2021-07-26-Hatred (1 of 5) Non-Hatred as a Reference

2:57PM Jul 26, 2021

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

hate

hatred

hostility

love

peacefulness

capacity

verse

japan

buddhist

talking

week

suffering

calmness

wonderful

full moon

expression

perfume

greed

absence

heart

This week for the Dharma talks, the theme will be the second three unwholesome roots, second of the three poisons, and that is hatred or hostility. And so the three are greed, hatred and delusion. And so last week, we went through greed. And this week we'll go through hate. And it's phenomenally important in the Buddhist course of practice, to understand these three poisons, greed, hate and delusion. Because these are the primary conditions or sources or catalysts for human suffering, and to end to alleviate, to end suffering to decrease the amount of suffering in ourselves and the world around us. It makes a huge difference if we understand greed, hate and delusion, and are able to decrease it and even eliminate it completely, which is one of the purposes of Buddhist practice is to really bring it to an end, a remarkable achievement, it is possible. And so as I did last week for greed, I'm not going to start the first talk this today, not by talking about hatred directly, but by talking about non hate, because this contextualizes the discussion about hate. So the word for hate is dos saw, a D o essay, and non hate in the Pali disk in the Buddhist the discussion is od dosa, a de OSA, so not hate, non hate. And now that's more than just the absence of hate is understood and the tradition that is the presence of something wonderful, that somehow the absence of hate, doesn't leave us neutral doesn't leave us empty, in some kind of void, impoverished way, that it's the opposite, that the presence of hate is what's impoverishing for us. And that as we release it, wonderful states arise. And the primary one that's associated with this is love, those loving kindness. And metta is also associated with patients with calmness and with peace. And, and there's a wonderful verse, that famous verse from the dhammapada. It's the third verse in this anthology of Buddhist poetry from the ancient times. And it goes something like this. Hate is never overcome by hate. By non hate only is hate overcome. This is the ancient truth. And so the word non hate, as I said, implies the positive corollaries to that. So he's some translators will actually translate it that way. So they'll say, hate is never overcome by hate, by love alone is hate overcome. This is the ancient truth. And that particular verse was very impactful after World War Two, because in the early 1950s 5152, I think there was a big international conference in San Francisco to decide on the fate of Japan, Japan had lost the war, United States at occupy Japan and was governing the country. And many of the countries in the 40 countries I think, came who had been impacted by Japanese aggression during World War Two came to San Francisco to decide on the fate of Japan shouldn't divide Japan divided up into multiple countries, should it be different different countries take over parts of it, you know, what should happen to it?

And it was kind of a stalemate at this conference until the foreign minister from Sri Lanka came up and evoke the principle of, of caring for everyone. And, and, and cluding for Japanese people and he I recited that verse. And when he recited that verse, the way the report goes, everything settled down. And the conference then went ahead and decided to grant Japan its independence, and the kind of expression of love and expression of goodwill, and maybe even a trust that there was another way possible after the integration of the World War Two, and so there's a plaque in Tokyo is commemorating this event that has that verse, as the honest honest undertone. So the so as we meditate, or as we have other means in our lives, from time to time, maybe we begin tapping into a degree of calmness or peace, a capacity for love and all the different manifestation of what love might be. capacity for deep patience. And that, that begins showing us something very important. And it shows us that when there's hatred, that it diminishes us it impoverish as I said, it brings with it suffering. That hatred is a fire that burns the person that's hostile. That the one exit one analogy is that picking up hatred is like picking up a hot piece of coal. And of course, not everyone who hates or has hostility, recognizes that, partly because of the intense focus on the object of hostility, that that sometimes blinds us to the impact that hate has on ourselves. And also doesn't lead to very clear thinking. calmness, on the other hand, peacefulness, love, tends to produce wiser trains of thought, not necessarily always, but it tends to help us think more wisely. And by including what the impact our behavior has our feelings have, or emotions have on ourselves and those around us. And, and, and we can feel then the diminishment of our own well being. So rather than talking about for this week, talking about hate in a, in a critical way, or in a way that condemns hate or is puritanically like we should just get rid of hate because it's the wrong, it's bad. What I want to emphasize the perspective we have on hate, when we are really rooted in a place of peacefulness, of calm or love. in that kind of situation, we can look upon hate not as an enemy, not as something that we need to judge in some negative way. But rather almost like it's an illness, almost like it's a something that needs to be addressed. But we don't have to condemn ourselves or condemn other people for it. But we do want to address and find an alternative and find a way of settling and relaxing and, and supporting ourselves and others, for the best qualities of heart to come forth and to meet the world. If we want to try to help support the world, to suffer less human beings to suffer less, we really need to figure out some way to show that the suffering of hostility, the suffering of hate. And one way to do that is to really know the opposite to really know this thing of non hate to recognize and even if it's in small halting ways at first, to keep coming back and recognizing where we can find in ourselves, our capacity for calmness for peacefulness, for, for, for love, for generosity, and, and not that make that help us become passive because of that. But maybe it's even empowering to step forward in that way, in that piece in that love, and to learn the wise ways of doing that than the engage ways of doing that.

And so as we go through this week and focus on hostility, which you know, is maybe not an not necessarily a pleasant thing to talk about, our or reflect on. It is something that if we if we remember that we're looking upon it and exploring it from our capacity for peace, love, calmness, that that we can kind of look and see in the topic as something which moves us into greater capacities for those things, greater capacities for love for kindness for goodwill for compassion, we have a wide range of, of wonderful feelings inside of positive feelings connected to non non hatred. So for the Buddha, or for the Buddhist tradition, the quality the state of non hate is refreshing, or, or enlightening like the full moon that comes, or they're actually their expression from ancient texts is pleasing, like the moon Full Moon is pleasing. So imagine the full moon in a clear night is his analogy for your non hate in the clarity of an unobstructed heart and mind. It's, this non hostility is characterized by the absence of violence. It said to be gentle, like a good friend. And it's the cause of friendship. So rather than simply the absence of hate, there's something here that supports friendship, in this kind of this approach, a state of non hate. And it said to be like, a smell like sandalwood. sandalwood has a wonderful smell is used for perfumes or different things. But it sandalwood normally doesn't harm anyone. So the same way that non hate someone who lives in non hate, there's a kind of non harming, perfume or atmosphere of mood, that somehow can weft from them that is palpable sometimes. They say that when there's non hate, we never harm ourselves or harm others not intentionally, or knowingly. And, in fact, the opposite exists, that we're interested in promoting welfare for self and others. That's one of the functions, manifestations of non hate. And finally, a couple of other things about non hate. That tradition says that it's a condition for youthfulness, that the fire of hatred speeds up the aging process. And they talk about the ancient text talking about when there's a lot of hatred, that there's a quicker gathering together of wrinkles and gray hair. And to be a little bit careful with these kinds of idea that don't assume just because someone has wrinkles or gray hair, that, that there's hate there. But the speeding up of that process is what the ancient tech say. And, and that having non hate discovering non hate is like having a tight knot that's unraveled and set free. So may you come to appreciate your capacity for non hate as untangling of the constrictions and knots in your heart in your mind and to discover your capacity for peace and love. So that the way we gaze upon hatred is not hateful, but rather brings the medicine of goodwill and, and care. So, tomorrow we'll we'll talk more specifically about this and there's the same plan as as last week to go through the five different aspects of this. I'll tell I'll share that tomorrow. Again. Those that plan. Thank you