I've been reading and relishing Ram Dass's book: Paths of Gods. And I just came upon a part where he talks about the emotions. He writes about welcoming them and even invites us to be grateful when someone pushes our buttons, which is so radical and powerful.

And since I had been teaching about this all week, I thought of quoting him, his exact words. All the italics are his.

Enjoy:

Take another example- anger. When somebody makes me mad, I am really fierce! But as I am doing my "fierce thing," as the adrenaline is starting to pump, and I'm getting into my roaaaarrrr!- suddenly, the cosmic humor of the situation starts to sneak in. I hear Maharajji saying 'Got you again!' Because we only get angry when someone disconfirms our expectations, when they upset our models of the way we think things ought to be. And since our strategy in this game is to ferret out exactly those places in ourselves where we are clinging to models of this or that, what more could we ask than for people to come along and wake us up yet again? If they can get us furious- isn't that nice of them? Isn't that a compassionate act? It's not necessarily a consciously compassionate act on their part, but from our point of view, it's a compassionate act nonetheless."

Ram Dass's "Paths of God: Living the Bhagavad Gita"

(2004)