The Empty Boat — On Anger and the Stories We Tell

This morning I almost got hit.

Riding my bike through an intersection, an e-bike suddenly swerved from the right. I swerved, missed it by inches. My heart raced. A burst of anger shot through me — instant, hot, reflexive.

Then I remembered the empty boat.

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Zhuangzi tells a story. You're crossing a river in a small boat. Another boat drifts downstream and crashes into yours.

If there's someone in that other boat, you shout: "Hey! Watch where you're going!" You're angry. Maybe you curse at them.

But if the boat is empty — no one aboard, just drifting with the current — what happens?

You don't get angry. You push it away with your pole and keep rowing.

Zhuangzi says: if a person can empty themselves and drift through the world, who could possibly harm them?

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I thought about this afterwards, and I realized Zhuangzi isn't giving me a lecture about whether anger is justified.

He's pointing out something more subtle: my anger isn't something someone else gives me. I manufacture it myself.

When that e-bike nearly hit me, I had no idea who was riding it. I didn't know if they were rushing to work, if they were a nervous beginner, or if they simply weren't paying attention. But I was instantly furious.

The reason I was furious: "How could this person do that?" — I assumed there was a deliberate agent on the other side.

But what if the boat was empty? What if it was just the wind that pushed it into my path?

Would I still be angry?

Probably not.

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So the core of anger isn't the event itself. It's my interpretation of the event.

I assume "someone is on the other side" — someone deliberate, someone disrespectful, someone who chose to offend me. That assumption is the fuel.

Zhuangzi isn't saying "don't get angry." He's not offering a platitude.

He's simply reminding me: your anger is built on a story. The story says "someone is over there."

What if that story isn't true?

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Of course, Zhuangzi isn't telling us to be numb.

If someone hits you, dodge. If someone endangers you, shout. Protecting yourself is instinct, and it's right.

But anger has a way of lingering long after the moment has passed. That e-bike was gone in seconds. But my anger could burn all day.

A whole day of burning — and it's not even about that person anymore. I don't even know who they are.

It's about the story my mind wrote.

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I think what we call "practice" — whatever form it takes — is slowly learning to see this.

Not to stop feeling anger, but to notice it. To see the story underneath it: "someone is over there."

And then, gently, to tell yourself: maybe that was just an empty boat.

The water is calm this evening. The wind passes through. Everything moves on.