Fixing Your Fire - 006 Anger | For Argument’s Sake

Anger Stemming From Water-of-Water-of-Fire: Being ‘Dragged’ Into Anger

With siyata d’shmaya, we are continuing to discuss the element of fire and the trait that results from it, anger. We are currently in the middle of discussing anger that stems from the “water” aspect of fire, which is when a person derives a sense of vitality from anger.

The “water” aspect of water-of-fire is where a person is “dragged” after anger, similar to the nature of water, which drags things with it.

In the previous chapter, we discussed anger that stems from “earth”-of-water-of-fire, where a person makes anger into a permanent place in his life, by deliberately placing himself into situations that will entail anger, and he enjoys it. Anger stemming from water-of-water-of-fire, however, is when a person is spontaneously drawn after situations that involve anger, and then he enjoys the anger, now that he has been drawn towards it.

If a person becomes dragged into this situation and he doesn’t end up enjoying it, we are not discussing this; we are discussing here a person who gains a sense of vitality from the anger.

This kind of anger is very commonplace. We will give a few simple examples of it.

When People Love To Argue Vehemently

Here is one example. A person is sitting at a Shabbos table, or he is eating in a dining room, either with his friends or with people who are sitting next to him and chatting, and they are arguing about a certain topic. Then somebody states an opinion which is deemed a bit ‘controversial’, and the argument becomes more heated. They didn’t plan on getting into this argument, but now that they are arguing, the people at this table find themselves amidst a heated argument, and sometimes a person there will not leave until the argument is finished. Other times, the argument isn’t over, and it extends into a longer period of time, accompanied by much shouting and yelling.

In these types of situations, the person gains a sense of vitality from the arguing.

Another example: a person is sitting by a shiur[1], and he hears a thought which he disagrees with. He begins to argue with him. He hears a Friday night derasha[2]and he disagrees with what the rav is saying, and he lets the people next to him know that he doesn’t agree, and he gets into an argument with the people next to him, and shouting ensues. Sometimes he is motivated to do so with intentions that are more lishmah[3], and sometimes, with less intentions of lishmah.

These are very common situations, where a person deliberately enters into arguments. Initially, he does not become angered. His intention is merely to argue. But as the argument continues, he is dragged further into it, and he feels as if it’s his very vitality. These arguments might be in the context of Torah learning or in discussing matters that are holy, or they might be about the mundane; in either case, however, he is getting vitality from the heated arguments and in all the anger that was involved.

Those Who Enjoy Machlokes\Dissension

In a more extreme level of this kind of ‘enjoyable’ anger, a person enters into a heated argument between people, where they are fighting about something, and he becomes personally involved in the argument. His initial motivation to enter into the argument might be curiosity, to hear what each of them is thinking. But then as he hears their argument, he becomes dragged into the argument; he involves himself in a fight which is not his, sticking his nose into situations that are not at all his place to enter.

He is dragged after it because he enjoys the argument - for if he wouldn’t enjoy it, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to have been ‘dragged’ into it. Whether he is consciously aware or not of the enjoyment he is having in these arguments, he still enjoys it; he enjoys the anger that was experienced. The intensity of the anger might vary depending on how heated the argument was, but in either case, he still enjoys the arguments, even though these arguments have nothing to do with him.

There are people who involve themselves in a machlokes (dissension) that has nothing to do with them, and they resemble the men who joined the machlokes of Korach.

The problem of machlokes has always appeared throughout the generations, but in our generation, it is unfortunately very common, rachmana litzlan (may G-d have mercy on us from this), that there is machlokes in so many places. Of this it can be said, “There is house that does not have corpse in it.” Every place in the world is brimming with machlokes. Because of this, some people are unwillingly pushed into the area of the machlokes, due to the particular circumstances of their life which force them to take sides in a machlokes, where they must vehemently oppose the other side; the motivations here might be a little more lishmah or they may be less lishmah, but this scenario of machlokes still makes sense in the lives of these people, because it is connected to circumstances of their life. This is not the problem that we are addressing here. We are talking about people who enter into a machlokes when it has absolutely nothing to do with them.

Every time that this kind of person sees a machlokes taking place, he feels a need to be on one of the sides, as if he will be the deciding factor between the two sides. He may think that he is righteously fanning the flames of the machlokes, but in reality he is only fueling it. He comes to feel a personal connection to this machlokes, when in reality there is no justification for him to enter into this machlokes which has nothing to do with him. He becomes involved anyway, thinking that it must have some personal relevance to him.

He could have chosen to remain outside of the machlokes and to have nothing to do with it. Instead, he chooses to get involved with a machlokes that is not his place to enter. These kinds of people lose both This World and the Next World at once. They feel a personal need to stick their noses in matters that are none of their business, they derive vitality from it while they are at it, and therefore they are drawn after machlokes.

When people enter into a machlokes, besides for the evil of being in the machlokes itself, there is so much more damage they bring upon themselves. They end up being insolent towards certain Torah scholars along the way, disgracing the honor of the Torah, and concerning such a person the Sages said that “there is no cure to his wound”. There are many other evils as well which they get into. This type of person is dragged after all kinds of machlokes, whether it is an argument with the neighbors, with the landlord, with someone in the community, with someone they disagree with – any possible form of machlokes, he deliberately gets involved with and he enjoys it.

More Examples of Enjoying Argument

In the beginning of this chapter, we discussed a lower degree of this nature, where a person gets caught up in an argument around him and he is enjoying it. This is a very common scenario; another common scenario we mentioned is when people love to argue with the derasha of a rav or speaker.

There are people who cannot stand to hear others give a derasha. Sometimes this stems from conceit, of not acknowledging people who are wiser than he. Sometimes it is because there is a lack of understanding of what the person speaking was trying to say. But many times it comes from a nature to simply enjoy arguing, once a person is dragged into it.

Here are some other examples. Some people like to buy sefarim and write down notes on the pages of the sefer, expressing their disapproval of the author’s words. Either this can be stemming from a desire to learn Torah, or it can be stemming from a negative desire to simply oppose others. There are also authors of sefarim today who constantly write letters to other authors where they express disapproval of the thoughts of that author, and this is their whole vitality in life.

(Of course, if the person is doing so out of a motivation to help the other see his mistakes so that he should not err in his Torah learning and come to teach others incorrectly, then it is an act of kindness to correct him.)

There are even sefarim written today where the entire purpose of the sefer is being written in order to argue with the author of another sefer. This is not an issue of if his motivations are lishmah or not; even if it was written entirely “for the sake of Heaven”, it is the very attitude behind it which belies an issue of coarse character. And sometimes a person writes a sefer entirely to take issue with a certain sefer that is already widely respected by the Gedolim of previous generations!

Such a person is naturally dragged towards arguing with others. It is one of the natures of the soul that can express itself [and it manifests more strongly in certain people, when their water-of-water-of-fire is dominant]. Everyone can also identify in himself this nature, to some extent.

An example of it also includes people who regularly get into arguments in the home, with their spouse or with their children. They are not looking intentionally to get into arguments, but once they suddenly find themselves in the argument, they end up enjoying the argument, deriving vitality from it.

So far we have just given some examples of this nature, and there are additional examples as well which one can discover. The basic idea of anger stemming from water-of-water-of-fire is: when a person allows himself to be ‘dragged’ into heated arguments.

Rectifying The Nature of Being ‘Dragged’

In the series of “Fixing Your Water”, we explained that the more a person becomes aware of his actions, speech, and thoughts, the less he will become “dragged”. There we elaborated much more on the concept of being “dragged”, which is a general nature that stems from the element of water. We will discuss here yet another way of how to avoid getting ‘dragged’ into things, although we are not dealing here with the trait of water, but with water-of-water-of-fire specifically; it can rectify the problem of getting ‘dragged’ in general, but it has particular relevance to the current topic we are discussing, anger that stems from water-of-water-of-fire.

Daas Vs. Anger

Anger is essentially a destructive force. Although every negative character trait is destructive, it is anger specifically which is destructive. Whenever any of the elements in the soul is more dominant, it causes a lack of balance in the soul. This is true about the soul in general, but it is particularly the case with the trait of anger.

Anger causes a more glaring kind of imbalance in the soul, because the very nature of anger is that it is out of control, for it is a product of the element of fire that it comes from. The trait of conceit can also get out of hand, for it is also a product of fire, and we certainly find instances where a person’s conceit can suddenly explode outward from within him. But it is anger which causes a much greater amount of imbalance in the soul’s elements than any of the other traits, for the entire essence of anger is that it is an explosion, where things spin out of control. That is the essence of anger, being that anger stems from the aspect of fire which jumps and sparks.

Anger thus causes general imbalance in the soul. Understandably, the imbalance will depend on how intense the anger is; the more intense the anger is, the more imbalanced his soul will become. That is one part of the destructiveness of anger: it causes imbalance in the soul.

An additional problem that results from anger is that it causes a person to temporarily lose his mind. The Sages say, “Whoever becomes angry, his wisdom is removed.” Elsewhere the Gemara says, “Whoever becomes angry, he forgets his Torah learning, and his foolishness in increased.”[4]

The Gemara says that Bilaam knew the exact time where Hashem is angered. Bilaam’s power in evil is equal in strength to the holiness of Moshe Rabbeinu [in order to allow free will]. The quality of Moshe Rabbeinu, which is da’as[5], was paralleled in the side of evil by Bilaam. Thus, anger (Bilaam) is the antithesis to da’as (Moshe).

In terms that apply to our own souls, our soul contains the faculties of chochmah (our thinking abilities) and a more subtle power of the mind, called da’as. The trait of anger, represented by “Bilaam’s anger”, stands to oppose da’as, represented by Moshe Rabbeinu. Thus, anger is the antithesis to da’as. (To a certain extent, the anger of Bilaam which challenges Moshe\da’as was able to break through at one point, where Moshe got angry once, and he came to err).

So a person’s da’as is challenged by anger, which comes to oppose it. We can see this as well in physical terms. When a person is angry, not only does he lose the ability of wisdom at the moment, but he can’t weigh out information properly; he can’t work through his thoughts properly. He loses his ability to have any shikul hada’as (weighing out the thoughts).

The Gemara says that anger can cause a person to break things in his anger. This is when the anger has hit its extreme point. But even if a person doesn’t get to that point where he is breaking things in his anger, the very fact that he is in the midst of an angry explosion will compromise on his ability to think properly at that moment. He loses his ability of shikul hada’as, to weigh out his thoughts properly and work through his thoughts; in other words, he loses his da’as.

From a deeper understanding, this is because da’as enables a person to have balance in his soul. When the “fire” of anger is out of control, he loses balance in the soul, and this causes him to temporarily lose his da’as. We can see that when another person becomes very angry, or if we find ourselves getting very angry, chas v’shalom, we can see that to some extent, there is a temporary insanity.

This is one of the destructive effects of anger: it causes a person to lose his mind temporarily, where he cannot work through his thoughts properly. Besides for the negative use of anger itself, anger causes a person to lose his ability of shikul hada’as. When Achashveirosh woke up the day after he had Vashti executed, the Megillah says that “his wrath had subsided”. He got back his ability to think properly and then he realized all that he had done. From this we see that when a person is angry, he loses his ability to think calmly.

The greater the anger, the more a person’s da’as will leave him. It is written, “He tears up his soul in his anger.” It is said that when a person is angry, “his soul leaves him” - in other words, his ability to have any holy da’as leaves him. That is why if a person is constantly drawn towards anger, when he is one who is “easily angered and difficult to appease”, his ability of shikul hada’as is weakened. In contrast, one who has a stronger ability to maintain his da’as will be much less drawn after anger.

In different terms, da’as is an ability that fosters connection [for da’as is known as the connecting force; “chibbur”], whereas anger is a force that causes separation. The stronger one’s da’as, the more he can remain connected and anchored to himself, staying centered within himself, and anger will have much less of an effect on him; it won’t shake him up as much.

Thus, da’as accomplishes the ability to stay connected to oneself (connection\chibbur) and it also enables a person to carefully think through his thoughts (shikul hada’as\weighing out the thoughts). These abilities are also known as da’as d’chibbur (the ability of the da’as to foster connection), and da’as d’hachraah (the ability of the da’as to decide). Anger uproots both of these aspects of da’as. It doesn’t enable a person to think properly and it causes a person to lose his sense of centeredness.

The stronger the anger, the more a person becomes shaken up to his core. We can see that when a person is very angered, his whole body is shaking. To illustrate the idea further, if there are two good friends, Reuven and Shimeon, who enjoy a very close friendship, and one day Reuven becomes very angry at Shimon, the display of anger can ruin their entire relationship, shaking the foundation of the relationship at its core. All of the other negative character traits can cause disarray, but they don’t cause as dramatic as an effect as anger. Anger creates a tension which can shake a person’s power of connection, on a core level.

Thus it follows that the more a person can maintain his power of weighing out his thoughts properly and his connectedness to himself, the more his anger is weakened, and anger will have less of an effect on him. Therefore, one of the ways to weaken anger is by developing an ability to maintain control of one’s da’as, in these two aspects that were mentioned: through maintaining one’s ability to have shikul hadaas\weighing out the thoughts, and to make sure to stay centered within the self even amidst the anger, which is called chibbur\connectedness.

Anger - A Loss of Inner Calm

There is another deep problem which results from the destructiveness of anger. This matter will only be relevant, however, to those who have already matured in their inner worlds.

The more internal that a person becomes, the more he maintains his inner calm (his “sheket”). This is based on the verse, “For Hashem is not found in a stormy wind, nor is Hashem found in a noise, but in a soft, subtle sound.” The soul, in its higher root, dwells in a level that is a “kol demamah dakah” (a soft, subtle sound). The more a person feels pressured, the more “noise” the soul feels, and that it cannot find any peace. It will feel disturbed and it will lose its calm source that it comes from.

First we will point out that some people are born with a quieter nature, and some people are born with a louder nature, and this depends on the personality that is part of their nefesh habehaimis.[6] Sometimes a loud personality is a lack of refinement in the person, and sometimes it is positive and constructive; and sometimes a quiet, calm personality can be constructive and sometimes it is not. This is all true regarding only with regards to a difference in personality, which is the area of the nefesh habehaimis. But here we are not dealing with a quiet kind of personality that stems from one’s nefesh habehaimis; here we are dealing with the inner world of a person, which thrives on a deeper and internal kind of calmness.

The more internal that a person becomes, the more inner sheket he develops. Sometimes the quiet calmness that he gains will be manifest in his external part of life, which will mean that he lives a quieter kind of life, and sometimes, the circumstances of his life require him to be placed in a louder environment; this depends on what his own personal soul root is. But once a person develops his inner sheket, he can always maintain it, whether his life is quiet or noisy.

In order for a person to have any proper amount of shikul hadaas (to think over things properly), he needs inner sheket for this. If one has sheket, he becomes more of a bar daas, more capable of daas, and he will be able to think on his own; this is the meaning of the verse, “From my flesh I see G-d.”

Sometimes a person is in a noisy environment and it is hard to concentrate on something that he needs to think about; when people are in a noisy street or in the supermarket or when they are at a noisy wedding, and they need to concentrate on something important, they will usually find a quieter place to think. But if a person maintains his inner sheket, he can remain connected to his inner world even as he is in a noisier place, and he can think calmly and make proper decisions even as he’s in that noisy place.

Sheket (inner calm) is the root of the inner world; an inner kind of life is based on the ability to have sheket. It is also known as menuchah (serenity). The Torah attributes the quality of menuchah to Yissocher, who is compared to the donkey, in his exertion of Torah learning, for he “saw that serenity was good.” The simple meaning of this is that a Torah scholar finds his menuchah in exertion of Torah learning. However, the deeper meaning of it is that that even one’s exertion in Torah needs to stem from a calming energy of an inner sheket\calmness deep in the soul.

It is only the outer layer of Torah learning where there must be exertion in Torah learned in a “fiery” manner, the “war of Torah” where sages and scholars argue and debate the words of Torah, where the discussions and arguments can get quite heated. This is in line with the verse, “Are My words not like fire, so says Hashem.” The Torah is a fiery, and Torah learning is learned in a fiery manner. But all of this is present in the outer layer of Torah learning. The inner core of Torah learning is actually a place of inner calm; of sheket. A person’s exertion in Torah learning, in order for it to be genuine, needs to stem from there. Otherwise, he lacks sheket\menuchah in his exertion of Torah learning.

The inner world inside a person is a very calm place. The more inward that a person becomes, the calmer he becomes inside himself.

There are many Torah scholars and even Gedolim who had to engage in actions that were very “loud” and far from quiet - shouting and screaming the words of Torah in the beis midrash - but they were still amazingly calm inside themselves. At one moment they were involved in the “fire of Torah”, and two minutes later, they were able to decide upon a life-and-death issue, and to think about it very calmly.

This could only have been possible due to an amazing ability to maintain their inner sheket. If they could make the transition so easily from fiery debates to utterly calm thinking, this could only have been possible due to the place of deep, inner sheket in themselves which they reached. They were able to be involved with the “fire” and in the “war” of Torah, in the heated arguments of Torah learning, and immediately return to a deep inner silence in themselves as soon as they needed to. This ability of sheket is what determines the true greatness of a person.

This is also the depth of what the Sages describe as one who is “Difficult to anger, and easily appeased.” How does a person attain a level in which he is “easily appeased”? When one has developed a place of calmness inside himself, he can easily return to the calmness, and that is how he can easily overcome anger.

There are also additional reasons of how one overcomes anger: by arousing compassion, or love for others; and other reasons that would help a person forgive. But the deep power to be appeased is due to having an inner sheket. When one develops sheket in his soul, even if he is the type to be easily angered, it will be easy for him to immediately return to his sheket, and to become “easily appeased”.

Anger, however, causes a person to lose his inner sheket. Sometimes a person gets into an argument at home with his spouse, and he got so angry that he can’t think straight for the whole day; he comes to yeshiva and he can’t concentrate on his learning the entire morning. This is all because the anger caused him to have turmoil inside himself, which disturbs his inner sheket.

There are also people who can’t concentrate properly for several days, after they are angered. Even when they try to force themselves to concentrate on their Torah learning, they aren’t able to concentrate that well, and they aren’t able to learn with nearly as much clarity.

Understandably, all people go through disturbances. But the more a person refines his inner world, the more he is sensitive to maintaining yishuv hadaas (peace of mind) and sheket. He feels an “inner noise” in his system when he is disturbed by external factors, and he will find that he cannot concentrate so easily. This is because he is sensitive to the need for sheket, so he cannot simply dismiss the disturbances to his sheket which he is feeling inside himself.

When a person is dealing with noise from the outside, he can disconnect from the surroundings and return to his inner calmness. That helps for outer and external noises, but if the noise is taking place inside himself, if there is “inner noise”, how does a person disconnect from this? If the noise is found within, he will need to have a deeper kind of disconnection.

Some people are not disturbed by noises. They can learn Torah with concentration even amidst a hustling marketplace. Others have a harder time disconnecting from physical noises, and they can’t concentrate unless the surroundings are quiet. This is a matter which depends on a person’s soul root, and it also can depend on one’s spiritual level; but we are not discussing this matter here. Here we are discussing “inner noise”. How does a person disconnect himself from the “inner noise” that is created from anger which he experiences?

If the inner noise feels very intense and chaotic, it will be most difficult for any normal person to concentrate. And the more inward that a person is, the more he values his inner sheket and yishuv hadaas[7], he is acutely disturbed by situations of anger. The more anger that he experiences, the more inner disturbances he will feel. It will be influenced by two factors: the intensity of the anger, as well as by the quality of his sheket. When there is a lot of anger and he also gained a lot of inner sheket, the inner disturbance will feel sharper.

Sometimes when a person has a lot of inner sheket, even the smallest inner noise can disturb him. Sometimes it works in the opposite way: because he has so much inner sheket, a small noise won’t be able to take away him away from that calmness which he has nurtured inside himself. It will depend on what kind of personality he has.

In either case, though, anger causes disturbance to the inner world of a person. It causes a person to lose the root of his inner world on the current level that he is found at. This is the depth of “He tears up his soul in his anger.” The soul leaves a person when he is angry because the “kol demamah dakah” of his soul goes lost from him.

Guarding Your Inner Calm

In order to deal with this, one will need to absorb the following perspective about the essence of our life.

When a person lives superficially, he is only concerned with keeping the 613 mitzvos. A person who lives more inwardly is also concerned with fixing his middos. If he is a deeper kind of person than this, he is concerned with the quality of his Torah learning. When a person is living a life of Torah learning, he needs to be constantly vigilant of how connected he is to the Creator, to the Torah, and to the Jewish people. That is where his soul is found, and that is how he measures his spiritual level of performance. These are things that a person cares about when he is living very deeply and inwardly; this is his inner world that he values.

When this is his concern, as soon as he begins to get angered, he can remind himself that it’s not worth it to get dragged after the anger, because if he does so, he will be losing the calmness of his entire inner world that he values so much.

This is a totally different approach than anything mentioned earlier. We are not describing here a mere definition, or something to know about intellectually; nor are we describing here another piece of advice of how to control anger (which we have started to explain in the previous chapters, and which we will continue to explain, with the help of Hashem). This is a whole different kind of power to deal with anger.

The more a person allows himself to be dragged into anger, he loses his inner calmness, and he loses any connection he has to his inner world. Getting dragged after anger will mean that he is losing his connection to sheket. Thus if he can realize that getting dragged after anger will cause him to lose his inner world in the process, there is a much better chance he will have in preventing himself from getting dragged after the anger.

It will still depend on how strong the anger, and on what external factor caused the anger, and in many other factors as well. But if he can be aware that getting dragged into the anger will cause him to lose his inner calm, he has a strong incentive to avoid the anger. Even when he will be dragged after the anger, he will immediately want to return to his sheket that he has veered off track from, he can be “easily appeased”, because he is strongly motivated to maintain his sheket.

Methods Of Maintaining Inner Calm When You Are Angered

How indeed can a person calm down after he has been angered by another person?

(1) One possibility is that if he has developed a high degree of sheket within himself, this will make him want to easily return to it, as soon as he feels that he is losing it. Either he won’t want to get angry and immediately calm himself, because he doesn’t want to lose his sheket; or he will immediately return to the sheket if he is angered, because since he has a high degree of sheket, he is immediately drawn back towards it.

(2) The other possibility is that he can push himself to get back his sheket, using any of the following approaches: (A) -By arousing compassion[8] for the person who angered him, (B) Or by awakening a love[9] for the person who angered him, (C) Or out of strengthening his emunah[10] that everything that happens is from Hashem.

Using any of these approaches, a person can quickly return to his inner sheket when he begins to become angered. He does not want to lose his sheket, and it will bother him too much if he loses it – so it’s worth for him to overcome his anger rather than lose his entire connection to his inner world.

The Conditions For This Solution

In order for this to work, though, one has to already have a genuine connection to the inner world, to live with deep inner sheket inside himself; to the point that he realizes that getting angry will take away his life from him, that it feels like he is being taken away from his inner world.

If a person understands this only on an intellectual level, it will be almost useless to him to try to use this approach to avoid anger. It can only work for a person who has a palpable feeling of the concept here that we described. That can only be a person who lives the inner world, and he is fully aware that anger causes him to lose his inner world. He will then have a much easier time preventing himself from getting dragged after anger, and even if he does get angered, he will quickly be able to return to his inner calm.

The Deep Solution To Overcome Anger

There is much advice that can help a person overcome anger, which we have begun to explain in previous chapters and which we will continue to explain the coming chapters (with the help of Hashem); but the depth behind all of these solutions is this - to be aware that anger makes us lose the entire connection that we have with our inner world.

Why is this the depth of all solutions to fixing anger? We will illustrate it through the following.

When some people become angered, they try overcoming their feelings of anger, and they feel as if they are fighting a war within themselves. It feels like a tough battle, and it feels very difficult to overcome the anger. Let’s say that the person is trying to overcome his anger by awakening a love for the other person. He knows that he shouldn’t be getting angry at the person, and he might indeed contain in himself a deep love for others, so he is aware that getting angry others will contradict his love for others. So he “fights” the anger in himself, trying to awaken the love, in order to fight the pain of the inner contradiction he feels. In another scenario, a person will fight the anger he feels in himself by reminding himself that he is supposed to have emunah. In another scenario, a person will fight with his anger by trying to arouse his compassion on the other. There can be other reasons as well why a person fights the anger. But the deep reason of why a person should fight his anger is because it causes him to lose his inner sheket, because losing his sheket will mean that he has lost his connection to his inner world.

If one is aware of this, he has much more of an incentive to avoid getting pulled further and further into the anger, and he is much closer to returning to his sheket after he gets angry.

In Conclusion

If one lives by these definitions, he will find that he no longer feels a pull to involve himself in the disagreements of other people that having nothing to do with him, and he will naturally avoid getting into arguments with others.

He will acquire a power of bittul (self-nullification) to his soul’s abilities, where he will not feel a need to voice his opinion on all matters, and he will find it easier to silence himself if someone insults him, and he will not feel a need to respond back: “Those who hear their disgrace and do not answer, are as strong as the sun in its zenith.” He will learn how to naturally stay outside of matters that are not his place to be involved in.

Getting used to living by these concepts is a general method of rectifying anger, but it will especially weaken the kind of anger which stems from water-of-water-of-fire, preventing himself from getting “dragged” after anger.