People see many benefits to anger. They think it reveals where our needs are being violated, it gives us strength or a backbone, it protects us from being taken advantage of, it deters others from harming us or those we love, and it is sometimes an effective method for getting what we want. And to a certain extent, all these things are true. So when we Kadampas say, “anger is bad” and “there is no evil greater than anger,” people think we are being extreme and they reject the Dharma. They think anger is a natural human reaction and we are just repressing or becoming doormats.

For me, the core distinction is anger is motivated by self-cherishing, disturbing our own mind; and it inflicts harm on others, creating negative karma for ourselves. But wrathful actions are motivated by compassion. Externally, it may even be almost exactly the same, but internally it is quite different. We can get all the “benefits” of anger through wrathful actions, without disturbing our own inner peace or creating negative karma for ourselves.

I sometimes think as a community (or at least me), we have become so averse to anger that, excuse my sexist language, we can become a bunch of pu$$ies! We sometimes fail to stand up for ourselves or others. We sometimes fail to intervene to stop abuse or harm taking place. We fail to tell the hard truths that people will hate us for saying but they need to hear. We fail to set protective boundaries, for both ourself and for others. We set an example of enabling others to abuse us. We see others protecting themselves with anger and we tell them that is wrong, but we don’t provide them with an alternative. People see this and they say, “if this is Dharma, I don’t want that.” This helps nobody.

Geshe-la fearlessly showed the example of engaging in wrathful actions with the protests against what the Dalai Lama was saying about Dorje Shugden. Sure, lots of people misunderstood what we were doing as us being angry and we received a lot of criticism for it, but we kept doing it – round after round. Those who had the good fortune to participate in the protests recall how joyful and happy we were as we shouted, “stop lying!” We called him out on his bull$hit, to put it in modern terms. We were protecting our tradition and trying to protect him and his followers from continuing to create negative karma for themselves. Geshe-la also showed this example when he would ruthlessly fire even very senior teachers for what seemed to be small transgressions. He did this to protect the tradition, the teachers themselves, and their students.

I think we need to start learning how to engage in wrathful actions ourselves, or again, at least I do. Yes, we patiently accept, but we don’t just take it. We show a backbone, we show a spine, we push back, we call others out on their wrong behavior, we don’t say it was all us when it wasn’t, and we don’t allow others to abuse us. As a very dear Sangha friend once told me years ago, “we need King-like bodhichitta, not Smurf-like bodhichitta.” Heruka, Vajrayogini, Vajrapani, and our beloved Dharma protector Dorje Shugden all show wrathful aspects. We need to be fearless.

Sure, when we first start trying to engage in wrathful actions, we’ll make a hash out of it and it will be mixed with anger. No different than our pacifying, increasing, and controlling actions being mixed with attachment. But we learn. We gradually get better. We gradually start showing a better example. People then don’t think being a Dharma practitioner means being a push over, but they realize it is their delusions that make them a wimp and enable abuse. Wisdom and compassion gives tremendous strength and power that we learn to fearlessly wield.

Our tradition is extremely pure and threatens the very foundations of samsara and all those beings who have a vested interest in preserving it. We do get attacked by maras, and sometimes our family gets attacked by them as well. We can’t just sit there and do nothing. Yes, we need to mobilize Dorje Shugden’s vast assembled retinue, but we also need to stand up and fight back ourselves – not with anger, but sometimes also with compassionate wrath.

In short, we all know the Dharma teaches us to not be a dick. But it also teaches us to not be a pussy either.