties, The Territorial Imperative by the biologist Robert
Ardrey presented studies of animal behavior showing that intra-species
aggression is present in the animal world as much as it is within human society.
Aggression thus gained a scientific status that, at the extreme of materialism,
could be taken to justify even war. Another view prevalent at that time was that
male aggression matched female submissiveness as an appropriate means for
propagating the species. No wonder there was, and remains, debate as to
whether the study of human and animal behavior belongs to the realm of science
or not.

By simply observing the behavior of chemicals and bodies in motion, science can
deduce fixed rules for the material world without worrying about the feelings or
true motivations of the elements - because they do not have any. For the animal
and human kingdoms, however, behavior is not necessarily an indication of the
real reason we do things, and therefore it is impossible to make fixed rules based
on the observation of behavior alone.

The difference between this cold, amoral aspect of scientific thinking and religion
is not the difference between faith and knowledge. There is only one reality and
correct faith and knowledge are essential components of both systems; it is
mistaken knowledge and beliefs that lead to prejudice and human conflict, and
these can pollute both science and religion.

Unconstrained by the need to justify behavior in order to support the theory of

evolution, Buddha stripped down our emotions to their bare essentials and
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showed what was useful and what was useless in terms of satisfying the two
fundamental urges that humans and animals equally experience - the desire for
happiness and the need to be free from pain. Equal rights, a sanctified political
expression today, was presented by Buddha in his teaching that no individual,
human or animal, has a greater right to happiness and freedom from suffering
than any other individual.

Buddha then explained his observation that in our pursuit of happiness and
freedom from suffering we inadvertently push these goals away by assuming
that our personal right is greater than anybody else's. Our aversion to pain
results in instinctive anger and hostility towards whatever frustrates our selfish
desire for happiness, but in acting out our anger we actually destroy any chance
of happiness. This observation is truly scientific in that, from it, fixed rules can be
deduced regarding human and animal behavior and its results. For example:
anger, the agitated, irrational urge to inflict harm upon or destroy things that
displease us, never achieves peace, not to mention the happiness it seeks.

We can verify this by observing our own experience in life and seeing the reality
of how anger is utterly useless and only brings trouble; then we will want to
overcome our anger and achieve the peace and happiness we crave. We will also
discover another fixed rule of human and animal behavior: love - delight in the
happiness of others and their freedom from pain - is by nature a happy state of
mind and spreads peace and joy wherever it manifests.

Some think that social and personal injustice cannot be opposed without anger,
or that not expressing anger is a sign of weakness. This is absurd. Anger is the
real sign of weakness; it is the coward's way out. It takes far more courage to
resolve a conflict with love than with anger; if we allow the flame of anger in
another's mind to ignite our own anger, we and the world are lost.

When anger is stopped by its antidote, patience, and replaced by its opposite,
love, there is no danger of suppression of emotions and subsequent
psychological imbalance, there is only one result - happiness.