Anger

怒

 

Liang Shih-chiu

梁实秋

 

A person looks his ugliest when angry. In anger, a face that is normally as beautiful as a lotus blossom will tun livid and pale, even ashen¹. This, plus the contorted muscles on his face, his staring eyes and bristling² hair, will indeed make a person's countenance³ more than repulsive⁴. As the saying goes, "When anger rises in the heart, evil intent is bound to start." Anger brings about a change that is both psychological and physiological⁵. Very few people can control their tempers when their purposes are crossed. Young people are prone⁶ to anger and one cross word is enough to start a quarrel. However, many elderly people are just as irascible and touchy⁷.

一个人在发怒的时候，最难看。纵然他平素面似莲花，一旦怒而变青变白，甚至面色如土，再加上满脸的筋肉扭曲，眦裂发指，那副面目实在不仅是可憎而已。俗语说，“怒从心上起，恶向胆边生”，怒是心理的也是生理的一种变化。人逢不如意事，很少不勃然变色的。年少气盛，一言不合，怒气相加，但是许多年事已长的人，往往一样的火发暴躁。

 

I had an older relative by marriage who was over eighty and hemiplegic. He had the habit of reading newspapers in the morning. Each day he would put on his glasses and lay out the newspapers before him. Moments later, he would be pounding the table, fuming⁸ with rage and letting loose a torrent⁹ of abuse. He did not like what he read in the newspapers. He could not do without the newspapers, but they only made him angry. At such an hour, everyone in his family would stay out of his sight and nobody wanted to be caught by his rage which, like a thunderstorm, would go as quickly as it had come.

我有一位姻长，已到杖朝之年，并且半身瘫痪，每晨必阅报纸，戴上老花镜，打开报纸，不久就要把桌子拍得山响，吹胡瞪眼，破口大骂。报上的记载，他看不顺眼。不看不行，看了呕气。这时候大家躲他远远的，谁也不愿逢彼之怒。过一阵雨过天晴，他的怒气消了。

 

According to the Book of Poems,1 "When the ruler shows his anger, the rebellion of his subjects will quickly stop; when the ruler creates public well-being¹⁰, the rebellion of his subjects will quickly end." This means that, in a fit of anger, a person in power can crush a rebellion and cause things to return to normal. For ordinary people, however, it will be better if they keep their temper under control and avoid getting into trouble. A person in a fury loses countless¹¹ blood cells in his body and causes a sharp rise in his blood pressure. In short, anger is bad for a person's health. Worse still, when his blood boils with rage, his mind becomes muddled¹², and he is likely to speak or act out of line, causing injury to himself as well as others. "Count the number of days in which you did not get angry," says Epictetus, the Greek philosopher. "In the past, I used to get angry every day; sometimes I got angry every other day; later on, I got angry once every three or four days. If you have not been angry for thirty days at a stretch, you should make offerings to the gods to express your gratitude¹³."

诗云：“君子如怒，乱庶遄沮；君子如祉，乱庶遄已。”这是说有地位的人，赫然震怒，就可以收拨乱反正之效。一般人还是以少发脾气少惹麻烦为上。盛怒之下，体内血球不知道要伤损多少，血压不知道要升高几许，总之是不卫生。而且血气沸腾之际，理智不大清醒，言行容易逾分，于人于己都不相宜。希腊哲学家哀皮克蒂特斯说：“计算一下你有多少天不曾生气。在从前，我每天生气；有时每隔一天生气一次；后来每隔三四天生气一次；如果你一连三十天没有生气，就应该向上帝献祭表示感谢。”

 

A decrease in the number of such outbreaks is a result of self-discipline. The method of self-discipline is very hard to explain. "When you are angry at someone else's shamelessness," says Marcus Aurelius of Rome, another stoic¹⁴ philosopher, "you should ask yourself, 'Can that shameless person not exist in this world?' That is impossible. Do not demand what is impossible." This does not mean that we need not impose sanctions on a bad person; it only means that we need not get angry. If anger cannot be avoided, it should at least be controlled so as not to become excessive. The Buddhists¹⁵ list Krodha (anger) as one of the three poisons2. They believe that "a heart full of anger causes greater destruction than a conflagration¹⁶" and that controlling anger is one of the basic requirements of self-cultivation. According to the Book of Yandan Zi,3 "the face of a blood-brave person turns red in anger; the face of a vein-brave person turns purple in anger; the face of a bone-brave person turns pale in anger; the face of a mind-brave person does not change color in anger." I think that a person can become "mind-brave" only through extreme austerity and self-cultivation. A person born with a face that will betray no emotions is, indeed, exceptionally endowed.

减少生气的次数便是修养的结果。修养的方法，说起来好难。另一位同属于斯多亚派的哲学家罗马的玛可斯·奥瑞利阿斯这样说：“你因为一个人的无耻而愤怒的时候，要这样地问你自己：‘那个无耻的人能不在这世界存在么？那是不能的。不可能的事不必要求。’”坏人不是不需要制裁，只是我们不必愤怒。如果非愤怒不可，也要控制那愤怒，使发而中节。佛家把“嗔”列为三毒之一，“嗔心甚于猛火”，克服嗔恚是修持的基本功夫之一。燕丹子说：“血勇之人，怒而面赤；脉勇之人，怒而面青；骨勇之人，怒而面白；神勇之人，怒而色不变。”我想那神勇是从苦行修炼中得来的。生而喜怒不形于色，那天赋实在太厚了。

 

In the early years of the Qing dynasty, a writer named Li Fu published a collection of his essays under the general title of Mutang Leigao. In one of the essays, entitled "The Story of the House without Anger", he said, "Though I am over forty, I have not yet learned to control my emotions, nor have I succeeded in changing my temperament¹⁷. I made mistakes due to anger and, despite my repentance¹⁸, I soon became angry again. For fear that I will remain an irascible person to the end, I have named my home the 'House without Anger'." It is an excellent essay and, true to his character as a scholar, it clearly expresses the author's fear of and vigilance against anger.

清朝初叶有一位李绂，著《穆堂类稿》，内有一篇《无怒轩记》，他说：“吾年逾四十，无涵养性情之学，无变化气质之功，因怒得过，旋悔旋犯，惧终于忿戾而已，因以‘无怒’名轩。”是一篇好文章，而其戒谨恐惧之情溢于言表，不失读书人的本色。

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