Equanimity for anger: creating space for difficult emotions – Psychiatry in sacred texts

The American novelist and journalist Christopher Morley (1890–1957) once declared that ‘The size of a man is measured by the size of what makes him angry.’ How anger affects us is proportional to the mental space in which we hold it. The more mentally capacious and elastic we are, the more anger, or any difficult emotion, loses its force. So, when asked what size he would be, Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, in philosopher Martin Buber's account, responded to the question this way: ‘Long ago,’ he said, ‘I conquered my anger and placed it in my pocket. When I have need of it, I take it out.’ In his equanimity, Rabbi Pinchas does not banish anger, but acts always in such a way that he is bigger than it and can appropriately and flexibly access it.