If we don’t let our anger out, then won’t it direct itself inward and cause problems there?

Lama Ole’s answer:

Under all circumstances, anger has to flow through the system of body and mind. If you keep it inside, then you get sick. But if you let it out, it isn’t any better. If one isn’t very strong mentally, then one should go to a therapist and talk with him or her about the situation.

But if one has a strong mind, then one clarifies the situation in meditation: One sits there and discovers, “The anger wasn’t there five minutes ago; in ten minutes it won’t be there either. And if I get caught up in it for the next quarter hour, then I’ll have problems.” You sit there the way someone who is drowning holds on to a log of wood without letting go. In the same way, you hold on to this attitude.

If anger has appeared in mind, has been understood by mind, and has dissolved back into mind—without catching or blocking anything—then it will be much harder to take it seriously the next time. And the third time it will already be quite thinned out. And someday it won’t come back at all, because it only lives on the energy we put into it.

If we don’t take anger seriously, if we see it as an interesting show—yesterday a sentimental flick, tomorrow the “Rocky Horror Picture Show”—then it won’t disturb us anymore. It only gets difficult when one identifies with the shows. Both the good and bad movies come to an end, but the space-clarity in which the movies come and go—that which is aware of the movies, which experiences the movies—that is permanent; that exists.