Thay often compares our anger to a small child, crying out to his mother. When the child cries the mother takes him gently in her arms and listens and observes carefully to find out what is wrong. The loving action of holding her child with her tenderness, already soothes the baby’s suffering.

Likewise, we can take our anger in our loving arms and right away we will feel a relief. We don’t need to reject our anger. It is a part of us that needs our love and deep listening just as a baby does.

After the baby has calmed down, the mother can feel if the baby has a fever or needs a change of diaper. When we feel calm and cool, we too can look deeply at our anger and see clearly the conditions allowing our anger to rise.

When we feel angry, it is best to refrain from saying or doing anything. We may like to withdraw our attention from the person or situation, which is watering the seed of anger in us. We should take this time to come back to ourselves. We can practice conscious breathing and walking meditation outside to calm and refresh our mind and body.

While we breathe, walk and embrace the energy of anger, we are practicing "mindfulness of anger." Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. By staying with our body, our breathing, and our steps, we sustain our energy of mindfulness, and we won't get lost in recalling the story or situation that made us angry.

After we feel calmer and more relaxed we can begin to look deeply at ourselves and at the person and situation causing anger to arise in us. Often, when we have a difficulty with a particular person, he or she may have a characteristic that reflects a weakness of our own which is difficult to accept. As we grow to love and accept ourselves this will naturally spread to those around us.

The only antidote for anger, for violence, is compassion. There is no other way. And so the question is, how do we generate compassion? We generate compassion by understanding suffering - our own suffering, and the suffering of the other person whose actions or words have hurt us. It may take some time to look into the situation deeply.