Yes the basic approach in the Buddha's path is to relate to everything directly as it is. That way you have a deep appreciation of your own situation, but also everyone else's situation as well. And sometimes that may lead you to energetic forceful action.
Simple example. If you are a mother and your child runs across the road in front of a car - you will take very forceful action to stop your child. Shout, run, grab at them etc. And you may get very angry, as well - but that's not the moment to stop and say "Oops I'm getting angry I should stop doing this". Your priority is to save your child.
So, you could do the same thing without any internal anger at all, just entirely based on strong love for your child, and doing the same spontaneous forceful action just directly out of that love itself. If you get angry on top of it - that's something to work on. But it's not a reason to avoid doing that action that is basically motivated by love and compassion, rather than anger, with anger mixed into it.
So - in the same way - as practicing Buddhists you are on the path. You will keep falling down, getting angry, getting depressed, confused, upset, having problems due to attachment and so on. You don't miraculously drop all that just because you are now a "card carrying" Buddhist (taken refuge perhaps or whatever).
But - you learn to notice things like anger, and other unskillful tendencies and approaches and emotional states. And gradually you work with those.
But not with the aim to try and stop your impulses. There's a rather bizarre idea amongst some Westerners that Buddhists should be passive and never succumb to any impulses, a bit like a limpet clung to a rock and ignoring everything else around you.
But - that's not the teaching at all. It's pretty much the opposite of the Buddhist path indeed.
The path is to learn to identify unskillful actions and emotions and to train in working with those. And in the process, yes, there may be things you need to stop doing as a first step. You may even take various vows to help you (many Buddhists do). But not to avoid ever succumbing to impulses.
Indeed impulsive actions motivated by love, compassion, and understanding - they are good. They may sometimes be direct inspiration even of enlightenment itself. Sometimes when someone is especially compassionate, I've heard, Tibetans will say "You are Chenrezig" - the essence of compassion. (Same thing they say about HH the Dalai Lama). Not in the sense that suddenly you transformed into an enlightened being - but in the sense that this action you just did was inspired by compassion, which, in that moment, had some of the inspiration of the enlightened mind.
And - the aim is not at all either to tone down those impulses. Rather than reduce the love that a mother has for her child, as a Buddhist you are on a path that can lead you to, eventually, have similar love to all beings, as strong as this love. The love of a Bodhisattva or Buddha is stronger, not weaker! And for all beings as well. Which of course often leads to many spontaneous impulses motivated by love and compassion, and sometimes to very forceful action. But without the anger and the confusion that makes many of our impulsive actions currently so unskillful, and is the reason you need to train and pay attention to our conduct while on the path, when not yet enlightened.
When enlightened then, they say, ones conduct is spontaneously in accord with the situation you are in. In some ways you are more disciplined as an enlightened being, not less so, but the discipline is something that is spontaneous arising from the very situation you are in.
Which is not to say we should avoid actions that are carefully thought out through long trains of thought and planning. E.g. an engineer designing a bridge or whatever.
However, our good impulses, which are sometimes even quite forceful as in the example of a mother saving her child - that's spontaneous action from direct connection to the way things are. It's going directly against the ground of your being and it is a way of closing you off from the situation you are in to suppress those actions. You would become like a limpet hiding in its shell, waiting for a high tide that never comes.
This is an image of Green Tara - an image which traditionally in Tibetan Buddhism evokes this enlightened quality of impulsive action motivated directly by love, compassion and openness to your situation, to save beings from suffering like the love of a mother for her child. The love and compassion that leads you to completely forget yourself and think just about those you help, like a mother whose only thought in that moment is to save her child.
Simple example. If you are a mother and your child runs across the road in front of a car - you will take very forceful action to stop your child. Shout, run, grab at them etc. And you may get very angry, as well - but that's not the moment to stop and say "Oops I'm getting angry I should stop doing this". Your priority is to save your child.
So, you could do the same thing without any internal anger at all, just entirely based on strong love for your child, and doing the same spontaneous forceful action just directly out of that love itself. If you get angry on top of it - that's something to work on. But it's not a reason to avoid doing that action that is basically motivated by love and compassion, rather than anger, with anger mixed into it.
So - in the same way - as practicing Buddhists you are on the path. You will keep falling down, getting angry, getting depressed, confused, upset, having problems due to attachment and so on. You don't miraculously drop all that just because you are now a "card carrying" Buddhist (taken refuge perhaps or whatever).
But - you learn to notice things like anger, and other unskillful tendencies and approaches and emotional states. And gradually you work with those.
But not with the aim to try and stop your impulses. There's a rather bizarre idea amongst some Westerners that Buddhists should be passive and never succumb to any impulses, a bit like a limpet clung to a rock and ignoring everything else around you.
Common limpets - many Westerners seem to have the idea that the path of Buddhism is almost to turn yourself into a kind of a limpet type creature, clinging to a rock like a limpet at low tide, and not responding to anything around you.
But - that's not the teaching at all. It's pretty much the opposite of the Buddhist path indeed.
The path is to learn to identify unskillful actions and emotions and to train in working with those. And in the process, yes, there may be things you need to stop doing as a first step. You may even take various vows to help you (many Buddhists do). But not to avoid ever succumbing to impulses.
Indeed impulsive actions motivated by love, compassion, and understanding - they are good. They may sometimes be direct inspiration even of enlightenment itself. Sometimes when someone is especially compassionate, I've heard, Tibetans will say "You are Chenrezig" - the essence of compassion. (Same thing they say about HH the Dalai Lama). Not in the sense that suddenly you transformed into an enlightened being - but in the sense that this action you just did was inspired by compassion, which, in that moment, had some of the inspiration of the enlightened mind.
And - the aim is not at all either to tone down those impulses. Rather than reduce the love that a mother has for her child, as a Buddhist you are on a path that can lead you to, eventually, have similar love to all beings, as strong as this love. The love of a Bodhisattva or Buddha is stronger, not weaker! And for all beings as well. Which of course often leads to many spontaneous impulses motivated by love and compassion, and sometimes to very forceful action. But without the anger and the confusion that makes many of our impulsive actions currently so unskillful, and is the reason you need to train and pay attention to our conduct while on the path, when not yet enlightened.
When enlightened then, they say, ones conduct is spontaneously in accord with the situation you are in. In some ways you are more disciplined as an enlightened being, not less so, but the discipline is something that is spontaneous arising from the very situation you are in.
Which is not to say we should avoid actions that are carefully thought out through long trains of thought and planning. E.g. an engineer designing a bridge or whatever.
However, our good impulses, which are sometimes even quite forceful as in the example of a mother saving her child - that's spontaneous action from direct connection to the way things are. It's going directly against the ground of your being and it is a way of closing you off from the situation you are in to suppress those actions. You would become like a limpet hiding in its shell, waiting for a high tide that never comes.
This is an image of Green Tara - an image which traditionally in Tibetan Buddhism evokes this enlightened quality of impulsive action motivated directly by love, compassion and openness to your situation, to save beings from suffering like the love of a mother for her child. The love and compassion that leads you to completely forget yourself and think just about those you help, like a mother whose only thought in that moment is to save her child.
From: Terton Gallery (Gallery of images in Bhutan by mainly Bhutanese artists).
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
4.8m answer views110.4k this month
Top Writer2017, 2016, and 2015
Published WriterHuffPost, Slate, and 4 moreHuffPost, Slate, Forbes, Newsweek, Business Insider, and Science 2.0