Anger is one of the mental afflictions we experience, and due to ignorance of our own minds, we become angry not only over trivial matters in our lives but also about situations that don’t align with our preferences. While reading "Meditations of a Tibetan Tantric Abbot: The Main Practices of the Mahayana Buddhist Path" by Kensur Lekden, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, I learned some valuable lessons about anger. Despite my limited knowledge of the "Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra" by the great Nalanda master Shantideva, which discusses anger and its effects, I struggled to fully understand how anger destroys all our virtues and wondered how we can protect our accumulated virtue from being destroyed by anger. The following paragraph from this book, found on pages 21-22, sheds light on this question and dispels my confusion about anger.
When Shakyamuni Buddha was residing in Bodhgaya, he told 2,250 hearers, "Anger destroys the roots of virtue." The Hearers thought, "If so, there is not one among us who does not get angry; thus, none of our roots of virtue have remained. In the future none will remain. Even if we do virtue, it cannot be amassed." They were worried. They thought, "If one moment of anger can destroy the virtues accumulated over a thousand eons, then since we get angry many times a day, we do not have any virtue."
When they related this to Buddha, he poured water into a little vessel and asked, "Will this water remain without evaporating?" Because India is very hot, the hearers thought, "In a few days the water will evaporate. This must mean that our virtue will not remain at all." They were extremely worried. Then Buddha asked, "If this water is poured in the ocean, how long will it stay? It will remain until the ocean itself evaporates. Therefore, if you do not just leave this virtue, but dedicate it, making a prayer petition that it become a cause of help and happiness for limitless sentient beings, then until that actually occurs, the virtue will not be lost. Like small water poured into the ocean, which will last until the ocean itself dries up, so the fruit of your virtue will remain until it has ripened.
This stanza by Shantideva from the "sixth chapter which teaches patience."
"Whatever merits you have accumulated over a thousand eons,
Such as generosity, offerings made to Buddha, and so forth,
And all of whatever good you did, too;
All of them will be destroyed by a single moment of anger."
ཞི་བ་ལྷས།
བསྐལ་པ་སྟོང་དུ་བསགས་པ་ཡི། །
སྦྱིན་དང་བདེ་གཤེགས་མཆོད་ལ་སོགས། །
ལེགས་སྤྱད་གང་ཡིན་དེ་ཀུན་ཀྱང་། །
ཁོང་ཁྲོ་གཅིག་གིས་འཇོམས་པར་བྱེད། །
Thank You, and Happy Reading!
