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Hatred...a deep hinderance of mine
It is becoming more apparent to me that I harbor a deep reservoir of hatred. It does not really surface in my day to day encounters with people, it is below the surface. Ignorance, hatred and greed...the three poisons. Seems hatred is the one I must learn to deal with now, as if Im chipping away my defilements and hatred is the most protruding now. If I could gain some attainment on it, another would become the most obvious.
I hate the ways of the world...as in the unkind and stingy powerful who run the world. I hate the little, almost subconscious power games people play with each other. It deflates me so much I cannot enjoy life at all sometimes. I hate even myself because of my imperfections. At times, I find myself seething alone, wanting to never speak to another ever again. For years I abused alcohol to help me forget about it. Reminds me of the cold hells of samsara, which I basically exist in.
I wish I could deal with what bothers me as it comes along, instead of just letting people basically get away with hurting me. At the moment, it seems like Im being agreeable, but immediately afterwards, I realize I should of stood up for myself. By then it is too late. The moment has past and I feel unable to concentrate on what I want to because I replay the moment again and again in my mind.
Here's a bit of a description of one phenomenon, I have workmates who endlessly talk about sex, show pictures of their naked wives (without their wives permission), in loud voices endlessly describe their sexual desires and conquests, etc. By the end of the day, I get home and want nothing to do with the opposite sex because I am so turned off by it all. Which is a lie, I DO want something to do with the opposite sex, I just somehow punish myself that way because I hate all the people with whom I get annoyed at. It makes no sense, yet thats what I do!
Well, Im done ranting about this for the moment. Sometimes I find that telling others about it helps me to overcome it, often in ways I could of never imagined.
If someone has something to add, I would definitely appreciate it.
I hate the ways of the world...as in the unkind and stingy powerful who run the world. I hate the little, almost subconscious power games people play with each other. It deflates me so much I cannot enjoy life at all sometimes. I hate even myself because of my imperfections. At times, I find myself seething alone, wanting to never speak to another ever again. For years I abused alcohol to help me forget about it. Reminds me of the cold hells of samsara, which I basically exist in.
I wish I could deal with what bothers me as it comes along, instead of just letting people basically get away with hurting me. At the moment, it seems like Im being agreeable, but immediately afterwards, I realize I should of stood up for myself. By then it is too late. The moment has past and I feel unable to concentrate on what I want to because I replay the moment again and again in my mind.
Here's a bit of a description of one phenomenon, I have workmates who endlessly talk about sex, show pictures of their naked wives (without their wives permission), in loud voices endlessly describe their sexual desires and conquests, etc. By the end of the day, I get home and want nothing to do with the opposite sex because I am so turned off by it all. Which is a lie, I DO want something to do with the opposite sex, I just somehow punish myself that way because I hate all the people with whom I get annoyed at. It makes no sense, yet thats what I do!
Well, Im done ranting about this for the moment. Sometimes I find that telling others about it helps me to overcome it, often in ways I could of never imagined.
If someone has something to add, I would definitely appreciate it.
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Comments
I think that your reaction to your workmates shows that you are sane...
It might be important to see that your reactions...which are entirely understandable..are not you.
The conditions for your reactions arise, and will pass.
Dont whatever you do pretend to yourself that you dont have those reactions..that way leads to self deception.
Dont on the other hand cultivate those reactions..
Your reactions are real, normal, understandable,,,and they are not you.
They arise in great nature and they return to great nature.
Aversion is only a problem if you own it. Otherwise it is just more stuff.
In your situation specific to your workmates, try to use it as a springboard to equanimity. If you cant do that right now then look elsewhere for work.
Easier said than done but it's possible with practice. Every time you think a hateful thought just say "I forgive myself" and every time someone does something shitty say "I forgive you" and act accordingly.
It will feel fake and stupid at first but with practice it will become your nature and you won't hate anymore.
maybe this talk about skillful means could be helpful. You have some insight in your problem, and you need a skillful method of dealing with it. What comes to my mind is to make sure you meet enough nice people (to restore your confidence in human beings in general) and perhaps find some outlet for your anger (maybe some sports or some artistic expression). Anyway, I recommend the talk :-).
If you can't, can your change your colleagues?
If you can't, can you change your reaction to your colleagues?
If you can't, can you accept your reaction to your colleagues?
The last is always an option, and will eventually help you do the 3rd one. It takes work, but it's possible in even the hardest of circumstances. It just means: observe yourself when you get angry, acknowledge "I am feeling anger", and just let yourself feel that anger without attaching more anger about your anger, if you know what I mean. Eventually, your anger will pass like clouds across the sky. Once you have practiced that acceptance of anger, you will find it comes up less and less, and your reactions will change.
Peace and tranquility to you
His words: "Anger is there, take note of it and just watch how it arises, how it spreads like a mushroom, how it covers you like a blinding force; how it starts making decisions for you, how you start acting according to it. Just watch, and you will be surprised that it cannot do anything. As it arises, it will not even go to the point of becoming a mushroom because it can become a mushroom only by nourishment. By watching it you have cut the very nourishment. It will arise as a crippled anger which cannot stand up even, and soon it will disperse like mist. It has no reality except your identification."-Osho
Use the "90 second" rule http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/dr-jill-bolte-taylor
"Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."
- Buddha
Mindfulness meditation will help you open to your pain, rather than resist it.
I know that sounds awful, but the majority of our pain is caused BY our resistance ... remember being a kid and crying about getting a needle, but one day you relaxed instead of resisting ... and found that it wasn't really so bad after all.
When we are able to be open to ourselves, only then can we start to feel compassion for ourselves. And compassion starts with ourselves before we can apply it to others.
We are all in the same boat ... unenlightened and suffering. It is a conceit of ego to hate others for being unenlightened, especially when the reality is that we are all only trying to find happiness in whatever way (misguided or not) we think we can achieve happiness.
With a good friend I ended up one day doing a session of “voice- dialogue”. In this case she was the moderator and I was putting my inner conversations out in the room. For instance in this sentence (“I hate myself”) there are two persons (one hating and one being hated). So the angry hateful person takes a position in the room and speaks out. But the moderator could ask this other person to come out and say something too. So the hurt part of you/me gets a voice (and physically moves to another place in the room). In this way more inner voices can come out and get into a dialogue.
Maybe it sounds like a confusing procedure but I think - like all dialogue – it helps to bring about mutual understanding and it can soften conflicts.
I mean; you are having a hard time as it is. You need all your inner voices to be supportive; they need to be in the same team.
Finding compassion for yourself is not just creating another voice in your head; it also is about allowing all those voices – including the angry and hateful ones - to be heard. They need to be heard and welcomed because in their own way, they are sincere and authentic. They are relevant.
Another way of growing this compassion for inner voices - I think – is meditation. You simply can’t do long meditation without naturally running into all your thought-patterns. And meditation should give them the space to come and go. In meditation (the way I see it) we welcome thoughts and emotions, but we don’t identify with them. On the meditation mat we create something similar to an environment for voice dialogue.
If you can’t relate to this kind of thing, just ignore this post. Your sentence about inner conflict just made me want to think about this subject.
The "three poisons" as you call it, is in Buddhism actually a term that includes different emotional states from what you mention. They are attraction, aversion, indifference.
"The three basic emotional reactions-attraction, aversion, and indifference-are reactions to the preferences established by the sense of "I". (Mcleod, 2001)."
This is why i suggest you look at yourself. What you are, what you think you are and what you want and think you want.