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Decades of applying Buddhism in the very real-life world of his psychiatric practice has given Ron Leifer, M.D., a unique insight into the ways that Tibetan Buddhist ideas can work to address the issues and difficulties of Westerners. These excerpts are adapted from his new book Vinegar into Honey.

Opening the heart is not a kind of knowledge. It is a way of being in the world.

The desire to open the heart, like all desires, generates obstacles. The desire to open can make us dissatisfied with our condition of being closed and not yet open. We could become disappointed with ourselves and, to compensate, become heedlessly self-revealing, impulsive, and foolish. An irony worth pondering is that dropping the desire to open and paying attention to Now is itself an opening.

If we close to pain we must close to other people, for they may frustrate our desires. I recall a friend who thought that if he meditated faithfully every day he would become enlightened. He thought he would become wise, admired, and happy, a great achievement of which he could be proud. When his children or wife made noise while he was meditating, which happened regularly, he would rudely shout: "Keep quiet! Can't you see that I'm trying to meditate!" He became angry because they were spoiling his happiness project to let go of his happiness projects. Be prepared! The desire to open your heart will be frustrated by people and situations that threaten your deeply held desires and aversions. Regard these moments of frustration as opportunities to look into yourself more deeply and to respond more skillfully.

Ron Leifer, M.D.

A closed heart is closed to the possibility of not getting what it wants, closed to the possibility of having to accept what it doesn't want, and closed to the idea that it is not the center of the world. Imagine the owner of a room, his own private room, who tries to collect and keep everything he wants in his room and to wall off and keep outside everything he doesn't want. In the same way, the closed heart builds a defensive wall around itself to keep the wanted in and the unwanted out. It wants to feel control over its life and environs and so, unwittingly, creates its own prison from which it then seeks release.

Having walled itself off from everything outside the room, the closed heart is closed to the complexities and ambiguities of life. Things are black and white. Either I like it and I am for it and will let it in, or I don't like it and I am against it and will keep it out. The problem, as we have noted, is that dualistic mind projects antithetical qualities onto everything. Actually, nothing is completely positive or completely negative. All the people we love have both positive and negative qualities, virtues we admire and flaws we can't stand. Shall we let them in or keep them out? (Or keep them in when they are good and throw them out when they are bad?)

The closed heart is a lonely heart. It rejects the "not-me." This rejection manifests in all of our lives sometimes. Everyone, after a deep loss, a miserable quarrel, a painful rejection, or a humiliating public failure has felt the temptation to wall off the heart and never risk such pain again. Because life is so often painful, most of us develop boundaries and defenses that we hope will protect us from situations that might be intolerably hurtful. These boundaries and defenses must be porous, however, or we would be unable to connect to other people or open to life. Because we know that loved ones may leave us or die, and that our happiness projects may fail, we must decide whether to open to suffering or to encase ourselves within defensive strategies so tightly woven that our capacity for life and love is strangled.

Ultimately, at some level, the rejection of the not-me means being suspicious or rejecting of everybody. At some point in the development of the human individual, even mother becomes a not-me. The closed heart is haunted by paranoia. Closing to people leads to the feeling that they are rejecting you, even that they are after you. Why shouldn't they reject you? You have rejected them! And the more hurt they are by your rejection of them, the more they will be after you.

The closed heart is a state of strong attachment and is therefore vulnerable to feelings of frustration, helplessness, and anxiety which can ignite anger, aggression, and violence. Self-interest is the root. To the extent that our thoughts and actions are driven by conscious or hidden wishes, our hearts are closed.

Opening the heart is a direct antidote to anger, aggression, and violence. Opening the heart means centering, finding the balance between head and heart. It means letting go of what we want but cannot have, opening to the unwanted that we cannot avoid, and cultivating a sincere sense of humility rather than prideful self-interest.

How Anger Arises

Try to feel your way back into the situation. What happened? What did you feel? How did you react? What did you do and say? How did it work out? Why were you angry? Ponder these three critical questions: "What did I want that I didn't get?" "What was I getting that I didn't want?" "How did I feel about myself?" Remember these questions. Reflect on them. It takes a while to see more deeply into them. They are the key to understanding your anger. Pause here and reflect.

Everything that has been discussed so far can be summed up in this axiom: The energy of anger is fueled by our desires, our aversions, and our self-interest. The more self-righteous and insistent are our desires and aversions, and the more vigorously we defend ourselves, the hotter the flames of anger will be. The more flexible we are, the more gracefully willing we are to give up what we want but cannot have and to open to what we don't want but cannot avoid, the more humble we are, the less likely we are to become angry, aggressive, or violent. This is the formula for turning the vinegar of anger into the honey of clarity and peace of mind.

In this exercise, try to clearly recall and identify the feelings that arose when you became angry. Again, don't judge, blame, or justify; simply acknowledge them. This is an important step. The more clearly we are aware of our feelings, the more skillfully we can work with them. The problem is that our desires and aversions are sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle and puzzling. Our physical desires are easy to recognize when they are frustrated. When we are hungry and become angry because the restaurant service is slow, it's not hard to figure out that our desire for food is being frustrated. When we are in a hurry and the traffic is slow, a little introspection will reveal that our desire is to drive faster and get to our destination more quickly. Physical desires are the easiest to identify, but they are the less frequent and more benign causes of anger. Our ego desires are trickier.