Standing Nowhere

Episode 11: Anger Belongs — Finding Wisdom in the Fire

• Jacob Buehler • Episode 11

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Anger is a blazing fire: blinding, burning, all-consuming. But within its flames lies the chance to wake up and see ourselves more clearly.

Picture a moment of calm—fresh off a morning meditation—shattered when another driver cuts you off with your kids in the backseat. One heartbeat you're serene; the next, you're slamming the brakes and seeing red. Or imagine working 60-hour weeks delivering food, only to get a $1 tip that stings with injustice. In these everyday moments, anger ignites before we even realize it, testing the limits of our patience and presence.

In this episode, we explore anger from all sides: how it arises and blinds us, how it can be an organic part of life, and how it can become a profound teacher. Core themes of anger, mindfulness, compassion, and trust weave through personal stories and reflections. What do we do with our rage at unfair bosses, reckless drivers, or even our own family? Can we hold that fiery frustration with awareness and transform it into something else?

Ancient wisdom across traditions lights the way. Kabir, a 15th-century mystic, warns that anger is “the fire that burns the house you live in while you wave your fists at the neighbor.” The Buddha likens holding onto anger to grasping a hot coal — you're the one who gets burned. And Thich Nhat Hanh gently reminds us that as soon as we truly understand our anger, "the anger will transform itself into compassion." These insights, along with teachings from Rumi, Jesus, and Zen masters, are woven throughout the conversation.

Raw and real personal stories bring these teachings to life. A harrowing road rage incident becomes a wake-up call, and a shattered video game controller still hangs on the wall as a reminder of rage left unchecked. We hear how burnout and injustice pushed one man to a violent breaking point, and how even then, empathy and forgiveness begin to surface. Conflict — on the road, at home, in society — gradually gives way to understanding. Again and again, anger is met with a choice: feed the flames or cool them with compassion.

This journey moves from the heat of anger to the cool waters of mindfulness and mercy. By the end, what starts as stories of frustration and fury evolves into reflections on forgiveness, presence, and even gratitude for the hardest lessons. The episode closes with a gentle blessing of release: may we all be free from anger, and may all beings live with ease.

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Jacob:

So, Hello and welcome back to Standing Nowhere. This is the 11th episode. I'm your host, Jacob, and it's a pleasure to be back with everybody. Anger, everyone's favorite subject. Doesn't anger feel wonderful when you feel angry? It's a great feeling. That's why the dark side always wins in Star Wars, right? Because they harness their anger. It's a wonderful thing to cultivate. And of course, I'm being very sarcastic right now, but I experience a little bit of anger this last week. And we all experience anger on a pretty regular basis. It's a part of life. I remember once after meditating in the morning, this is a couple of years ago when I had just started getting into meditation and trying to calm down. I was taking the kids to school and we were on the freeway and I was feeling great, real centered. And out of nowhere, this guy cuts me off. and in a moment my hand went up into the air you know straight into the bird flipping them off through my windshield and this guy with my kids in the car mind you on the freeway this guy slams on his brakes and i'm not exaggerating when i say that i mean like both feet on the brake pedal full you know hard as possible uh the tires locked up i slam on My brakes, the analog brakes kick on. It was terrifying. And then I got even more angry, so I flipped him off again, and he slammed on his brakes again. 45 minutes ago, I'm on a meditation cushion, and I feel like I'm floating, and I'm feeling centered. And here I am flipping off another human being for cutting me off. I mean, sure, he shouldn't have cut me off. That was wrong. But he drew me straight into unconsciousness like a light switch. Boom. And here I am almost rear-ending somebody getting into an accident on the freeway. Luckily, it was an exit ramp. But my mind, that feeling of anger, I don't need to describe it to you guys. You know what it's like. And both my kids are in the car. I mean... I caught myself moments later, but by then it was too late. The damage had been done. I flipped out in front of my kids at somebody else. Not a great parenting moment, but I'm laying it bare out there for you guys, and I'm sure you have your moments as well, unless you're perfect. Thank you for watching. I remember the worst was about 10, maybe 12 years ago. I was playing Call of Duty or something like that on PlayStation. And I got so angry, so consumed in rage that I went into my bathroom and I closed the door, and I had the controller in my hand, and I jumped into the air, and on the way down, as gravity pulled me back to the earth, I threw the controller on the ground as hard as I possibly could. And it exploded, just disappeared. I mean, there was pieces of it everywhere. One of the pieces, sadly, flew up into the air and hit a painting that my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, drew for us. And luckily, it did not damage the painting, but it did damage the frame that it's in. And we've actually kept it in that frame. And I use that as a reminder still to this day. It's been well over a decade now that this happened. But that's just to give you a little idea of where my head used to be at. And I wasn't like that all the time even then. I'm putting out my greatest, my anger's greatest hits for you guys. Anger grabs us and we go blind. It's like we're not even there. What do we say when we get angry? I was blind with rage, blind rage. I blacked out with rage. What is that referring to? That awareness, that mindfulness, gone. Gone. Until we start practicing and cultivating mindfulness, little tiny things can knock it out of sight. Or we can forget about it. It's our true nature. What really spurred my motivation to record this episode was driving DoorDash online. This last week, and I've had plenty of angry moments driving DoorDash, but this last week in particular, I worked about 60 hours last week, just a hair under 60 hours. You know, I'm trying to make rent at the end of the month. I only had two, three days off last month, and I'm driving this lady's delivery to her house, and it's an abysmal amount. $1 tip. And I'm bringing the order up to her house, and she lives in a really nice neighborhood. Half these houses have Amazon packages strewn about at the front door with no sense of urgency to open them. So they're not hurting financially. And in my mind, I'm thinking, how do you tip a human being less than $5 on DoorDash or anything in this economy? Tip me zero. Don't tip me $1. All these thoughts are racing through my head. And, oh, I could just feel it inside of me. And at this time, I'm wondering, like, what is this next episode going to be about? You know, I'm working a 60-hour work week, so I have to plan these episodes on the road, on the go, while I'm juggling three apps, a stick shift, driving. When you're on the road, I mean, your nervous system is tapped. You're trying to drive safely, not cause an accident. So I'm trying to plan this out while trying to make rent, and this lady is tipping me a dollar. And I'm between a rock and a hard place because DoorDash does not allow me to decline the order. So there's a lot of rage that people are experiencing, not just in DoorDash, but abroad in this country right now. I mean, look at the job market. It's terrible. And knowing these things... creates a lot of rage in us. And it's hard to look away from it because it's our daily life. I think about the time that I have to spend driving on the road, and I won't get into that right now, but these things get extreme for some people and cause people to do extreme things. Think about Luigi Mangione recently, the man who had a lot of spinal pain. I don't know his exact situation, but he was in a lot of pain, and he was mad at these corporations who are... taking advantage of people all in the name of profit. We allow profit to come before the needs of the many. If you're a human being, you need healthcare. It's not an option. It's a necessity of life. And the vast majority of Americans, the vast majority view healthcare as a human right, not a commodity, a human right. But do we see that represented in our country at this time? No, we do not. Supposedly, we're in a democracy, and yet we're not in a democracy. The vast majority of the people do not want a for-profit healthcare system, industrial complex, and we have it. And this man, Luigi, he blew his top. He became so angry that he tracked down in a very calm and collected manner, the healthcare, was it United Healthcare CEO? I can't remember the guy's name. He waited for him to exit the building where they were having a meeting and he executed him. He shot him in I think in the back several times and he almost got away with it until a McDonald's manager turned him in. And what did we see online? Overwhelming support for Luigi. They raised millions of dollars for him to have a lawyer to support him in the case. And I'm not condoning murder or killing. I am highlighting how there is a deep sense of rage in this country right now. because of the way things are being handled. And not just with healthcare, but our environment. A lot of people are concerned right now, and that creates anger inside of us. It's a part of, anger is a part of life. What is anger? Kabir, the mystic, writes, what is anger? It is the fire that burns the house you live in while you wave your fists at the neighbor. That's one way to look at it. And Rumi similarly writes, anger is a fire full of smoke. When it prevails, it shuts the lamp of the intellect. And like I said with Luigi, I am highlighting that anger is a very real thing and it causes us to react instead of respond. And And part of the reason I started this podcast about cultivating a spaciousness within ourselves is for this very reason. Anger can cause people to do very severe things. I mean, I could look at myself in comparison to Luigi and see if certain things had gone different ways and I had not chosen this path of... going within, whatever you want to call it, becoming a seeker, whatever label you want to put on it, cultivating mindfulness, meditating, et cetera, I could have gone the route he went. This country is a powder keg, and it's about to explode. And financially, it's about to collapse. There's going to be a lot of anger when this financial bubble pops, as there was in the last one. And when anger consumes us, just like when that guy cut me off on the road a little over a year and a half, almost two years ago... My intellect was shut down, like Rumi says. I was burning inside. I was seeing red. Kabir also writes that I searched for the crooked, and I met not a single one. And when I searched myself, I found the crooked one. And this... poem. is a good thing to remember when I searched for the crooked met not a single one when I searched myself I found the crooked one anger it lives inside of you it's not an external thing when that man cut me off when that lady only tipped me a dollar basically not considering me as a human being at all there's no anger in that all of the anger arose within myself inside So the reflection that we can take out of this is that the anger that we project out there, it is actually in here. It's inside of you. And it's important to remember this because these moments of anger are They can be a teacher. It's a mirror showing you what's inside of you. The guy who cut me off didn't make me angry. I allowed myself to become angry from within. And that is a teaching moment. And as I mentioned, 45 minutes before he cut me off, I was on a meditation cushion. I was feeling great, very centered until I wasn't. but I didn't judge myself, but I looked within and I said, you know what? This is a teaching moment. I did something by flipping him off that caused me to almost get into an accident. Was that worth it? And I became very mindful of how the feeling of anger felt inside of me when it happened, the results that happened afterwards, And I remembered that to this day. I took it as a very profound teaching moment. I think the Buddhists call it wise view. When you're looking at something from a view of wisdom. What can I get out of this? What can I learn out of this? And now I think from that day forward, I have not had a single incident where I did anything in return to someone. like flipping them off or anything. It's almost as if I'll feel the thought kind of bubble for a quick second, but it's instantly caught in mindfulness. Nope, I'm not going there. If he wants to cut me off, go ahead. Please do. And I'm not saying roll over and take it, but... You know what I mean. You can be a cooling presence when these things happen. You don't need to add fuel to the fire. And I think it's helpful to look at anger on two different levels. And they seem paradoxical, but we have to hold them together at the same time. There's the relative level, the relative truth of anger, and there's the ultimate level. And on the ultimate level, Anger is part of this whole thing that we call life, this whole dance. It belongs. And it causes terrible things to happen. And on a relative level, it doesn't make sense. But we have to trust that it is part of one complete whole that we may not be able to understand from our limited relative perspective. Because on a I mean, to put it simply... Anger is wanting what we don't have or wanting what we don't get, expecting a result and it not happening. Like when I'm playing Overwatch or when you see professional sports take place, you'll see that. People expect the result to win because that's the only way to give it your all in a sport, really. But a poor sport, we know what they do. We all remember Mike Tyson, fantastic fighter, but what happened when he was losing to Evander Holyfield? He bit his ear off. And that was a great teaching moment for him. He's a very different person now. Anger is also caused by not wanting what we do get. I could easily look at my situation in life, at the injustice of gig worker exploitation, the lack of time with my family, or being able to be creative in podcasting or whatever. And there's genuine reason to be angry. I would love to devote more time to this podcast, this creative project. I am loving it right now. Absolutely loving it. It's very challenging. There's plenty of times where I listen to episodes and I am so disappointed with the way it came out. I'm my own worst critic. We all are. And I get angry sometimes. I feel anger stirring within me because I wish I had more time. And then that time I have to split and make sure I balance it with my family, creating podcast episodes, planning them. The biggest thing that made me angry over the last few years is just the lack of time with my family. That drives me crazy. When I see DoorDash, their profits went up, I think, 25% to 30% when they started this acceptance rate scam, forcing drivers to take terrible orders, almost in proportion with exactly how much I lost in my earnings. I lost about 25% to 30%. of my annual earnings one year to the next while increasing my workload on top of it, my work hours. That made me angry. So on a relative level, anger is very real. It is tangible, and you might even say it's justified. It's a natural response. I mean, zoom out and look at it from a global context. Right now, the world spends $2.7 trillion on the military and war and weapons. $2.7 trillion. That's what, $2,700 billion? In contrast, to end all hunger on the planet, would be $37 billion, a fraction of the $2.7 trillion that we spend on war. I don't know about you listening, but I don't want my tax dollars going to war. I have no problem personally with China. I have no problem with Palestine. I have great empathy and compassion for Palestine. What's happening over there is terrible. And knowing that my tax dollars are contributing to that, I don't feel right Do you? $2.7 trillion annually. And the United States, the country that I live in, represents just over 4% of the world population. And we contribute about half of that $2.7 trillion to military spending when you factor in all of it after fees and things like that. It's about $1.3 to $1.4 trillion just from the United States alone. $37 billion to end hunger on an annual basis for the entire planet. And right now people are starving to death. So you see why people like Luigi... do what they do. You can empathize with them even though you don't condone murder. I don't condone murder. Were I in his shoes? I can't say what his situation and his circumstances are. It's always easy to judge people from the comfort of our armchairs at home. But what happened, happened. There's an exchange between the Buddha and one of the devotees following him around. I forget the girl's name. But it says, as she was standing to one side, she recited this verse to the Blessed One. Having killed what do you sleep in ease? Having killed what do you not grieve? Of the slaying of what, one thing, does Gautama approve? And the Blessed One replied, Having killed anger, you sleep in ease. Having killed anger, you do not grieve. The noble ones praise the slaying of anger with its honeyed crests and poison root. For having killed it, you do not grieve. Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at another. You are the one who gets burned. That's another saying. in that same context. Anger is a fire. It's always referred to as a blaze. I'm seeing red. It is a fierce energy, very fierce. And yet, although relatively we understand how anger arises and the things that it does, it's Can we also hold in mind the paradox that ultimately, on an ultimate level, it all belongs? It's all part of one whole that we cannot always understand on a relative level. The Third Patriarch of Zen writes, The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction however and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. Whoa. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Okay, you want me to go through life like a blind robot, not caring what happens to me? And that is not what this man is saying when he wrote this. See, he's speaking on an ultimate level. To put it in terms of my own circumstances, Right now, on a relative level, I would prefer not to work 60 hours a week. I would prefer to be able to spend more time with my family, more time doing creative projects like this. That's my preference. What he's saying when he says the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences, he's highlighting that although I do work a lot, To use my own situation as an example, I accept it that it is the current reality of my life. And I can still feel the desire, the great desire in me to get out of this situation, which I am working towards, applying for jobs, going back into the job market as gig work is dead. It has gone down and down and down in pay. And it is clear that I should not have stayed in it as long as I have. That was a mistake. In hindsight, everything is clear, of course. And it's time to go. But right now, I prefer the present for what it is because I learn from it. Out of all of this pain that I've experienced, I have learned more than I ever have in my life. And I am, in fact, incredibly grateful for all the hardships that I've been forced to endure and continue to endure because they've shown me a lot of things. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. Anger eclipses our awareness. When we are consumed with rage, our mindfulness, our awareness is gone. And as I have been trying to make very clear to everyone on this podcast, and as many of you I'm sure already know, there is nothing more beautiful than your awareness. To be mindful of what is. Osho in his Beyond Enlightenment discourse says, risk everything for awareness, but never risk awareness for anything. This is the commitment of a sannyasin, that he is ready to lose his life, but not his awareness. It's important to remember this because awareness is our superpower. It's everything. When awareness is gone, we are mechanical. We're like robots. We can only react. We cannot respond. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen monk that I've quoted many times on past episodes, he speaks to this. He says, If you keep breathing able to see its nature. At that moment, you will smile because you understand. As soon as you have understanding, compassion will arise and the anger will transform itself into compassion. It's not easy. There's a lot of crap that is going on in the world, in our own personal lives, on a relative level, on a global level. To try to remember that this all belongs on an ultimate level is difficult. It's all perfect and it's very painful. Both levels are true. The relative demands compassion. The ultimate calls for trust. Together they form the yin and yang. If you guys have ever seen the yin yang symbol, that is what it is all about. Light creates dark, dark creates light. The two are one. The mountain has the sunny side and the shady side. And when you... Listen to people who have walked this earth, who look beyond the illusion of duality, and they see it for the whole that it is. You can watch the way they speak. For example, Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew says, "...in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the law and the prophets." Everyone's familiar with that, the golden rule. Even if you have never picked up a Bible and have no interest, you've heard of the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. It's not easy. In the same gospel, he says, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Sometimes when people hear that, they say, how am I supposed to love my enemies? The guy that cut you off, the family member that scarred you so badly that you can't even tell anyone about it because of the way it may make them view you. The friend who betrayed you, you want me to love that person and pray for them? Are you out of your mind? But I thought of an example back in the 1950s during the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in one of his speeches, he said that We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscious obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at midnight hours. Beat us and leave us half dead and we will still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And one day, we will win freedom. But not only for ourselves. We will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process. So our victory will be a double victory. It's not easy to love others. But here's a man who went through something, I think I speak for all of us when I say, was way worse than anything we've experienced. I'll see if I can put a link in the description to a video showing you some of the atrocities that the black community went through during the civil rights movement. It's horrifying. They weren't even viewed as human. And my mother, she was alive during this time. So it's not like this is ancient history. She has memories of these things. This is very recent. The Buddha says, hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is an eternal law. There's no way around it. The anger that you have for others is actually inside of you. Compassion and love is the only answer You can't lose faith in humanity because you are humanity. If you don't trust humanity, then you don't trust yourself, which means you can't trust your distrust of humanity. You see, it's a double bind. You have no choice but to trust it. Trust this whole. And these high beings of wisdom, they all say the same thing, that you can trust it, It doesn't matter if it's Jesus in 35 CE or the third patriarch of Zen centuries later or Martin Luther King just recently. You can trust love. You can trust this whole. And yes, it will get bumpy sometimes, but you can trust it. I get fired up about politics. Fired up. But I always make sure that I remember if I enter into a political discussion with someone that it is out of a genuine good faith desire to learn from the other person and hopefully perhaps they learn something from me. And And if they ever came up organically, I could participate in them in a compassionate way with a mutual interest of benefiting everyone, of genuinely listening to the other person's side and not just waiting for them to finish what they were going to say so that I can say something. There's a funny quote from the Buddha about this where he says, those who cling to perceptions and views wander the world offending people. So I learned my lesson. If we're going to talk about politics, do it in a loving way. It's very divisive. People are very polarized in the country right now. That's not by accident because it shuts the conversation down. It flares up anger in people. We've all seen the angry, angry stickers all over people's cars on both sides. How many peace rallies do you see where it doesn't look very peaceful? People are angry. What message is going to get through? Is it going to change anything? In one of the Metta Sutas, it says, Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings. So there is no choice but to trust this whole. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote that the peace of God, which surpasses all intellect or mind, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ, which is your nature. You might say your Buddha nature. Some call it Christ nature. It's in all of us. That word he writes in Greek is nous, which means mind, intellect, limited understanding, comprehension. In other words, we have to trust the whole, but we're not always going to be able to understand it on an intellectual relative level. But you can trust it. You came out of it. You are it. You are not separate from it. You are it. What is on the inside is reflected on the outside. And a parable that I love, which I think I've mentioned in a past episode, is the farmer and the neighbor. He wakes up and sees that his horse has ran away. And the neighbor says, that's too bad. And the farmer says, you never know. And of course, like clockwork, later that day, the horse returns with two extra horses. The neighbor says, that's great. And the farmer says... You never know. The son is training one of the wild horses and he is thrown off and breaks his leg. The neighbor says, that's terrible. And the farmer says, you never know. Later that day, the army is coming through conscripting young soldiers, but they have to skip over his son because he has a broken leg. The neighbor says, wonderful. The farmer says, you never know. Who are we with our limited small perspective to label this is good, this is bad? We don't know. How easy would it be for me to look at my life situation and say, FML, you know, fuck my life. But what came out of this? A complete inner transformation that like I've never known before. Have you ever known anyone that had to work 60 hours a week that started a podcast because he was so filled with joy and wanted to share with people a way that he has dealt with it and how he's responded to it? And who knows where this is going to lead? I'm much more clear-headed and focused now, much more able to get a job. And who knows, maybe, God willing, this podcast will take off someday and this will be what I I do full time. That would be amazing. What a dream. You never know. Rumi says, don't get stuck in one season. Winter will pass. Spring will come. And then summer and autumn. Each gives its gift. If you get fixed in winter, you block the coming of spring. I've heard it said that anger is just best to drop it. Just drop it. I think Rumi said, be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop. I've had plenty of moments, even in my own family life, where it just doesn't make sense. With my kids, the choices they make, they don't make sense to me. But do I let those situations arise in me in anger? Or do I respond with gentleness and humbleness and a not knowingness? You never know. Yeah. Rumi also says, raise not your voice in wrath. Speak with gentleness for sweet water quenches fire, not burning flame. When you go out into the world, are you going to add fuel to the fires out there? Or are you going to take the role of the fire department and try to put out fires with a soothing, sweet water? Anger belongs in this world. It's a part of it. It is natural. It is organic. And it may burn. But within the larger dance of life, even fire can point us back towards wisdom. We can let it be not an enemy, but a guide. I'm going to close out here in a moment, and I just want to express my gratitude to all of you, few as you are now, for listening to these episodes and being out there. And if you'd like to share an anger story with me, what it did to you, what it taught you, I would love that, and I can read it out on a future episode. There's links in the description for that. To close out, I want to read one last thing from the Buddha. And in Buddhism, they have this personification embodiment of temptations and clingings and attachments, addictions, in the form of a person called Mara. It can take the form of anger, lust, you name it. And the Buddha says in this Sutta excerpt, he says... This snare of Mara in the form of anger, dwelling in the cave of the heart, cut it out with self-control, discernment, persistence, right view. Free from anger and untroubled, free from greed without longing, tamed, your anger Free from fermentation, you will be unbound. May I be free from anger. May you be free from anger. May all beings live with ease.

Music:

This voice might feel like dust on the dial. But I'm standing nowhere and I've been for a while No heroes, no headlines, no promises made Just a whisper that won't be afraid Standing nowhere and it feels like Flats to weigh, no need to roam The silence speaks louder than war ever could And I've never felt so understood The static is calm, it leaves me to follow no king on the throne the sky's turning amber the clock's all reset and I haven't stopped walking just yet standing nowhere where No chains, no name, no destiny The road dissolves, the sky turns white