Episode 110: The empty canoe

The Zen master Charlotte Joko Beck talks about the empty canoe in her book, "Everyday Zen." It's a simple metaphor that reveals a profound truth about the human experience of anger: it requires the imputation of agency in order to flourish. If you remove the imputation of agency -- picture an empty canoe drifting mysteriously through the fog -- then the experience of anger will vanish shortly thereafter. If the universe is empty, why populate it with the ingredients of our own frustration?