The Truth

I saw this bumper sticker on a car yesterday:








"The truth will set you free": this, of course, comes from the Christian Bible, specifically the Gospel According to John, 8:32. It is a saying that has meant a lot to me over the years, from the time of my upbringing in a Congregationalist church. One thing it has said powerfully to me is that to embrace what is really going on brings freedom and life; hiding from and denying what is really going on brings pain and suffocation. No wonder Buddhism felt like home, once I found it.

But my idea of the "truth" in question has always been quite different from what the "truth" has traditionally been interpreted to be. The context of this verse is an argument between Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees, and phrases from this chapter have been used to justify persecution of the Jews. John is my least favorite among the gospels, as it seems to be written as a polemic against all who reject this Jesus who proclaims himself Christ-as-Savior; to me, this telling of Jesus' life and teaching paints him as a raving narcissist. (He does go on and on about his wonderful self.) But I am sure that some of the potent sayings are indeed authentic; to give voice to them, the writers of the Gospel created a Jesus character who served their purposes. (As did the writers of each of the Gospels, and of all scripture, and the creators of any kind of literature or art).

But I digress. Seeing this bumper sticker got me thinking about what variety of truth the bumper sticker refers to, and what variety of anger. The car also featured a "Quakers!! Where? Quakerfinder.org" bumper sticker, so I assume that the car belongs to a Quaker. If this is a Quaker of the universalist, New York Meeting stripe, the sticker is probably pointing a bit ironically to the truth-of-Christ-as-savior concept. It points more wholeheartedly to the truth-of-God-as-justice notion, which springs from the powerful message of the Hebrew prophets. The prophets such as Jeremiah, Isaiah, Micah, and Amos.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:4)

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)

And so the truth that sets you free, but first makes you angry, is the truth of power, of seeing who has power and who doesn't, and who is using that power in self-service. Once you see how the game is really being played, you are free from delusion. One could say that it is the truth of suffering, of the First Noble Truth: Suffering exists. And perhaps seeing the causes of that suffering, the endemic injustice within human society, is an echo of the Second Noble Truth, that suffering has discernible causes.

And those aspects of truth are enough to make anyone angry. As angry as the prophets of old.

But what do you do with that anger? Because feeling angry is not enough. Just as suffering is not enough (as Thầy says), anger is not enough. The Dharma teaches us to see ill-being for what it is, and to transform that ill-being into freedom -- freedom from the delusion that traps us into reenacting the causes of ill-being. How are you going to use that energy of anger in a way that will not simply perpetuate these causes?

I know I'm asking a lot of a bumper sticker, but I wish it had said something about love. Because our society has a very distorted view of anger. We conflate the energy of anger with the expression of anger. Many interpret the Christian tradition as teaching that we should never feel angry, that we should turn the other cheek, forgive immediately, and to someone who takes our cloak, give our coat as well. On the other hand, we're taught how important it is to express your feelings, to vent rather than to hide your feelings. So we have a victim mentality mixed with self-righteousness mixed with entitlement. What's missing is an alternative to so much self-involvement. What's missing is the idea of expressing your angry feelings in a way that shines a light on the situation that triggered the anger, without exacerbating it. You do that through love, through compassion.

In his book Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, Thầy writes:

You have the duty to tell [your beloved] when you suffer. When you are happy, share your happiness, with her, with him. When you suffer, tell your beloved one about your suffering. Even if you think your anger was created by him or her, you still have to keep your commitment [to support each other]. Tell him or her calmly. Use loving speech. This is the only condition. (p. 57)

We have the duty (elsewhere, he says we have the right) to communicate our anger. But we must do so calmly and lovingly. Here he speaks of anger between family members, but because of inter-being, this teaching must extend to anger between constituents and governments, and to anger between nations.

Martin Luther King, Jr., worked hard to channel the energy of anger into prophetic, powerful, loving action. So did Gandhi and Dorothy Day. And Thich Nhat Hanh.

I would like to see a bumper sticker that reads:

The truth will set you free.
So that's what that funny little half-smile is all about!

A bit more about the Society of Friends:

During the two years or so that I attended the Brooklyn Friends Meeting, I learned that many of my assumptions about Quakers were wrong, or incomplete. The Brooklyn Meeting is unprogrammed, meaning that there is no pastor and no liturgy -- the meeting sits in silence, listening for leadings. But there are other types of Quaker meeting, more common in the Midwest and West (apologies for over-generalizations). Roughly speaking, the Quakers stream into four branches: Liberal, Conservative, Pastoral, and Evangelical.

Click to read about Liberal, Conservative, Pastoral, and Evangelical Friends' beliefs and customs.

On Yelling Less

[New Years' Retreat, Blue Cliff Monastery; photo by Melissa Setubal]


This transitional time between years, and decades, comes at a transitional moment for me -- or at what I want to be a transitional moment. It feels right to make resolutions, to set intentions.

One intention I set is to yell less.

I never wanted to be a mom who yells. There was a lot of yelling in my home growing up, between all of us. I hated it. And in raising my now-twelve-almost-thirteen year old son, I have worked hard not to yell, though of course there were plenty of times when yelling seemed to be the only way to get through to him. Instead, my intention has been to express my feelings and needs powerfully, if necessary, but not violently. I wanted to model for him how we can articulate our inner self to others without simply acting it out. And I think that I have done a pretty good job.

But sometimes a body gets tired. Sometimes a body just wants to yell, "Do what I tell you! NOW!"

I am writing this with awareness that my son may read it. That's okay. He and I have talked about how, at times, he is not the easiest child to raise. He is very smart, very active, deeply feeling, strong-willed, and at times explosive in his expression of frustration with the fact that things don't always go his way. He is also insightful and self-reflective, and can even smile at how he sometimes makes things hard for himself. He's come such a long way over the years. But he is still heavily invested in resistance. And that's what wears me down.

I never want to end up yelling. I never want to spend twenty minutes in growing frustration as he playfully, complainingly, distractedly, and angrily acts out his resistance to whatever needs to be done. I just want him to put on his shoes and go to school! NOW! I just want him to get washed up and GO TO BED! NOW!

Afterward, he is usually penitent, regretting that he pissed me off, sorry that he took things too far. Afterward, when he's insisted that I sit with him in bed so that we can cuddle, he wants to do better. He wants to be very sure of my love.

And I want him to be sure of my love. I love him dearly. And there are many moments during the day when we enjoy each others' company. There is plenty of the good stuff. I just get weary of the hard stuff.

I knew that I had been yelling more, losing my temper more, and I didn't like it. But it wasn't until I talked with a friend about it, and my husband interjected, "Yes, you are yelling more," that I really saw. I don't believe that yelling is effective as a disciplinary, that is, a teaching, tool. And I have evidence, fresh, direct evidence, that yelling doesn't change the unwanted behavior. It just sours the whole environment.

Now, there is a lot of history that I'm not going to go into here. We have wended our way through a wilderness of crises, conferences, specialists, therapists (so many therapists), diagnoses, techniques, strategies, books and articles and dvds ... it's been a long journey. And someday that tale must be told.

But for now, I resolve, before god and the buddha-nature of all that is, to yell less. No more yelling. (Or, very little.)

Even when he becomes a teenager, as of seven weeks from now.



An affirmation for my bathroom mirror:

I will not yell,
I will not whine,
I will not pester other kids,
I will not throw things,
I am the mom,
I am the mom!