Ron Leifer is a psychiatrist who founded the Ithaca Dharma Society and teaches meditation. He describes his intention for this paperback and the meaning of the title early in the book:

"(It) is a seven-step approach to transforming the vinegar of anger, aggression, and violence into honey. 'Honey' is a metaphor for a state which, while one cannot call it happiness as we ordinarily understand it, opens into a space of acceptance of the facts of life with inner equanimity and equilibrium. It is a state of openness to both the goodness and pain of life, and of sympathy for everyone, because we all live in the same human predicament."

Violence has been with us throughout human history but it reached new heights in the twentieth century with wars, ethnic and religious brutality, and the use of weapons of mass destruction. It is lamentable that more has not been done to stem the tide of aggression. Leifer presents his overview of human nature and concludes that anger, aggression, and violence are "fight responses to a perceived threat to the sense of self and its happiness projects."

He moves on to his seven-step guide to understanding and transforming the energy of anger, which includes awareness, taking responsibility, reflection, and letting go. He has some cogent things to say about hypermentation; the ways in which our desires, our aversion, and our self-interest fuel violence; the important role of patience in coping with suffering; and the challenge of relaxing and remaining serene when things are going badly for us and we are stressed out. Leifer concludes with a tribute to the practice of opening the heart:

"If we are to transform the energy of anger, we must open to it. Opening the heart means opening to our anger and our pain as well as to pleasure. It means opening to frustration, failure, and death which we all experience. If we close to pain we must close to life because pain is a part of life; it is an underside to every experience, if only because everything changes. The Japanese have a phrase for the experience of life, mono no aware, which means 'bittersweet.' "