Being Mindful Stories

Analogy · Ajahn Brahm

Anger's trial with no defence

As told by Ajahn Brahm in On the Other Side of Anger | by Ajahn Brahm | 31-05-2013

1 min read

The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

And so an other way of managing anger is to have what we call a fair trial. A lot of times you get angry at somebody, it is like a trial where you only have a prosecutor and no defense. Say these, you know, say it is your boss. They've got no right to speak like that to me. And you try and justify it. That are boss speak like that, they are just really cruel, don't they know how much I've worked hard for this. You always try and get more evidence to justify why you should be angry to that person. How about having a defence attorney in that trial? In other word, oh that poor boss, he must be very tied, he had a very busy day today. Maybe he had an argument with his wife this morning, maybe he's got a migraine. See if you can deliberately when you're about to getting angry at your husband say. Try to find some mitigating factors. He must be crazy. He's mad. He must be going through the male equivalent of menopause. Whatever it is? Try and find some mitigating evidence, so you can not just judge just him one-sidedly.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 34:09 (to 35:43)

A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Fuming at a fellow monk, Ajahn Brahm noticed he was running a trial with only the prosecution allowed to speak, while also acting as judge. Before you get angry at your partner or a colleague, give them a defence: a migraine, a bad day, something you don't know. Anger rarely survives a fair trial.

In brief (our summary)

Simile from his own anger at a fellow monk: listing everything he didn't do, Ajahn Brahm sees he is justifying his anger like a court case where only the prosecutor may speak, no defence is allowed, and he is also the judge, banging the hammer: guilty. Now he always remembers to have a fair trial — and then he can't get angry at anybody.

Teaching point

Give the other person a defence attorney; anger can't survive a fair trial.

When this story may help

  • resentment at a colleague
  • conflict
  • grudges

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in On the Other Side of Anger | by Ajahn Brahm | 31-05-2013 · 2013-06-01 · ▶ watch from 34:09 to 35:43 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

2 other tellings of this story

Caption notes: Manual (volunteer) captions; occasional misspellings kept as is.

The narrative is Ajahn Brahm's own telling, quoted from the talk captions. The summary and reflection are Being Mindful Stories's editorial notes. Please credit the teacher and link the original talk. Markdown version

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