Susan Edmiston, a former editor at Redbook and Glamour, writes for New York, The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, Esquire, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Women's Day. She lives in Berkeley, California.
Leonard Scheff, a successful trial lawyer in Tucson, Arizona, is also a practicing Buddhist who, for the last fifteen years, has conducted seminars on managing anger.
The Cow in the Parking Lot: A Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger
eBook
-
ISBN-13:
9780761161981
- Publisher: Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
- Publication date: 06/24/2010
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 197
- Sales rank: 177,297
- File size: 2 MB
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Imagine you’re circling a crowded parking lot. Just as you spot a space, another driver races ahead and takes it. In a world of road rage, domestic violence, and professionally angry TV and radio commentators, your likely response is anger, even fury. Now imagine that instead of another driver, a cow has lumbered into that parking space and settled down. Your anger dissolves into bemusement. What has changed? Not just the occupant of the space but your perspective on the situation.
We’re a society swimming in anger, always about to snap. Using simple, understandable Buddhist principles, Scheff and Edmiston explain how to replace anger with happiness. They introduce the four kinds of demands that most commonly underlie anger (Important and Reasonable, Reasonable but Unimportant, Irrational, and Impossible), then show how to identify our real unmet demands, dissolve our anger, and change what happens when our buttons are pushed. We learn to laugh at ourselves, a powerful early step, and realize that others don’t make us angry. Only we can make ourselves angry.
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Quite a lot, if your day-to-day life involves finding yourself in a situation where you might succumb to feelings of frustration or anger.
The Cow in the Parking Lot, by Leonard Scheff and Susan Edmiston, says you can manage your anger in a positive way through the power of Buddhism. So when a colleague screws up, a donor pulls out or a charity campaign misfires, reach for the yoga mat, assume the meditation position and chant your cares away ...
You may be wondering where the cow comes in. Well, imagine you're in a supermarket car park, circling for that elusive space. You find one, but before you can reverse in, someone else has swiped it. Now imagine that, instead of another driver, a cow has lumbered into the space and settled down. Your anger dissolves into bemusement.
Scheff and Edmiston explain that once we understand our anger "buttons", we can defuse a situation if they're pushed. Alternatively, just picture the cause of your frustration - be it a boss, colleague or donor - as a docile cow. That will soon have you smiling.
- Emma De Vita is books editor of Management Today