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Intro to “Robert Thurman on Anger”

7 March 2005

Now that winter is beginning to fade, Renaissance (that is, re-birth) metaphors begin to seem appropriate. In Michael Ignatieff’s speech to last week’s Liberal Convention (upcoming on Goodreads) he spoke of Canada being a ray of light to a gloomy world.

The world, immersed in a metaphorical winter of cold hearts, gloomy and dark, seeks the light of a metaphorical summer. But we’re all awash in various forms of anger, anger that’s broken down into a discussion of Us vs. Them, and everyone, always and everywhere, sees themselves united through blood, culture, skin colour, and common dreams into some kind of Us. All the anger in the world towards injustice certainly exists for a reason, but let’s consider how we deal with our anger.

To this end, I want to bring you this link to a conversation between Michael Enright and Robert Thurman, the Buddhist scholar, that aired last month on CBC1′s The Sunday Edition.