“Beyond Anger Management: Anger as a Pathway of Wisdom.” This is quite a lofty title for an article, so what exactly does it mean? The words in the title itself give us a clue.

Anger management is a broadly used expression, so it has different meanings depending on what system it refers to. Generally, anger management techniques are powerful and helpful, and on this website you’ll find many articles and exercises that fall under the anger management ‘umbrella.’ The phrase beyond anger management then, is not at all a rejection of the methods of anger management, but it is simply a response to the language; specifically that to manage something implies to maintain it. In this case we want to go beyond just managing our anger.

The two words, pathway and wisdom, also can have many meanings, so some definition is in order. Pathway in this case is as in most spiritual traditions: a method you can use to deepen and broaden your experience of being human. The idea of a pathway in this sense isn’t something you try to get to the end of, rather it is an ongoing expression of joyful discipline in relating to one’s experience.

Similarly, wisdom in this case isn’t some ideal and final state, rather it is the moment to moment journey of waking up and embracing a larger and saner view of life. In other words, we don’t arrive at wisdom after so many years of walking on the path, but we arrive at wisdom continually, each time we raise our gaze and look at our experience with some kind of presence and positive vision.

Anger normally causes us to look down, to sink into ourselves and rigidify our world. The views and methods of this website frame anger in a new light: We can make use of the experience of anger, we can take advantage of the tremendous energy and intelligence of anger, utilizing it to help us wake up.

Thus, Using Anger as a Pathway of Wisdom. This is the approach of most world wisdom or spiritual traditions. Rather than reject the dark parts of human existence, we are taught to embrace them as our teachers and guides to a better way of life.

Our painful parts are not something to shy away from and reject as bad. We cannot find wisdom by sweeping our anger under the rug. As long as we try to ignore it or make it the enemy, our anger will only grow in strength, so the wise thing to do is to look anger straight in the eye and deal with it directly. Doing so will liberate the energy of anger and free us from its crippling burden.

Indeed, whatever our state of mind, this is our teacher, this is the very thing we must use in order to wake up moment by moment. Even in the highest teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, the student is taught that there is no wisdom outside of their own experience. Thus for those of us with lots of anger, this anger itself is our teacher, our pathway of wisdom.