Toxic Peace in Every Step? Thich Nhat Hanh's flawed perspective on anger

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Toxic Peace in Every Step?  Thich Nhat Hanh’s flawed perspective on anger

Peace in Every Step (PES) is a classic book on mindfulness.  However, there are serious flaws in its ranking and treatment of psychological states.  Before I get into that, I want to underscore the brilliance and insight of the book, which introduced many people to the practice of meditation.

The first paragraph starts this way:

Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others. [1]

Meditation has greatly increased my own appreciation of the miracle of life.  One moment occurred while I was simply washing dishes.  Standing at the sink, in the midst of my routine, I realized that I was carrying a lot of tension in my mouth.  It may sound absurd to those whose body sense was never so badly repressed, but for me it was a big deal, a ray of sun in a place of blindness.

Hanh’s clear and beautiful writing introduces a tremendous gift to the uninitiated:  the skill of mindful practice.  And yet his specific descriptions and prescriptions falter in the forest of human complexity.  Perhaps this is nowhere more clear than in his extensive discussion of anger.

Hanh On Anger

 Hanh employs a conglomerate of metaphors, analogies and stories to describe anger.  This is a wise way to go, but the various symbolisms greatly conflict, which calls for further explanation.  Hanh never clarifies.  Instead, he speaks in the singular generic, as if there is only one kind of anger, to be dealt with in one way.

Sometimes, he describes anger with brutal disparagement, even as horrific.  Maybe the most striking description occurs in the section titled Mindfulness of Anger:

 When someone is angry, we can see clearly that he or she is abiding in hell. Anger and hatred are the materials from which hell is made. A mind without anger is cool, fresh, and sane. The absence of anger is the basis of real happiness, the basis of love and compassion.

 

In another section, Hanh describes anger as a burning house, which needs to be put out first, before you go looking for the arsonist (the person who mistreated you).

 Anger can also be a psychological restraint, as when Hanh discusses it in terms of “knots.”  There are, though, more gentle descriptions.  One theme is that anger has the potential to transform into something “wholesome.”  In this sense, anger is like compost from which a garden can blossom.   Elaborating on this, Hanh likens the mindful practice to the sun, providing energy for the garden that arises from the compost.  Sometimes he shifts the analogy a little and contrasts two kinds of seeds:  “seeds of anger” as opposed to “healthy, wholesome seeds.” 

 The most divergent section represents anger as a younger sister who is in need of management:

Our awareness of our anger does not suppress it or drive it out. It just looks after it. This is a very important principle. Mindfulness is not a judge. It is more like an older sister looking after and comforting her younger sister in an affectionate and caring way.

 

Working with themes of compost and gardening, as well as the symbol of a younger sister, Hanh promotes the idea that wonderful things can grow from anger, if it is allowed to "transform" itself properly.  This also occurs in his ‘raw potatoes’ analogy.  The analogy includes a pot with a lid over a fire:

 The fire is mindfulness, the practice of breathing consciously and focusing on our anger. The lid symbolizes our concentration, because it prevents the heat from going out of the pot … After half an hour, we know that we can eat our potatoes now. Anger has been transformed into another kind of energy—understanding and compassion.

 

Hanh’s method for dealing with anger

 As we see from the above, Hanh’s way to approach anger is to “transform [it … ] into something more wholesome.” The way to do this is to “observe it with love and attention,” that is, mindfully.  By doing so, the anger is replaced by something totally different.  

It is also important to get to the root causes of our anger.  Here Hanh shifts to the metaphor of anger itself as a flower, yet one from which we must free ourselves:

Mindfulness, if practiced continuously, will provide a kind of transformation within the flower of our anger, and it will open and show us its own nature. When we understand the nature, the roots, of our anger, we will be freed from it. 

Dealing with anger, then, is a process of gaining knowledge:

Anger is rooted in our lack of understanding of ourselves and of the causes, deep-seated as well as immediate, that brought about this unpleasant state of affairs.

 

Problems with Hanh’s view

I agree with Hanh that mindful meditation can help us with difficult emotions, and that we should not run away from anger but instead validate it.  Hanh, though, misconstrues the nature of anger.  He demeans the emotion and the source.  I say ‘source’ because anger can be seen as coming from intelligence as, say, from a spirit guide, an archetype, or one’s conscience. 

There is an old cartoon, and I am dating myself here, where a character is tempted by a devilkin siting on one shoulder, while being scolded by an angel in the other.

A quick web search reveals that Disney is still using this fanciful chesnut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmOc4GLq8xM

I say more about the importance of this in the sections below.

 

There are many kinds of anger

By avoiding direct acknowledgement of different kinds of anger, Hanh buries important questions.  Here are some:

Are some forms of anger normal, healthy expressions (not simply abiding in hell)?

Is anger a blind force (a burning house, compost …) or can it be a source of wisdom in itself?

Is anger ever right? Can it be urging us to do the right thing in the right way?

Can anger, in itself, be liberatory? (as opposed to a restraint or knot)

Can anger be a muse?

Can anger and other emotions, such as joy, co-exist?

Can you love someone and be angry with them at the same time? 

Can anger be an evaluative judgement, a kind of thought?

 

This last question derives from the work of one of the greatest philosophers of the 20^th century, Martha Nussbaum.  Her paper, “Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance” is a classic that jumpstarted the discipline of psychological philosophy.  She argues that some expressions of emotion, including anger, are not blind and irrational; rather, they are essential aspects of moral reasoning itself.

Importantly, anger of this sort is a kind of thought.  Nussbaum discusses this most fully in her book, Upheavals of Thought.

Nussbaum acknowledges, of course, that some expressions of anger can be dumb, blind or destructive.  But not always.  As an evaluative judgement, anger can be reasonable and wise. 

Hanh versus common sense 

Hanh doesn’t address most of the questions listed above.  When he does, his answers conflict with experience.  Most of us think we can love someone and be angry with them at the same time.

Hanh, however, writes, “Understanding and love are not two things, but just one … When you understand, you cannot help but love.  You cannot get angry.”

It also follows from his stance that if we do not understand someone, it is not possible for us to love them. 

These conclusions chafe against daily life.  We shake our heads at the eccentric, annoying behaviors of our loved ones; and yet we love them anyway. [2]

In succinct retort to the idea that love requires understanding, I hereby state that, yes, I love my cat.

 

Hanh’s own parable works against him

 Common sense boggles at Hanh’s own parable in PES.  He tells the story of a boy who wakes up his younger sister, so she can prepare for the coming day.  She gets “grumpy” with him for waking her up, which in turn causes him to get mad.  The boy, however, remembers that his sister had a cold the night before.  Voila, suddenly he is no longer mad.  The boy’s understanding, Hanh claims, transforms the anger into something else.  It is gone.  It is eliminated.  In fact, it cannot coexist with the understanding:

At that moment, he understands, and he is not angry at all anymore.  When you understand, you cannot help but love.  You cannot get angry.

 To all you parents out there:  do you think the boy would not be mad with his “grumpy” sister, after remembering that she has a cold?  For myself, I'd say possibly.  But possibly not.

Hanh might emphasize that the boy is not just remembering.  He is 'understanding.'  And once you understand, in love and peace, that your sister had a cold, it means your anger must dissipate.  This sounds great, but in terms of argument, it assumes what it is trying to prove.  In philosophy, this is called 'begging the question.'

Love transforms anger? 

From a common sense perspective, the boy might well continue to be mad at his sister, despite acknowledging her woes, or even feeling sorry for her.  Switch up the situation a little:  a parent frustrated, ready to pull their hair out, at the behavior of their child.  Children can be incredibly draining and foot-stomping.  Sure, the parent gets why the child is mad (say, potty training); and yet they are still frustrated--while still deeply bonded with the child all the while, including compassion.   

Hanh, again, says this is impossible.  If there is anger, you do not love.   But simple experience controverts him.  Daily life provides a reductio ad absurdum of his prescription.  

Anger as a second-class citizen 

Is anger like living in hell?  Or compost?  Or a younger sister?  Or raw potatoes?  Or dark seeds?  Generally, we might think of a murderer as living in hell, whereas a rankled spouse might be in the ‘raw potatoes’ camp.  Hanh, though, writes as if there is only one generic sort of anger.  Maybe he takes this approach due to the common themes that run through his various metaphors:

(a)  Anger is a lesser, intermediate or immature state

(b) Anger is to be observed and contained to transform (eliminate) it

(c) Anger impedes the way to something better 

(d) Anger is not encouraged as an end in itself

(e) Anger is the enemy of self-control

(f) Anger is unpleasant to experience

(g) Anger is to be kept at a distance (observed)

(h) Anger and love are incompatible

(i) Anger involves a state of ignorance 

 

Developing a counter narrative

The above criteria apply in some cases.  And yet not always.   Hanh’s attempt to cram all manifestations of anger into one box leads to rips and tears.  Some expressions of anger simply don’t fit his model. 

To make this point, I develop a counter narrative below.  The starting point is Nussbaum’s idea of anger as an evaluative judgement, an expression of moral reasoning.  Evaluative judgements can be wise.  They can be cathartic and bring new insights.  They can foster positive expression, including art and writing. 

Substitute “evaluative judgement" for “Anger” in (a) through (i).  If you do, those criteria are revealed as much more shaky.  Is an evaluative judgement the enemy of self-control? (criterion (e))

Perhaps, yes.  Judgements can be biased, for sure.  But we can now see, thanks to Nussbaum, that anger, in its role as a kind of judgement, might be something that draws from the wisdom of the heart; it can thereby help us to maintain self-control. 

The counter narrative below spells out a case where anger, properly respected and expressed, is cathartic.  It is somewhat akin to a pressure dynamism that maintains a health balance of expression.  Not so much a homeostasis, everything the same, but seeking the Golden Optimal in every moment.  

Remember, Nussbaum specifically analyzes anger in her work, including passionate forms, such as those related to grief.  In any case, when you insert ‘evaluative judgement’ into (a)-(i), the failure of those criteria to respect anger’s versatility and message becomes manifest.

 

The counter narrative

Consider a college student, Ms. X, who takes an oppression-studies course.  She learns that women have typically been acculturated to ‘bury their anger.’  Women are supposed to ‘keep on smiling.'  Traditional virtues for women and girls include those of Aristotle, the ‘Great Philosopher,’ who assigned them obedience and silence.  Such ‘virtues’ transition into the Christian tradition, which includes a wedding vow to obey.  Even today, the Southern Baptist Church expects women to obey their husbands and male leaders.

This knowledge leads Ms. X to realize that she has been expected, all her life, by her family and community, to bury her anger and to smile instead. She has a breakthrough:  not only is it okay for her to feel anger, but she can and should express it.  She joins a women’s protest for abortion rights and is thrilled to find that other protestors embrace their anger as well.  They even have a method:  to channel a blend of catharsis and anger into effective action, a 'Golden Optimal.'  Ms. X feels joyous as she marches along forcefully, speaking out, chanting at times.  This is a new kind of freedom. The freedom to feel and, as a result, to learn, analyze and question.  As a writer, she draws on her outrage and finds a wellspring of inspiration and wisdom.   

One of her professors called the famous writer Adrienne Rich "a poet of towering rage [actual description]".  This had baffled her at the time, but now she gets it. 

In summary 

Hanh’s view of emotion as an inferior state to be corrected by understanding is quite traditional.  Plato held a similar view.  In The Republic, Plato employs the metaphor of a chariot with two horses.  One of those horses, the black, unruly horse, is emotion.  The other horse, the white one, is willpower.  The driver of the chariot represents objective, detached reason.  Reason and willpower work together to keep emotion in line, and so the chariot travels true.

Hanh, too, sees anger as something that needs shepherding by a superior state.  Unlike Plato, however, who seeks to harness the emotion, Hanh seeks its elimination.  For both thinkers, emotion is inferior to something better:  a detached state of reason and understanding.

Emotion as inferior.  This has been the sanctioned view of patriarchy for thousands of years and, not surprisingly, women have been associated with emotion.  Woman have been seen as unruly creatures in need of guidance by rational males.  As late as the 1930s, Sigmund Freud was arguing from the loftiest levels of academia that women’s moral faculty was inferior to men’s.  This continued on as the main theme in canonical psychology, at least until the 1980’s, when Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice disputed it, empirically demonstrating that moral reasoning can proceed, not simply by detached reductive logic, but instead through a narrative, holistic consideration of unique contextual relationships.  In such ‘over determined’ contexts, that is, the normal flow of daily life, emotions serve well as a guide.

Today, the ancient bifurcations (women/men, emotion/reason) have started to crumble.  Research has revealed the cognitive depth and creative verve of the "negative emotions.”  One  article has a section called, “Embrace Your Anger.”  It starts like this:

Many of us have been taught to push away our so-called negative emotions and focus on the positive. But experts say that being relentlessly positive and leaning on happy platitudes, also known as “toxic positivity,” can harm us.” [3]

Yes, talk of peace and love can be toxic.  But not always.  Sound familiar? 

Both anger and love are multifaceted.  It is not an all-good or all-bad thing.   A person’s ways to express and manage their emotions can be generally positive and healthy, but still need some fine-tuning.  None of us ever reaches perfection. 

It is a mistake to demean anger as Hanh does, labeling it as inferior and stuffing it into a traditional bifurcation, lower in a mental hierarchy than reason and understanding.  We need to transcend this model.  Global society desperately needs new ways of thinking, including basic skills in psychology.  Women are breaking out of the box assigned to them.  The psychic wound inflicted by machismo, on the other hand, still rules the world and perilously threatens us with WWIII. 

 A solution would be to foster a culture where boys learn healthy ways to embrace their vulnerable and caring feelings, instead of repressing them.  Boys and girls alike (and other genders, too) need instruction on healthy ways to dance with the powerful mentalities of anger. 

 

 

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Footnotes

 

(1)  All quotes from PES come from the following source.  To find the passages quoted in the essay, simply go to the source and do a word search (ctrl+f):

https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Thich%20Nhat%20Hanh%20-%20Peace%20Is%20Every%20Step.pdf

(2)  This is tangential, but Martin Luther King Jr. was asked how it was possible to love racists while being hated and attacked by them.  He said you should love them in the higher sense of agape, even though you don’t like them. 

(3)  See the following articles.  Feminists have been saying similar things for decades 

Don’t Shut Down Your Anger. Channel It

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/well/mind/anger-benefit-motivation-goals.html

Lean Into Negative Emotions. It’s the Healthy Thing to Do

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/well/mind/negative-emotions-mental-health.html

 

 

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