One of the things that has drawn me to admire, and at times gingerly adopt, the tenets of buddhism (a label I deride, incidentally, as to me it is less a relijurn and more a box of wise psychological tools - the allen key set of spiritualism, if you like) is the fact that, unlike other religions, it expressly forbids anger in all its forms.
It seems to me that any move in this direction can only be a wise one for humankind. Imagine how many fewer high school massacres, suicide bombings, street stabbings, drunken beatings and tit-for-tat violence there would be if we could just learn to chill out, stop taking life so seriously and exercise a little patience at critical moments.
As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says,
"Anger obscures your mind and makes your life unhappy. Anger can cause physical harm and even endanger your life. When you are angry, you are certainly unhappy and may be afraid, and you may also cause fear and unhappiness in others. Anger can make you destructive... The pain of anger is like burning red-hot coals in your heart. Anger transforms even a beautiful person into something dark, ugly and terrifying."
(Transforming Porblems into Happiness, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2001, pp. 22-23)
I have, over the years, met a few angry people in TEFL. Andy (pronounced Andeh) was a brash northerner who'd spent the previous n years teaching in a special school for exceptionally violent children.
He was full of harrowing stories of teachers having to enter the classroom in twos in case they were jumped by the students, and of students unleashing unprovoked blitzkriegs against classmates on a regular basis. Most teachers, he said, lasted less than a week in the job - but the pay was good, compared to normal state school teachers, so he'd stuck at it.
His whole personality deeply marked by this experience, he'd grabbed onto TEFL like a drowning man to barnacle-encrusted rocks, in perhaps one last attempt to save himself from a tailspin into complete mental collapse.
His body language spoke volumes. He stormed everywhere. When the bell went for breaktime, he'd storm into the staffroom and down a couple of mugs full of over-hot coffee. When the bell went again, he'd stomp back to his classroom with simmering menace.
At lunchtime, he'd storm into the cafeteria for lunch, then storm out into the garden for a deeply-drawn fag. I suspect he even stormed to the toilet, though this is a theory that was never corroborated, probably wisely.
As Lama Zopa predicted, Andeh made everybody nervous, if not exactly fearful. Once, when someone had engaged him in conversation about the differences between TEFL and his previous job, he'd responded bluntly, "Here, the students are nice. There, you spent all yer time fighting the bastards," illustrating his point by wringing the neck of an imaginary youth so hard that his own eyes started to bulge.
He was eventually moved to a sister school, I imagine due to there having been some complaints. His background not being in languages, he'd respond to linguistic queries from the students with a deeply clichéd, "Don't worreh - be happeh!"
While this may have placated the demure orientals and the easy-going latinos, the course-fee-aware Teutonic-Scandinavian axis in the school saw his glib retorts for what they were - desperate attempts to dodge questions to which he had no plausible answer.
The last time I saw Andeh he was storming down a Bournemouth street like a man on his way to confront a gang of twelve-year-olds who had set fire to his camper van the night before. Days later, it turned out he'd suffered a heart attack and was in intensive care.
If only he'd read Lama Zopa Rinpoche's 2,500-year-old warning.
It seems to me that any move in this direction can only be a wise one for humankind. Imagine how many fewer high school massacres, suicide bombings, street stabbings, drunken beatings and tit-for-tat violence there would be if we could just learn to chill out, stop taking life so seriously and exercise a little patience at critical moments.As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says,
"Anger obscures your mind and makes your life unhappy. Anger can cause physical harm and even endanger your life. When you are angry, you are certainly unhappy and may be afraid, and you may also cause fear and unhappiness in others. Anger can make you destructive... The pain of anger is like burning red-hot coals in your heart. Anger transforms even a beautiful person into something dark, ugly and terrifying."
(Transforming Porblems into Happiness, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2001, pp. 22-23)
I have, over the years, met a few angry people in TEFL. Andy (pronounced Andeh) was a brash northerner who'd spent the previous n years teaching in a special school for exceptionally violent children.
He was full of harrowing stories of teachers having to enter the classroom in twos in case they were jumped by the students, and of students unleashing unprovoked blitzkriegs against classmates on a regular basis. Most teachers, he said, lasted less than a week in the job - but the pay was good, compared to normal state school teachers, so he'd stuck at it.
His whole personality deeply marked by this experience, he'd grabbed onto TEFL like a drowning man to barnacle-encrusted rocks, in perhaps one last attempt to save himself from a tailspin into complete mental collapse.
His body language spoke volumes. He stormed everywhere. When the bell went for breaktime, he'd storm into the staffroom and down a couple of mugs full of over-hot coffee. When the bell went again, he'd stomp back to his classroom with simmering menace.
At lunchtime, he'd storm into the cafeteria for lunch, then storm out into the garden for a deeply-drawn fag. I suspect he even stormed to the toilet, though this is a theory that was never corroborated, probably wisely.
As Lama Zopa predicted, Andeh made everybody nervous, if not exactly fearful. Once, when someone had engaged him in conversation about the differences between TEFL and his previous job, he'd responded bluntly, "Here, the students are nice. There, you spent all yer time fighting the bastards," illustrating his point by wringing the neck of an imaginary youth so hard that his own eyes started to bulge.
He was eventually moved to a sister school, I imagine due to there having been some complaints. His background not being in languages, he'd respond to linguistic queries from the students with a deeply clichéd, "Don't worreh - be happeh!"
While this may have placated the demure orientals and the easy-going latinos, the course-fee-aware Teutonic-Scandinavian axis in the school saw his glib retorts for what they were - desperate attempts to dodge questions to which he had no plausible answer.
The last time I saw Andeh he was storming down a Bournemouth street like a man on his way to confront a gang of twelve-year-olds who had set fire to his camper van the night before. Days later, it turned out he'd suffered a heart attack and was in intensive care.
If only he'd read Lama Zopa Rinpoche's 2,500-year-old warning.
