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Frustration and Anger: I Would Shout

ore than a decade before coming to Dharamsala, I was driving with
the Archbishop in Jacksonville, Florida—in traffic. You could say
that this was, in fact, one of my major motivations for wanting to work
with him. To understand: How does a deeply spiritual and moral leader
drive in traffic?
We had left the house, where we had earlier recorded an interview
sitting by the alligator pond, dangling our feet precariously close to the
hungry water. We stopped off at the Boston Market restaurant chain for a
quick lunch, where he had gone out of his way to greet and say hello to all
of the employees, who were in awe of their celebrity customer who was
ordering chicken and mashed potatoes. We were on our way to the
university where he was a guest lecturer, and I was interviewing him as
we drove, trying to use every precious moment of our time together to
gather his pearls of wisdom. We were talking about many high-minded
philosophies and theologies, but what I really wanted to know was how
all his spiritual practice and beliefs affected his day-to-day interactions,
like driving in traffic.
All of a sudden a car cut across the lanes in front of us and the
Archbishop had to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting the other car.
“There are some truly amazing drivers on the road!” the Archbishop said
with exasperation and a head-shaking chuckle.
I asked him what went through his head at moments like this, and he
said that perhaps the driver was on his way to the hospital because his
wife was giving birth, or a relative was sick.
There it was. He reacted with the inevitable and uncontrollable
surprise, which is one of our instinctual responses, but then instead of
taking the low road of anger, he took the high road of humor, acceptance,
and even compassion. And it was gone: no fuming, no lingering
frustration, no raised blood pressure.