On Having Buttons

"When Our Buttons Are Pushed"

Each of us has "buttons" -- areas where we are sensitive.  When our buttons are pushed, we fly off the handle, blaming the other person for upsetting us. But our being upset is a dependently arising process.  We contribute the buttons, and the other person does the pushing.  If we didn't have the buttons, others couldn't push them.

Our buttons are our responsibility.  As long as we have them, someone will push them, especially since they are big, red, and flashing.  Our buttons are so sensitive, that even if a person walks by, the breeze from his passage will trigger our button's detector and our alarm will ring, "That person is offending (harming, criticizing, deceiving, manipulating, cheating, etc.) me!"  Although many times people have no intention of harming us, our buttons get pushed just because they are so sensitive.

We need to do internal research, asking ourselves what our buttons are and why we are so sensitive in those particular areas.  Our sensitivity generally has to do with attachment.  If we are able to identify and then reduce our attachments, our buttons shrink.  Then even if someone wants to push them, doing so is harder.  Realized spiritual beings have no buttons left to push, so no matter how others treat them, they do not become upset.

We may think that if someone deliberately insults us, it's correct to be angry. However, such thinking is illogical.  We would be giving our power to the other person, in which case his intention -- which we cannot control -- would be governing our happiness and suffering.  Whether or not another person wishes us ill does not matter.  We still have a choice whether to be offended.  The less we are attached, for example, to praise and reputation, the less miffed we will become, because our mind will not interpret situations as personal assaults.

Thubten Chodron
"Working With Anger"
2001