Allen Ginsberg on Anger (“At root of intolerance is anger..”)

ANGER ADVICE

At root of intolerance is anger. The medicine for anger is awareness of anger: “Anger doesn’t like to be reminded of fits,” said poet Jack Kerouac. If we make a practice of noticing our thoughts, to “catch yourself thinking” (as the phrase goes in idiomatic Americanese), we have a better chance of making our own irritations and fits of anger more transparent, airing out the “hot air” of emotion – as Tibetan Buddhist Lamas say, that dissolves 80 percent of the anger.`

If all mankind can’t practice this kind of meditation – sitting, standing or lying down – at least the elite and the “leaders,” Premiers, Presidents, Dictators, and Senators can do so – I do as best I can.

As Ever,

Allen Ginsberg

This (undated) observation by Allen appeared in  Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995 (2000). For some reason it never had a composition-date attached to it, but our guess is that it’s probably late ’80s or early ’90s.

We thought it might be a fitting thought for today, for consideration.

Allen signs, in 1992, an edition of his photographs to Lucien Carr, “For Lucien Carr in the capital, from the Tyger

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