441. If someone is already tamed, leads a blameless life, freed from defilements with true understanding, calmed, has an unshaken mind, and is devoid of anger, how does anger arise in him?
442. The person who gets angry at another angry person loses his own wellbeing. But the person who does not get angry at another angry person wins the battle of defilements that is hard to win.
443. Knowing the other person is angry, if one is mindfully patient, he is the one who acts for the benefit of both parties of himself and of the other.
444. There are some foolish people who don’t understand the value of this great Dhamma. They consider the person who acts for the benefit of both parties without getting angry to be a fool.
445. Therefore, if anger should arise in you, you should reflect upon the simile of the saw preached by the Buddha. (That is, you should not get angry even if someone cuts your limbs off with a saw.) If craving for tastes should arise in you, remember the simile of the child’s flesh. (That is, think about how the parents crossing the desert felt when, after their only child died, they decided to eat his flesh in order to pass through the desert alive.)
446. If your mind runs among sensual pleasures and existences, quickly restrain it with mindfulness, as one restrains a bad cow from eating corn in a field.
These verses were said by Arahant Brahmadatta.
