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From ChatGPT on Feb 4

Thich Nhat Hanh frequently teaches that when afflictive emotions arise—such as anger, hatred, or despair—the key is not to see another person as the enemy but rather to turn our attention to the emotion itself with mindfulness and compassion. He encourages us to regard anger not as something to be suppressed or projected outward onto another person but as an internal experience that can be held, understood, and transformed.

A passage that closely aligns with what you are recalling comes from Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, where he writes:

“When someone makes us suffer, we believe that if we can punish them, things will feel better. But, in fact, the more we punish them, the more we create suffering for ourselves. The way to transform our anger is to take care of it. We take care of our anger by looking deeply into its roots—usually a lack of understanding, a misperception, or an old wound that has not yet healed.”

He often uses the metaphor of anger as a crying baby. If a baby is crying, we don’t try to punish the baby; we pick them up, hold them, and soothe them. Similarly, when anger arises, instead of directing blame outward, we practice mindful breathing and embrace our anger with awareness: “Hello, my anger, I know you are there, and I am here to take care of you.”

In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, he emphasizes that emotions like anger are impermanent, arising due to conditions. Instead of reacting, he suggests looking at anger as an energy we can observe and understand, asking: “What is the root of this? Is it in me? Is it in the other person? Is it a misunderstanding?”

He also warns against believing that happiness depends on changing external conditions or other people’s behavior. In Peace Is Every Step, he reminds us:

“Blaming never helps. When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. Perhaps it needs more water or fertilizer. Never blame, never argue. Just practice understanding.”

So, to your question—where do we place our attention? Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us to bring it back to the emotion itself, rather than to the person or external condition we believe caused it. We turn inward with mindfulness, observing our feelings with care, and through this practice, we can transform our suffering rather than fueling it with blame.