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What is the method for abandoning hatred?
TheEccentric
Hampshire, UK Veteran
There are so many people I just want to uppercut but this doesn't help me at all, I know that hatred is one of the three poisons and have read many Buddha quotes regarding hatred, what is the method for abandoning becuase its so hard to remove the strong resentment I harbour.
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Look directly at your hatred.
Where does it arise, where does it abide, where does it disappear to?
Explore what you are angry about.
Explore what you are fearful of.
This is the way of The Jedi and other internal warriors. At your age I was doing martial arts to overcome my fear of being hurt. Fear, anger and hate are not present in able fighters. You quickly learn to overcome these emotive hindrances.
Your "enemy" may well be oblivious to your anger.
So in a way you are only burning yourself and those who care for you by holding on to anger.
You remember something or someone that makes you angry. This anger eats at you like a cancer. You feel the heated sensations and your heartbeat going faster. You see how this is hurting you. This negative emotions hurt you 1st instead of whom your anger is directed against. It is impossible to be angry at someone without hurting yourself 1st.
Anger is sometimes thought better to be released by lashing out but actually the lashing out only worsens the situation for you. The antidote is to have compassion for yourself. Say to yourself, "By being angry, I am hurting myself the most, then I hurt my loved ones too. Anger is impermanent, suffering and is not mine."
If an emotion is strong you should label it with a mental note. For example, if you realize you're feeling angry, label the feeling "anger, anger" for one or two moments. If you're depressed, note "depression"; if anxious, note, "anxiety." Do the same with pleasant emotions: if you feel joyful, note "joy"; if peaceful, note "peace." You get the picture.
The insight meditation method entails a middle path between 1) suppressing an emotion and 2) indulging it by: "letting it out," trying to feel it more deeply, or thinking about it further. Whether an emotion is pleasant or unpleasant, the vipassana technique is simply to know it with impartial awareness, neither liking it nor wanting to make it go away.
Don't judge the emotion or your self. For instance, if you're suddenly livid, don't criticize yourself for getting angry. Instead, disengage the mind from any involvement in the anger and just watch it, as if you were watching it happen to someone on television, or as if you were a scientist examining a specimen under a microscope. Instead of "becoming" the emotion you mentally pull back from it, then turn your awareness around and observe it. The emotion then becomes another object of your attention. Now instead of being caught up in it you're looking at it from the outside.
Having noted the emotion for one or two moments, let go of it and bring your attention back to the primary meditation object. Over time this method weakens anger, depression, etc., since you are not "feeding" them with your thoughts and reactions. If you simply recognize the presence of these emotions when they appear but don't get hooked by them— that is, don't get upset or intrigued by them— they'll eventually fade out .
When in the grip of a negative emotion we tend to believe it will never end. But in training the mind to know emotion as it is, we come to see its impermanence. Then we realize that even strong grief, anger or fear can last only a moment before passing away. True, it might come back; but even so it passes away again instantly. When you leave an emotion alone and become an impartial observer, it has no power to control you or cause more suffering. The key is to be mindful as soon as it appears so you don't get hooked.
An emotion of any kind is not your self or the property of self. The sadness, anger, peace, etc., is only an impersonal phenomenon, a kind of mental weather that arises in the mind according to certain causes and then passes away.
Get curious about the anger.
Take care
There is a great Sufi saying: 'The best revenge on an enemy is to befriend them'
What are the practical means toward this? Well believe it or not I have studied the way of The Sith (my Sith name is Princess Daath Lobster)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=595965&search_id=2909450#595965
You will find you can sit and generate emotive states. Some you will prefer. I prefer the positive mind states . . .
I seek refuge in the Buddha, The Dharma and the Sangha, at least 3 times. Works perfect for me.
Any new tips?
This morning I was sitting with something that is conflicted (in other words potentially 'hateful' or something to hate). It felt like a lack of B vitamin (yes I am very specific about mind arisings/emotive states). Self hatred, INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL is not helpful, so I zapped it with Chenrezig as a temp measure. Zapping [a technical term] is not the ideal. With a bit of luck, unpleasant as it wants to be, treacly and dark, in truth and its highest unravelling it is . . . did you guess?
love! Yeah! Now sponsored by Starbucks . . .
http://m.wimp.com/needlove/
Nobody mentioned Tonglen. I've found that doing tonglen really helps with phenomena that brings out the Dark Side. Someone irritates you? Do tonglen for them. Wanna punch someone? Do tonglen for them. I've found the practice extremely helpful in dealing with ongoing negative feeling as it seems that, when done properly, the practice cultivates equanimity
For those who don't know this practice, and wish to try it, like just about everything Dharma, proper instruction in the technique is very helpful and seeking instruction at a center where Tonglen is practiced (many Tibetan traditions) is the best source.
Here's instruction from Peme Chodron's site: http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen2.php
Video - next best thing to in person. Ani Pema offers instruction:
Not unlike an Offering to an enshrined Buddha in your heart or a deity, wherever that deity reside.
Every time hatred arises, if you can associate it as the teaching about something you are either clinging to, or pushing away, then that moment can illuminate exactly what is manipulating you into being a slave to your emotions.
Your success with this depends on trying to foster a greater love of your practice than of your identity.
“Even amongst those who know in their head and their heart,” she said, “sometimes have difficulty living it because it is so easy to believe that which you can see over that which is unseeable with the eye. Amongst those who fall into this category, how many of them diligently apply effort to dispel illusion and suffer and mourn for the truth?”
It was a few seconds before I realized that she was waiting for an answer, “Not many.” I suggested.
“It is, perhaps, even less than that,” she replied, and I noticed from the corner of my vision that her eyes begin to sparkle in excitement and joy, “It would take a very, very silly boy indeed to be saddened by the idea that he is one in million. You are one in more people than I have on my entire world.”
You're applying effort in what I would guess is the right direction. Way to go.
Great image.
We have to understand the mask. The pearl may mask the irritant and the irritant may become a pearl.
Ultimately no strings attached to our garland of skulls/dead fish scales, whatever we have around our neck . . .
http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=2242.0
Just spreading loving and peaceful thoughts out and in, up and down, etc., seems so much easier to me. Equanimity is the goal, metta meditations are the footsteps along the pathway to the goal...
A few years ago, when I was mostly practising the jhanas, I visited Venerable Gotami at Prajapathi Meditation Centre in Sri Lanka. I asked her for meditation instructions for gaining fruition. She looked intently at me and said, "Daughter, don't do jhanas now. You are getting headaches. Do Metta every morning and 32 parts of the Body at night. Every day!". I felt like I was demoted, because at that time, I did not understand the powers of Metta meditation.
I followed Ven Gotami's advice. Before long, I noticed that whenever I got angry, my anger did not stay. Even though I tried to hold on to it, it faded away on its own. I walked around feeling happy for no reason at all. Strangers on the streets started to smile at me, and on one day, when I was having tea at a coffee house, a lady stranger came over to me, asked me to look after her bag and walked off to the counter to order food. She actually trusted me with all her possessions! Really amazing...
When I do Metta Meditation, I take some time to cultivate feelings of metta, then I project it outwards from the heart to envelope myself, and this is what I say silently : May I be Well & Happy; May I be free from danger & disease, free from fear & worry, free from anger, ill-will & hatred, free from greed & envy, May I be free from all physical suffering, free from all mental suffering, and may I look after myself happily. Then I project my mind outwards to the front and repeat the sentences, directly them at all sentient beings in front of me. I then move my mind in a clockwise direction, to the right, back and left, repeating the words each time, directed at all sentient beings. Then upwards, and lastly, downwards. The whole process takes about 20 to 30 minutes.
Do not "force" your mind outwards. Project it gently from your heart, not from your head. Remember, action follows thought.
When you start doing Metta meditation, you will encounter some difficulty in feeling metta long enough to last the whole session. Be patient. The more you do it, the more familiar you are with the feeling of Metta (it feels like you are swimming in nice warm water), the longer you can abide in it, and after a while, you will be able to summon it at will, within and outside meditation. When this happens, it is good to bring up feelings of metta in public whenever you are surrounded by other people (eg. waiting in queues, eating at a restaurant) and sincerely wish the people around you to be well and happy.
Metta meditation protects our mind. My Dhamma teacher once told us that Metta is like the shoes that we wear on our feet, protecting them from things we step on that can hurt us. I find this very true!
Try it and see for yourself!
http://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/body.html
I haven't realized quite how angry I've become since my recent skiing holiday ... I 'fell off the wagon' and it all went pear shaped after such a period of calm and sobriety (well I could count the sobriety in weeks but believe me thats good for me)
@Tosh and @DharmaMcBum ...whom I vent my spleen to regularly can vouch for this.. thanks guys, for the patience and understanding.
I used the mettha meditation yesterday and it really helps.
I was so wrapped up in my own confusion/anger that I forgot to use it, I knew it was there but reading and knowing aren't much cop unless you 'do it'.... Thank you all so much for reminding me x
Anger however I know.
For me it is overwhelming, I can control it. Most of my life has been repressed anger. However it does not arise so much with meditation. Oh well . . . other hindrances always available.
I let anger arise because on occasion as it is often helpful to others. Not very skillful but transformation and insight comes from it. Anger can be skillful when it is not hateful but it is certainly hurtful and painful and I know my limitations. Are you the master or the slave?
We can also hate injustice, demon bankers, harms dealers and low life Buddhist scammers. However I would suggest that the most skillful form of hate is love. So the question remains about transformation . . .
I also liked @foosiewee post and will be doing the 32 parts of body meditation for a while as my efforts to locate a corpse to meditate on will not be legal or hygienic and we only have a small freezer . . .
Thanks guys xxx
I love reading your posts, they are helpful to me also, mainly because they make me smile
It's also a very 'Buddhist' method for dealing with these negative afflicting emotions (but A.A. does it better I'm afraid 'cos we need to be black belts at this kind of stuff).
This is the Buddhist version:
Extract from Buddhist Psychology Geshe Tashi Tsering: I prefer the A.A. method because it gets you to put it down on paper, looking specifically for 'our part' - the part we played - in the hatred/resentment. It then asks that we discuss it with someone we trust (just to check it out; always a wise thing to do), and then we're to become willing and then go and amend the situation (again it's best to check out what we're going to do with someone we trust first; we can make a lot of trouble for ourselves and others if we get it wrong).
My A.A. sponsor is a spiritual warrior. One enemy he gave victory to was to the man who had been having an affair with his wife. He'd terrorised this man, beaten him up and left him with further threats of violence. His wife then left him for this man and my sponsor eventually landed up in A.A. and went through the 12 Steps, part of which makes us look at our past and the people/institutions we resent - and deal with this stuff in a healthy way.
I doubt there's many folk, Buddhist or otherwise who would make an amend to a man who had been having an affair with their wife; that must take real balls. But it had lots of positive benefits, such as it meant that the relationship they all had with regards the children was far healthier; it transformed a really messy situation into one a little bit better. Robert (the guy who had had the affair with my sponsor's wife), eventually became his ex-wife's husband and basically brought up my sponsor's son.
About a year ago, Robert died and my sponsor's son's wife had their first child shortly after and they decided to call their son Robert. When they told his father (my sponsor) what they were going to call the child they both looked at my sponsor's face to check for disapproval. He just smiled and said "That's a fantastic name!"
Giving victory to our enemy works.
Drive all blames into one.
This is advice on how to work with your fellow beings. Everyone is looking for someone to blame and therefore aggression and neurosis keep expanding. Instead, pause and look at what’s happening with you. When you hold on so tightly to your view of what they did, you get hooked. Your own self-righteousness causes you to get all worked up and to suffer. So work on cooling that reactivity rather than escalating it. This approach reduces suffering—yours and everyone else’s.
The method for abandoning hatred is by sincerely practicing Lamrim, Through abandoning Self-cherishing and Self-grasping you will abandon all faults.
Thanks for that, at how!
But then that's just what I did. I'm sure a more learned person than myself can translate that into one of the sutras?
Sorry but I have to ask; this debate is over a year old, why are you all still commenting on it?
Why not? For many, the progression up a spiritual mountain takes spiral loops that have one potentially revisit the same old issues with new prospectives.
"In the cases of those with greed, hatred, and ignorance,
The raging fires of these afflictions always blazing,
Bodhisattvas manifest aging, sickness, and death for them,
To cause those sentient beings to all be tamed" (Avatamsaka Sutra).
Sorry, didn't notice that! I HATE IT when people dredge up things from the past!!!!!
The Buddha Dharma is more than 2000 years old.
Still changing? Still debating? Still commenting? Abandoning still?
Hope that makes sense . . .
Abandon control Buddha (and that goes for all his minions) ah well
I think If I had started this thread and moved on I'd take some exception to it being resurrected. But maybe I'm just a bit too sensitive.
@Nirvana
That interesting.
If you instigate a discussion, do you feel that you retain some ownership rights over it.
Well if it's a personal issue, @how, I think it's a personal issue. Fresh starts are so important. If the Christians are right and there is a Hell, I'm sure it's a place where sleep is impossible and everything's one long, hellish, never-ending "day."
That said, I also believe that if you start a thread people should at least be polite enough to listen to what you have to say and not insist on their own definitions or resolutions trumping yours. Dialogue is dialogue and monologue is monologue. The two just cannot be confused, IMNSHO.
The thread might be old, but I'm new to the site and the title of the thread is always relevant. That's an invitation to comment on it.
I wonder if the eccentric is still dealing with hatred issues, anyway.
I find "hatred" is too strong a word. I'm not really sure I hate anyone. Resentment, yes, but hatred- again, too strong.
If I'm compelled to allow hatred into my heart because of someone else's attitude, it's like handing them over a victory. The Buddha said "Suppose an enemy has hurt you in his own domain, why should you annoy yourself and hurt your mind in your own domain?"
Easier said than done, but we're learning.
Someone along the thread exchanged the word "hatred" for "anger." Again a quotation, "An outside enemy exists only if there is anger inside." Whatever the situation that triggers hatred or anger, our reaction reveals more about ourselves than about the person or event that triggered those feelings in us. It's probably a perfect opportunity for soul-searching, learning and growing.