Hugging Anger
Every morning, before I went to school, my mother read books to me. This was one of my favourite parts of the day. I would wake up and run to
the pale green sofa in our living room, where we
would snuggle up with a glass of warm, sweet milk
and read. Our explorations ranged from encyclopaedias about amethysts and artichokes to the
Mahābhārata to a large number of Plum Village
children’s books.
I have been visiting Plum Village since I was a
three-month-old baby. Plum Village is where I took
my first steps, where I had my first ice cream—it
is my home. The Plum Village books I read in the
mornings, from The Hermit and the Well to Anh’s
Anger, took me back to Plum Village, which made
me very happy. Additionally, unbeknownst to me,
their simple stories and colourful drawings gave
me deep teachings.
My favourite story growing up was always Anh’s
Anger. This is a story about a boy named Anh who
gets angry with his grandfather for interrupting
his play time. Anh meets his anger (which appears
to him as a giant monster). He talks, dances, and
breathes with his anger, and they soon become
friends. Anh learns to understand his anger.
Though the anger frightened me a little bit, I
loved this story and I loved dancing with my own
anger, breathing deeply with it, and talking to it.
It was exciting to think of my anger in this way;
subconsciously, I was transforming my negative
emotions. Later in life, confused about the more
complex aspects of Buddhist psychology like
seeds or manas, I would think about the drawing
of Anh’s anger flailing around in my brain.
Though I have always loved school, at some
point I realised that even with my many, many
years of schooling, there were things I had not
been taught. In university I was asked to create a
fifth grade school curriculum. The first thing that
came to mind was the gap in my education that
stories like Anh’s Anger had filled. A gap in knowing how to deal with the hurt, guilt, pain, and other
difficult emotions so present in our lives. I wrote
a sixteen lesson curriculum that included the first
four classes described below:
DAY 1
Step 1: Ask the students to close their eyes
and think about a moment that
made them truly happy. Then ask
them to feel that happiness in their
body.
Step 2: The children share the moment they
thought about with the group.
Step 3: Have them colour in the part of their
body where they experience happi-
ness, noticing and remembering
how it feels and looks.
Step 4: Repeat the process with anger, fear,
sadness, and love.
Hugging Anger
Nandini Seth shares a curriculum
to teach young students how to
deal with hurt, guilt, pain, and
other difficult emotions.
Homework: Students try to experience their
emotions coming and going in their everyday lives. When they feel an emotion they
can put a hand on the part of their body
where they located the presence of this
emotion.
DAY 2
Step 1: Read a book called Anh’s Anger to
the students.1
Step 2: Ask the class to think about a
moment when they felt angry. Iden
tify the emotion, identify the circum
stances, try to picture the emotion.
Maybe students write down what
they are thinking about.
Step 3: Each child draws the emotion they
felt in the situation they just thought
about. (It’s difficult for a child to talk
to their anger. Using art can help
children have a mental image of a
being to talk to.)
Homework: Students watch the video “How
to Let Anger Out” by Thích Nhất Hạnh.2
DAY 3
Step 1: Share a summary of the basic ideas
of the video, “Taking Care of Anger”
by Thích Nhất Hạnh.3
Step 2: Offer students a guided meditation
to practise sitting with their anger,
loving it, holding it like it’s a baby (as
shared in the video), and looking at
it deeply.
Step 3: Students start a new drawing with
the meditation, homework video,
and the held anger in mind. They
may draw their friend, anger.
Homework: Students practise seeing their
emotions come up and talking to them in a
kind but firm way in their everyday lives.
DAY 4
Step 1: Students discuss the homework of
using the meditation practices to
deal with strong emotions in real life
—the difficulties and the joys.
Step 2: Students work on both their draw
ings (the initial anger drawing and
anger as a friend).
Step 3: Students present their images and
stories.
Illustrations by students of Bajaj School for the
Deaf and Tibetan Homes School.
After I created the curriculum I wanted to share it.
I wanted to see if what had helped me could be
useful for other children. Working with Wake Up
Schools and the wonderful Dr. Orlaith O’Sullivan, I
offered these sessions to children between age five
and fourteen from three different schools: the Tibetan Homes School, a school for Tibetan refugee
children in the Himalayas; the Bajaj School for the
Deaf, which offers free education to children with
severe hearing disabilities; and Cambrian Hall, a
school for middle-class, urban Indian children.
Each group had a very different background and
very different struggles. I wondered if the effect of
the project would differ accordingly. I offered the
sessions in a workshop style. My goal was to give
something helpful to these children. I came away
from the experience feeling very full. I have tried
to describe what happened but have been unsuccessful. Instead of writing about my experience, I
would like to share with you some of the drawings
and stories I received after these sessions.
In their happy, sad, fearful stories of the Tibetan
children, their parents were always present. These
children ranged from five to nine years old and all
except one lived far away from their parents. These
children’s parents had sent them away from Tibet
for a better, more free life. The children missed
their families terribly. Surprisingly, they didn’t
seem to feel much of a connection with anger. I
adapted the curriculum to be about the sadness
they felt when they missed their families. It was incredibly powerful to be with these children.
STUDE N T 1 : Sometimes when I think of my
parents I go to the bathroom and cry. Yesterday
night I really missed them.
NS : Did you try to hug your sadness like the little
boy did in the story?
STUDE N T 1 : Yes. [Quietly.]
The children in Cambrian Hall had a range of pains.
Our discussions ranged from teasing and fights to
death and bullying.
ST UD E N T 2 : I feel angry when my younger sister
disturbs me when I study.
N S: Do you think about why it disturbs you?
ST UD E N T 2 : Hmm, maybe she wants to play
with me? [Smiles a little.]
ST UD E N T 3: I get very angry and sad in my
heart when my parents beat me. [Silence in the
class.] I also feel angry when my brother beats me.
ST UD E N T 4: So do I.
I had expected the deaf children to be the most
unhappy, maybe to have feelings of insecurity or
anger at the world for being so harsh on their disability. This was not the case at all. There was no
resentment. Not one child in the deaf school, not
one, mentioned their deafness or anything to do
with it in a story of anger or sadness or fear. I found
it particularly beautiful, working with the deaf children, to notice the way their emotions seemed
much closer to the surface simply because instead
of talking about how they were feeling they had
to sign it. This impression was particularly strong
when the children discussed their happy moments—it looked like they were dancing.
ST UD E N T 5 : I feel happy when I get food, I feel
sad when I finish my food, I feel angry when I wait
for food. [A bit cheeky this one.]
ST UD E N T 6 : I feel happy when my mother/
sister/father/teacher/friend hugs me. [The
number of children that talked about hugs was
quite overwhelming.] I will hug my anger :)
This issue of The Mindfulness Bell is about
Thầy’s lineage. I started out this essay talking
about how Thầy gave me a physical home in the
form of Plum Village when I was a child. Eating
lunch with him are some of my most cherished and
love-filled memories. But what strikes me about
Thầy is that he has the power to give children he
has never met, children who have never set foot in
Plum Village, that same love, and a home in themselves. When I was doing this project and writing
this article, the question that kept coming up for
me was: Did the workshop work? Truthfully, I am
not sure. What I do know, as cheesy as it sounds, is
that Thầy’s lineage is in each of these children. His
lineage is present every time they hug their anger
or hold their sadness. And that is magical.
1 Kinder Studios, 2020, “Story Time: Anh’s Anger,” YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7fLfnmvfBM
2 Plum Village, 2015, “How to let anger out | Thich Nhat
Hanh answers questions,” YouTube. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=WTF9xgqLIvI
3 Plum Village, 2020, “Taking Care of Anger | Thich Nhat
Hanh (short teaching video),” YouTube. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=9OvLOna5_1A
Nandini Seth is a twenty-two-year-old woman from
India. She has been visiting Plum Village, France since
she was a baby. To her Plum Village is home.