The only place I can park my car to load these A2's is often a Disabled Parking Zone. Last Friday things were going in their usual calm manner and Had loaded my car with the A2's and was trying to reverse out when I noticed that there was a car blocking my way, I thought it was just traffic. Then there was a whack on my drivers side window, which I admit gave me a bit of a start. I have a very angry late middle aged man telling me that I was illegally parked. I hadn't been in especially good moods since a visit to the Buddhist Society of Victoria for Vesak observances the preceeding Sunday. So I open my door and tell him if he wants to try hitting something that he should try me. I then give him a shove. He grabs me by the throat. There is a very simple reason why I practice Metta and It came out for a walk at about this time.
Our angry man suddenly found himself in a situation where not only was he no longer in control of it, but something was snarling at him that I was only trying to do my job. This Idiot wasn't slightly built, slim but certainly not the wan nerdy type. I was in the process of bending him over the bonnet of his car and giving him a couple of slaps upside the head when an Australia Post employee peeled me off him. The Idiots elderly mother was in the car and watched her son lose control of the situation and had It look her clear in the face.
The Idiot was by now not only unwilling to try hitting me, but very rattled, he was genuinely frightened and had a quaver in his voice. I dislike It. It dates from my childhood and is a product of my fathers abuse and the recently diagnosed Aspergers. I think that It is a creation of a typically Aspergian unwillinglness to give into bullies and hurt from not being able to understand why my father clearly didn't love me. At any rate It is truly nasty and utterly devoid of anything resembling compassion. Thus the picture of a snarling wolf...this is what came out for a walk Friday afternoon. Despite over 20 years of Metta practice I have never suceeded in removing it from my personality.
The point of this post is to show that actions that are based in anger can and do have disastrous results. The Idiot was about 70-75 kg and about 190 cm, but I'm a solid183 cm & 110 kg and he doesn't have It inside him. Had I not been peeled off the Idiot I was going to give him some slaps upside the head which would have resulted in him having some very nasty bruises for show & tell and myself in handcuffs. If he had approached me in a calm, polite manner I would have been only too apologetic. However he approached me with a rage that just didn't think things through. My wife remarked that it was actually very fortunate for the Idiot that my one year old son wasn't in the car at the time or the shoves would have been replaced with full body slaps or punches...and then his mother would have had a stroke when she saw her son having the shit kicked out of him. And all this would have been over a carparking space.
Anger....consider it as being brain dead.
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