Touchy-Feely Buddha-Bullshit

I've recently had the opportunity to debate a well-known author in a Zen related subject. I won't give his name because i'm not sure he would want that without his permission and I don't want to give him free advertisement. His argument was that our true selves were peace, joy, happiness, and wisdom. He went on to say that anger and aggression are learned behaviors that need to be unlearned.

Now that's when I had something to say, anger and aggression are indeed natural in humans. Those are found in us for good reasons too. Imagine having to live without those in a primitive world where everyday is kill or be killed. Without aggression, you're going to die pretty quickly. If humanity only had joy-joy feelings all of the time, we would have gone extinct thousands of years ago.

So why do so many authors on the subject preach only about the happy stuff? Because that's what sells books. They spend so much time and effort telling you that anger, sadness, hostility, pain, all of those negative thing shouldn't exist, and if they do, it's your own fault and you can change, with their help of course. A lot of these self-appointed experts in Buddhism, Zen, or whatever, are simply interested in money. When I made a point to the author, he actually countered my argument by trying to sell me a book. No shit. He was obviously more concerned with book sales than he was with providing a decent argument on his part.

All those "negative" emotions and feeling are a part of life. There's nothing you can do about it. To deny that would be to deny yourself. These authors use this as a marketing strategy, it works like this, they write a book saying that it's your fault you are so miserable, they are so happy, here's how to be happy like them. Now when their advice doesn't work, it's already been established that it's your own fault, so you buy another book. And so on and so on...

The real secret is to find a positive outlet for those emotions, whether it be through art, a hobby, or work. That's it. Take the "bad" and try to turn it into "good", don't tell yourself it's wrong to have those feelings, it's not.