Contemplating Anger at the Grocery Check-Out
by Danny Fisher
Earlier today, I was at the grocery store to pick up a small sauce pan and a package of whole wheat pasta. I stood in line behind two sets of customers: a man with several small children, and a middle-aged couple. The man with the small children was in the process of checking out when the middle-aged couple noticed me right behind them. Seeing that I had only the pan and pasta, they invited to jump ahead of them in line. They pushed the divider between their purchases and the man’s back towards them, and then placed another divider against the last of the man’s purchases. I thanked them profusely as I put my things between theirs.
We were standing there quietly for a few moments before the man turned and noticed the new arrangement. “Hey,” he yelled. “Hey!” He grabbed his bag of chips and bunch of bananas from alongisde the newly-placed divider. “Look at this!” he said angrily to the couple. “You crushed my chips and bruised my bananas when you made way for this guy!” In reality, they hadn’t at all: they just placed the divider next to his food, with no pushing at all. If anyone’s things got smushed, it was theirs, when they pulled the divider into their pile. But he continued to loudly berate them: “You should be more considerate of other people’s things!” Kindly, salt-of-the-earth people, they hung their heads regretfully for something they didn’t even do. “And you,” he said to the dumbstruck cashier, “should be keeping an eye on things like this!”
Why he let me off the hook, I don’t know. I’m not a very threatening-looking fellow, but still a good head or two taller than him, and maybe that had something to do with it. At any rate, he finished his transaction and then began explaining to his confused children why he was so angry. (“Because they don’t care about other people’s things.”) We all stood there for a moment, stunned by the whole interaction. Looking at the faces around me rocked by irrational, stupid anger, I said (loud enough for the man to hear me), “You know, there’s an old saying: ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’” The couple and the cashier started laughing, and things shifted back to normal.
As I left the store, I wondered about my reaction. What else, if anything, should I have done? Should I have said something more directly? Was there any virtue in my snarky response, or was it just snark, plain and simple? Eventually, I found myself thinking about anger and Buddhism, and I remembered a teaching of Lama Surya Das‘ that I read once:
- Ultimately, I believe that anger is just an emotion. We needn’t be afraid of it or judge it too harshly. Emotions occur quickly; moods linger longer. These temporary states of mind are conditioned, and therefore can be reconditioned. Through self-discipline and practice, negativity can be transformed into positivity and freedom and self-mastery achieved.
A clue to anger is that a lot of it stems from fear, and it manifests in the primitive “fight or flight” response. I have noticed that when I am feeling angry, asking myself, “Where and how do I hurt? What am I afraid of?” helps clarify things and mitigate my tempestuous reaction. After cooling down, I ask myself, “What would Buddha do; What would Love do in this situation?” This helps me soothe my passions, be more creative and proactive instead of reactive. In that state, I can transcend blame, resentment, and bitterness.
As Thich Nhat Hanh has written, “Our attitude is to take care of anger. We don’t suppress or hate it, or run away from it. We just breathe gently and cradle our anger in our arms with the utmost tenderness.”
How, I wondered, to inspire that in others? As I walked, I realized that perhaps the best way to do this was just to try my best to transform the negative energy in my own life into postive energy. Like Surya Das, I often find myself wondering what the people/forces I most admire and appreciate would do in certain situations. It’s a powerful thing to have beings in the world who embody the kind of tenderness Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of. With practice, any one of us–all of us–could be that.
There is another way to deal with these sorts of people and I know you know how…kung-fu!
We can’t control other people’s anger. (If only we could!) It sounds like that fellow was already carrying a lot of anger with him by the time he opened his mouth. I think your conclusion is right on. Create your own positive energy and it will transform the world around you.
I'm starting to become more aware of the anger around me… on the road, customers, standing in line! It's so difficult to not let others determine your state of mind but I'm learning. Thank you for your thoughts and insights in a wonderful post.
By not engaging the angry person you did the only reasonable thing you could do in this situation.
Too bad his children had to witness his behavior which he must have thought was a teaching opportunity. He was right, but unfortunately his teaching was not a positive one.
It just makes me wonder what the real issue was. The smushed chips might have been the catalyst, but I wonder what he really feels is getting mistreated. The things we feel safe showing anger about, and the things that are eating at us… so rarely the same things.
Anger: been there, done that.
The best that can be done is to consider that the "anger" you experience – both within yourself and externally – arises from the same place.
You cannot open another's mind of course. But sometimes you can speak past that anger.
Nice post. Realizing the hurt beneath the anger is not always the be-all end-all antidote in my experience. Sometimes it is just as ensnaring, especially for my often brooding mind that has the tendency to see negativity as closer to truth than positivity. The hurt, must also be likewise noted and let go. As for your comment – helping the victims of the anger break the feeling of tension seems so skillful to me. I would like to have the presence of mind to do the same thing in similar situations.