Changing Hatred into Compassion

Vijayasri - Convention 2001

From the Dhammapada Those who entertain such thoughts as, he abused me, he beat me, he conquered me, he robbed me, will not still their hatred. Those who do not entertain such thoughts as he abused me, he beat me, he conquered me, he robbed me. will still their hatred. Not by hatred are hatreds every pacified in this world, they are pacified by love, this is the eternal law. Others do not realize that we are heading for death, those who do realize it will compose themselves. These are the verses from the Dhammapada that follow directly on from the two verses we have been hearing daily heer on the Order Convention, the verses that tell us that all our experiences are led by mind. It plunges us straight into one of the most pressing, the most urgent, problems in our lives: our spiritual lives, our lives in general. Perhaps it takes more spiritual intuition and more depth of reflection to recognize the suffering that raga or craving causes. But it is very immediately apparent how hatred and violence leads to suffering, we see it all around us and it is very terrible to witness. And in a way it seems worse than the other types of suffering to which we are inevitably prone, because it is caused by human volition - it is caused by us. I was recently reading some European history. I found it interesting that it very quickly dissipated my impression that this last century, the twentieth century, was unusually violent. Perhaps the difference was that we were more efficiently violent. But all through history this propensity has been there, to harm others, to hate others and to cause violence to others. Life in Middle Age Europe was short, brutal, and dangerous. But in the Order we are committed to not acting in such a way, to not adding to the sum of hatred and to the sum of violence in the world. We are committed to adding to the sum of love and compassion in the world. And where do we begin with that task? We begin right here and now with the hatred in our own lives. So these are the mental events that I am going to be looking at. Firstly non hatred and its opposite anger. For the purposes of this talk I am going to translate pratigha as aversion or ill-will, because later on I will be drawing out the distinction that Bhante makes between anger and hatred. Then there are the related mental statesin their claasification by Gampopa They are a very unpleasant little grouping, They are: krodha, rage; upahana, resentment; pradasa, spite, defensiveness; irsya, envy, jealousy.

Then I am going to move onto another, related, pair of mental events, the quality of, nonharm, non-cruelty and its related mental event of cruelty or malice. So the direction that we are headed is towards avihimsa, non-harm that is where we will culminate today. But we are going to go through some quite rough territory on the way there. When I was writing this talk it began to take the form of a journey in my mind, a bit like Dantes journey through hell and purgatory to Paradise, the sublime abodes, or maybe Pilgrims Progress. As if the land of illwill is a hostile territory with thorn thickets and bubbling swamps and icy wastes and so forth. So we are going to be visiting these places, but we are going to be following a path all the way through, the path of non-harm we will not leave that path. We are going to be looking at these klesas in order to know them, to recognize them, to be aware of their dangers and to find ways of avoiding them; the path of advesa leads all the way through these qualities. Advesa is translated as non-hatred, but the a in this word doesnt just mean the absence of the quality of hatred, it means the will to remove this quality of hatred. It means the practice, the action. We could see advesa not so much as a state, not as a noun, but rather as a verb, something that we are doing as we make our way through this territory. And we end, as I said, with the consideration of avihimsa, which Bhante has said could comprise the whole of Buddhism, more of that later. So firstly advesa and its related mental event of pratigha, aversion or ill-will. I found that in considering these two, they could not be separated. In examining ill-will and aversion from an ethical perspective you cannot help but consider their opposite and antidote, advesa, the two are intimately linked. So I am going to look at them together. Where does it all begin? This is maybe the first question to consider. There is a starting point, a gateway into ill-will. The gateway is a familiar experience for us all. The Abhidharma states this: alobha or non-craving is established in relation to existence, whereas advesa, non-hatred is established in relation to suffering. That is key idea to remember; alobha is established in relation to existence, advesa in relation to suffering. Maitreyi showed us yesterday the basis of raga, or craving in ignorance. Ignorance leads to raga. Moving on from there, I think perhaps we could see advesa or pratigha as one step on from that, that when we dont get what we want, or when we do get what we dont want our experience is pain, and this how pratigha begins. I think you can see it sometimes in children, the seem to reach a stage where they really seem to realize that they are not going to get what they want out of life, and they get furious. It is almost as if they are waking up to see, Oh no, this is what life is like and I dont like it.

So the origin of angry mental states is suffering. Every occasion of anger has some kind of suffering behind it and this is the starting point for the examination of all these mental events. I was thinking about an example of this in my own experience. I have sometimes noticed that when members of my family were leaving home or my friends are going away, I find myself getting annoyed with them in a way that has puzzled me, it seems to be unrelated to anything in particular. In noticing that sort of state I realised that it is because I am upset, so that my impulse is to push them away, in an attempt to circumvent the pain of their leaving. In fact I remember that I had my worst argument ever with my eldest son the day that I took him to university. We had this blazing row, quite uncharacteristic of our usual communication. Fortunately we realised quickly that it was because we were actually rather upset. This is perhaps an example of how suffering can lead to anger. So the central practice to begin to deal with pratigha, aversion or ill-will, is to find a way to develop a state of non-reactivity to suffering. So I hope that in the course of this talk and our subsequent discussions we can find some ways forward with this. So here is a traditional definition of advesa. Yeshe Gyaltsen says, What is non-hatred? It is the absence of the intention to torment living beings, to quarrel with frustrating situations, and to inflict suffering on those who are the cause of frustration. Paraphrasing this, firstly that we dont wish to hurt people who have given us no cause. Secondly we dont wish to get angry with unsatisfactory conditions - we are nonirritated by the three types of dukkha; that is to say direct dukkha, dukkha through the loss or deprivation of something we like and the dukkha of impermanence: this means not becoming angry with unsatisfactory conditions. Thirdly there is not even ill-will to those who have hurt us. I think I detect something of a progression here, working through graded steps of difficulty in the practice of non-hatred. Taking them one by one, firstly, not wishing to hurt those who have given us no cause. Well why would we want to hurt those who have given us no cause? I think that a kind of mindfulness that is being called for here, a realization that we are beings who are capable of harm; our actions can cause harm to others, our words can cause harm, even our thoughts can cause harm, if they become the habit of our minds. And through understanding of the law of karma we know that our actions have consequences. So the wish arises, that we do not want to cause harm through being insufficiently aware. We can cause harm inadvertently, through insensitivity and through unawareness of others. For example there is the Bad Mood. Well, we sometimes have them, sometimes we wake up in a bad mood. We dont particularly know why we are in a bad mood, it is not directed towards anybody in particular. I think it is a manifestation of a basic aversion

to the unsatisfactory nature of experience. But the trouble is that it does affect other people. It creates an unpleasant atmosphere, people start wondering, What have I done to annoy her? It can taint a whole meeting or gathering of people. So bad moods are an ethical matter. I sometimes think that it is almost as if there is a generalized Bad Mood out there in society, you stand in a bus queue or at the post office and there is Bad Mood going on! Or you listen to Yesterday in Parliament; Bad Mood writ large. Maybe it is our weather. So this is something to be aware of, what kind of mood are we in. This has an effect and can inadvertently hurt other people. For example there is that point where you are up to your eyes in work and someone comes along with one more question and you respond with irritability. They go away feeling really bad. We do want to cultivate a generally good mood, we I think we are quite good at this on the Convention, I do get the sense of a generally good mood present, a friendly, open-hearted attitude. Secondly, on the basis of this not getting angry with unsatisfactory conditions, specifically non-reactivity with the three types of dukkha. Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavatara has quite a lot to say about the practice of being patient with minor inconveniences, like the bites of insects. He suggests that this is good practice for patience with greater troubles. And there are plenty of small inconveniences in our lives, the mobile phone ringing or the delayed trains or so forth these are excellent opportunities for practice, to avoid going down the old habitual route of impatience. Instead we can to go down another route, to practice patience. Because, as with anything, through practice we get better at it. While I was researching this talk I read some notes from Subhutis seminar on this subject. One particular comment fascinated me: he said eventually we can not experience suffering as suffering. This was not expanded on in the notes, so I began to ponder this for myself. What does it mean, that one could attain to a state where one does not actually experience suffering as such? It is a question, perhaps, you might want to reflect on yourself, I have come up with a few ideas, and you may have others. Firstly there is the perspective in which we see things. When a situation of suffering arises it overwhelms us, it overwhelms our mind and we begin to see that as the whole of our experience, we begin to think that that is all there is. But this isnt true, either in terms of time or in terms of the whole of ones present experience. In terms of time, things change, this current experience of suffering will go, it will change. A good friend of mine was very ill recently and Bhante sent her a card. It said, Bear in mind, this will pass, this will change. So pleasant things pass, painful things pass. In a situation of suffering, sometimes it is possible to change perspective and to suddenly see it as a little absurd. How much do we see ourselves as so much the centre of the universe? Is this really the truth of the way things are? So it is possible expand awareness out of this current preoccupation. And also in extreme situations we sometimes witness great metta and great compassion arising in other people, there are often other qualities present, other than the dukkha.

The Buddha advised in the cultivation of equanimity to reflect on the pleasant in the painful and reflect on the painful in the pleasant. And what is painful in the pleasant in impermanence, what is pleasant in the painful is impermanence; so by reflecting on impermanence we can begin to cultivate equanimity. So that is a response to Subhutis suggestion that it is possible to go beyond experiencing suffering as such to aim to develop a wider perspective than the current situation, seeing that joy and pain is woven fine, as Blake said. Secondly there is seeing dukkha as a mark of the way things are. This means staying with it. What we tend to do when suffering arises is to try do something about it very quickly, we want to avoid it, we want to escape it, change it and so forth. But the practice is to dwell in that gap of vedana, painful feeling, simply seeing it, being aware of it. What is realised then is that the avoidance compounds the painful sensation, it makes it feel worse. Simply by experiencing it fully, there is the opportunity to grow emotionally larger. In a way it can be a kind of relief to remember that dukkha is a mark of conditioned existence. It is just inevitable, it doesnt necessarily mean you are doing samsara wrong. This is the way it is.

Thirdly one could see the experience of dukkha as an initiation. That is to say, an initiation into deeper understanding of what it is to be a human being, a solidarity with other beings. We experience bereavement, we experience pain and sickness, and we are growing older too. We see it in the Order, we are all getting older, every Convention there are a few more grey hairs and wrinkles. And these three, old age, sickness and death were the Buddhas first teachers. They teach our hearts compassion.

So these are a few reflections on ways to approach dukkha, and perhaps finding a way of going beyond experiencing dukkha only as dukkha, by practising patience with minor inconveniences, broadening our perspective, seeing dukkha as a mark of the way things are and understanding the universality of suffering, to develop empathy and compassion. This is the second type of advesa, being non-irritated by dukkha.

Thirdly, not feeling ill will even towards those who have hurt us. This is a difficult one, really; the cause of suffering upon which anger is based is very obvious, it is a person, and a person endowed with will and responsibility. This is a situation where anger can arise very easily within us. Perhaps here we could make a resolve that the next time you grow angry with somebody because they have hurt you, stop and try to catch the response. It could be like cornering a wild beast that is spitting and snarling. Have a really good look at what is going on. Here are some clues from Geshe Rabten: This is a deluded mental factor that observes its contaminated object (contaminated that is by false samjna, false perception),

exaggerates its bad qualities, considers it to be undesirable and wants to harm or get rid of it. So this deluded mental factor; first of all is contaminated by false samjna. This is the basic mistake of seeing things in terms of the two fold grasping; grasper and grasped, subject and object, the perceptual situation broken down into a polarity. And in the case of aversion and ill-will, the object has become a perceived threat to the subject, that is to say, ourselves. And this is painful, it is unpleasant, so what happens next is that we attach the pain to the object. In our minds the object becomes the pain, the pain becomes the object. For example, a person has spoken harshly to us. This was unpleasant for us, so that the next time we see that person the impulse is to flinch away. The person has become associated in our minds with the painful feeling, so that even to see that person has become a painful sensation. Here is a good exercise to do. Call to your a person that you often put in the fourth stage of the metta bhavana. Investigate what pain is associated with this person. Then try to disassociate that painful vedana from the person, and experience it as it is, as a painful vedana. Perhaps you can see that the pain is really a quality of your own mind, it is not inherent in the person. So this is how it works, we attach pain to the object, and we dwell upon it, we give it unwise attention, we exaggerate bad qualities, mulling them over. What we are doing is intensifying a one-sided perception of a situation or person, increasing our deludedness, fueling the anger, strengthening its justification. When somebody has annoyed us, it is very hard to give them the credit of having good qualities, we become grudging, preferring to dwell on their negative qualities. And so the next stage from that it is that we believe that by eliminating the object we will abolish our pain. What we have been doing is a kind of pratigha bhavana, creating more and more anger. So we want to get rid of the pain therefore we want to get rid of the object. It is actually quite a sobering thought to realize that aversion and ill-will culminate in this desire for the object not to exist. We may not resort to violence but we dont want that person in our minds. And we dont particularly want them in our ambit, inhabiting our lives. This is a negation of their being which can lead, if unchecked, to much more extreme forms of hatred. So that is a closer examination of what goes on where somebody has hurt us, leading to a desire to retaliate. Perhaps these reflections on the nature of ill-will could be another way of working in the metta bhavana. When ill-will arises, try to understand the nature unpleasant vedana that has become associated with the person.

But advesa is not merely the absence of hatred. It is a positive quality and it is worthwhile considering what is the difference between advesa and metta, if there is any difference. It seems that advesa is a more general and a more basic type quality than metta, although it is a positive quality in itself. It is the will to clear ones mind from hatred. Sangharakshita says in Know Your Mind that you can be free of hatred for someone without actually feeling metta, for example if they try and harm you. You might not actively wish them well, as yet, but you can desist from wishing them ill. I think that the term non-hatred has a searching quality about it. In the case of metta, perhaps it is possible to delude ourselves that we feel metta when actually we feel metta only for the people that we like. We forget the ones that we arent feeling metta for. Whereas non-hatred simply demands that we free our mind from hatred, searching our minds for its presence and trying to create a state of mind totally free from hatred. Now I would like to look at the distinction that Bhante makes between anger and the more extreme forms of ill-will. He describes a continuum, from anger, through hatred, to malice, and finally to cruelty. These are the stages along the way. He suggests that in its earlier stages anger can be a useful energy. Sometimes anger can be a spur to change. I think sometimes we experience frustration in a situation, something is not right, we want to change it. So there is a build up of energy that can come out in a somewhat explosive way. It is not necessarily a totally harmful phenomenon if it is over quickly and it is confessed and apologized for quickly. This is an area that comes up quite often in teaching of metta bhavana or Buddhist ethics to beginners. They do often feel concerned that if they develop metta they will lose their potency. They are concerned that it is a kind of passivity that we are wanting to create. The questions frequently arise; But what about injustice, but what about cruelty? People respond to injustice and cruelty with that fiery response a kind of blazing up of energy This is the sort of energy that says no. However, although the intial response can kick start our energy, usually it is the case that staying angry renders us less effective, less able to look objectively for the best way forward. Bhante also said that for some people experiencing anger in this way can be a step forward, if they are prone to repressing and not acknowledging it. There is a poem by William Blake, probably many of you know this. I was angry with my friend, I told my friend, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe, I told it not, my wrath did grow, And I watered it with smiles and with soft deceitful wiles, till in the morning, glad I see, my foe outstretched beneath the tree.

As Parami said the other day, if one hides the evil it multiplies and grows. Repressed anger is still angry, and it is still there. For example sometimes we become aware of a tense atmosphere, perhaps in our Chapter a sense of treading on egg shells. It takes courage to say, I feel angry, or Are you angry? But if we dont go into these dangerous areas we are in hiding, hiding from ourselves and hiding from others. Another aphorism from Bhante Honest collision is better than dishonest collusion. Sometimes when repressed anger first emerges it can be quite messy. It is as if an underground bomb has exploded and there is debris all around and you think, what do we do with this? But it is better out than in, even though it is painful. Once it is out it is visible, it is something we can work with, it is something that we can help our friends with, and we can find ways to confess, to apologize, to forgive. Hatred however is never justified. In the Mahayana it is the worst fault for a Bodhisattva to feel hatred, hatred as a settled, ongoing violent dislike for somebody that we dont work to change or let go of. It cuts us off from living beings and it contradicts our aspirations. In that state of hatred, a good thing to remember is that hatred is an ineffective phenomenon. In a state of hatred there is a delusion of potency, because there is a strong feeling present, in a sense it has an element of intoxication about it. In reality though, hatred has no ability to change things for the better, it simply makes things worse. Bhante says in Know Your Mind, In any situation where one might be inclined to get impatient or angry one may find that the exercise of patience and persistence is a more skilful and effective option. So there may be that initial spark of frustration, but in the endeavuor to change things for the better it is patience and persistence that is most efficacious. Here is a traditional list of six disadvantages of hatred. 1. Hatred alienates friends. There is no avoiding the fact that we do tread warily around people who are angry. Our friends may be able to practice patience with us but it makes us painful to be around, we dont endear ourselves to people that way. Even if the anger is not directed towards the person we are with, if we constantly complain about others it is unpleasant to be around. So this quality of hatred has the tendency of alienating people from us. 2. It makes us act recklessly. It is very easy to lose our mindfulness if we are consumed by anger. I notice this sometimes involved in physical work. I was demolishing some shelves in the Buddhist Centre recently and I was rather fed up that somebody hadnt turned up. So it wasnt that surprising that I accidentally hit myself badly with a crow bar. Instant karmic retribution? Maybe we drive our cars recklessly if we are in an angry state. And make ill-considered decisions.

3. Hatred takes away our capacity to judge, especially what is skilful. When we are in a state of hatred it is very easy to lapse into self justification. The tendency is to build a whole reality around that emotional state. This is inevitably a deluded reality. This is because we only see things in an unbiased way through metta, where self interest and self-justification are not paramount. So in the state of hatred we cannot judge clearly. 4. It makes us ugly. Hatred disfigures us. Especially as we get older our habitual mental states show on our faces, we get frown lines and laughter wrinkles. But hatred makes us ugly internally as well, it makes for a painful and unpleasant interior world. 5. It takes away sleep. We toss and we turn and we rehearse those mental arguments, and our conscience is uneasy. Shakespeare knew this his character Macbeth, whose conscience after committing murder allowed him no rest in those chilling words Macbeth hath murdered sleep 6. It leads to demonic states. The more habitual our states of ill-will and aversion become the more they become a whole experience of the world. The Wheel of Life teaches us rebirth in other realms, not only from life to life, but also from moment to moment. Through hateful states of mind we create a hellish realm for ourselves to live in. I was talking to somebody recently about a difficult communication and rather jokingly we agreed that we had better sort it out now because otherwise it could make for a hellish time in the playground in our next life. Playgrounds can be hellish, do you remember what that was like? That feeling of exclusion when your best friend wasnt talking to you?

Now lets look more minutely at the upaklesas. I have a couple of general points to make. Firstly this is not an exhaustive list of megative mental states associated with anger - I think we could probably identify other upaklesas connected with aversion and ill-will if we look within our minds. For example I dont find irritability and impatience in this list and I think that is quite a common kind of upaklesa; it is a generalized feeling of aversion that can break out anywhere. So perhaps it would be useful to reflect on what are our habitual upaklesas, are they different from these? Another consideration is the language that we use to describe our mental states. I think this was prompted by feeling how very unpleasant these words are; spite, envy, malice, rage. We dont tend to call our angry states of mind by those kinds of words. We say, I was a bit cross, or I feel a bit frustrated, or even I was outraged!. Its quite different, I think we perhaps tend to let ourselves off the hook, perhaps diminish angry mental

states by using somewhat pleasanter words or more socially acceptable words; dont call them by what they really are when they arise.

Upahana is resentment. What is resentment? it is not letting go of an obsession which developed through association with the anger which underlies it. One quite good way of describing it is this, nursing our wrath to keep it warm. If you nurse something it tends to grow and thrive, a little resentment will be a big resentment if you keep on nursing it. It arises when people feel powerless to change. This is a painful sensation so they ascribe that painfulness of that feeling to others, they feel that it is someone elses fault that they cant change. They are in your way, they are stopping you from changing, its their fault. This is another mistaken perception regarding the subject and object. The subject feels that the object is blocking its ability to change; this is the pain associated with the object and therefore resentment grows and develops. Also there is a reluctance to let go of an obsession. Whatever happened is in the past, perhaps it even happened a long time ago but we have not been able to let go of it; a grievance has been nursed, it has been cultivated. But where does this exist now? It is only really present in your own mind, contaminating your mental stream, causing you pain and suffering. There is ignorance involved here, the ignorance of not understanding change and impermanence. Whatever may have happened you are now a different person, the other party is also a different person. Things have changed, yet this old response lives on. Reflection on impermanence is a good antidote to this quality of resentment. Life is short, so we need to compose our quarrels for we could die any time. And if resentment springs from a feeling of powerlessness, developing the ability to take the initiative is another way forward. Weve heard it said, maybe said it ourself Well she never bothers to contact me. So, phone her! If we are able to take the initiative there is not much room for resentment to grow. Next is jealousy and envy, irsya. It is a highly perturbed state of mind associated with aversion, hatred, which is unable to bear others excellences by being overly attached to gain and honour. So there are several different strands in this quality of envy; it is highly perturbed, the mind has no peace when envy is present. In terms of the two-fold grasping the object the other person - possesses what the subject, desires. Somehow, someone else has appropriated the available good fortune, or pleasure. This perhaps arises from a sense of inner poverty, we dont feel that we have what we need or what we want within our self as if there is a limited amount of good fortune in the world and somebody else has taken

possession of ours. There is craving raga involved here, and we need to undermine their good fortune in order to get ours back. How do we go about this undermining? I think there is both overt and covert undermining. There is competitiveness, which is overt. I confess that I have quite a competitive streak - recently it led to some slightly fractious communication with a friend. We were e-mailing each other about it and I said Yes I do have a competitive streak and she e-mailed back and said Well what are you going to do about it and I replied Win!. (laughter) But perhaps of competitiveness can be directed in a positive way in the sense of a resolve not to be defeated by Mara, or by negative mental states. So if there is competitiveness in our makeup, it can be harnessed for the good rather than directed against other people. Rejoicing in merits is another antidote to envy, cultivating the ability to rejoice in the good fortune of others. As for covert envy one characteristic of envy is that it does tend towards concealment, so that it seems to be allied not only to craving, or raga, but also to mrksha or slyness and concealment. It is hard to admit to envy, so what happens is that it comes out sideways, in somewhat hidden ways, maybe through undermining remarks. Perhaps somebody is very popular and admired and you cant resist pointing out some fault. So as an antidote there is rejoicing in merit and rejoicing in others good fortune. And also cultivating the state of mind as in the previous one, that is taking the initiative and being able to be active in ones life, have the initiative, developing the mental ecology where there isnt much room for that kind of envy to grow.

Next there is pradasa, spite, defensiveness, vindictiveness. What is spite? It is a vindictive attitude, preceded by indignation and resentment, forming part of anger, and its function is to become the basis for harsh and strong words, to increase what is not meritorious and not to allow one to feel happy. This is quite a long definition of spite. In the Sutta Nipata the Buddha says, everyone is born with an axe in their mouth, with which to chop down the tree of our own merit. So cutting, harsh speak arises out of basic pratigha. It is also defensiveness, a state of being easily offended, touchiness. In the two-fold grasping the subjective end of the pole is constantly on the look out for the objective to say something or do something that is painful. The objective has become almost a constant threat - it might not be actively threatening right now but it could happen any time. So this is a state of habitual distress. What seems to be happening is that we have become highly identified with the subjective, seeing the world almost entirely through that subjective pole, which needs constant protection, therefore the external has become continually threatening to us. We need to continually on our guard against offence. How do we antidote this? Perhaps firstly by paying more attention to the objective side, finding out what is really going from other viewpoints than your own. Check it out -

When you said that, did you mean . Also try to develop more concern for the other in any situation, through kindly concern which leads to less preoccupation with oneself. Another aspect of pradasa, is the use we sometimes make of humour; for example, sometimes teasing can go too far. Teasing can be quite harmless fun, but sometimes there can be masked aggression in a joke, which is painful to receive and difficult to respond to, as it is not out in the open. So we need to be aware of humour, because it is very easy to get carried away. Next there is krodha, rage or fury. What is rage? It is a vindictive intention which is associated with anger and the chance to hurt is near at hand. Its function is to become the basis of taking hold of a knife, killing and preparing to strike. This is the most active form of ill-will. It can be expressed verbally but traditionally it is usually seen as going beyond the verbal. It is the readiness to use physical violence. In a state of krodha, or rage we have given way totally to hatred, the ethical dimension is entirely lost, at least for the time being. Perhaps that is why this state is sometimes described as losing it. I can remember times when my children were young, when I felt this kind of boiling rage arising out of frustration - I did lose it, and I did hit them. What is predominant in such memories, is that in that moment when anger seems to have the most power, ones inner experience is of the greatest powerlessness. One actually feels totally impotent, there is nothing constructive that you can do, nothing constructive can be achieved. And the image that came to me is that of beating against a prison door and actually pushing it tighter shut. I think when this point is reached it is hard to antidote in the moment. Prevention of the conditions that lead you to get into a rage need to be exercised, so that it does not build up to such a pitch. But if we are in that state of boiling rage there is the old adage, count to ten. And best to get yourself out of the situation leave the room, go away, so that your rage is not going to harm somebody. Because usually it is quite a short lived phenomena, it comes and it goes quite quickly. These are the four upaklesas associated with anger, but before we can begin to climb out of the inferno I think there is one more level of it that we have to visit - perhaps the lowest circle of it. This is vihimsa, malice or cruelty. What is malice, it belongs to the emotion anger, lacks loving kindness, pity and affection and has the function of treating others abusively. This is the extreme of angry mental states. I think there is a view that underlies malice and cruelty - it is the view that the world is basically cruel, and the only realistic way to get on in life is to just harden ones heart and beat others at the game. In terms of the two fold grasping the subject wants total mastery of the painful object and it is going to have that mastery by any means at all. It can become so congealed that satisfaction is gained

from others pain. Somehow anothers pain has come to represent ones own pleasure and gain, one is winning at the game. In some societies and some social groups, this is seen as a virtue, the culture is one of vengeance so that if you dont retaliate then the honour of your family is besmirched. I recently read a very excellent translation of Beowulf by Seamus Heaney. In the world of Beowulf the ethical code was one where vengeance and retaliation was a matter of honour. For all the bravery and heroism, the underlying atmosphere was extremely bleak. This is a bit of an aside, but recently I was listening to a radio programme on Saturday morning, John Peels Home Truths - there was quite a funny little story, a boys granny had used her hostess trolley to store his Gameboy, (an expensive computer game machine.) But unfortunately she accidentally she switched it on and melted it. So he immediately went out and poured soap powder in her pond filling the garden with soap suds. This story was told and everybody was mildly amused, so John Peel asked for any other funny stories about people getting their own back. However the following week, he referred to this again, and said that they were not going to follow up this item on vengeance. Apparently it had been very unpleasant to receive accounts of taking revenge. He made a plea for the practice of forgiveness. So vengeance was no laughing matter. It might have been better if he had asked for stories of forgiveness. But now we leave the infernal regions and move into a consideration of avihimsa, or nonharm. What is non-harm; it is an attitude of loving kindness, belonging to non-hatred. Its function is not to be malicious. In Know Your Mind Bhante has said that avihimsa could be seen as synonymous with the whole Buddhist path a very significant statement. It is the practice of the first precept, not harming living beings. But it also occurred to me that this positive mental event is not just an opposite of hatred. We can harm others through the other klesas as well. For example we can harm others through craving; to see someone merely as an object of desire can be harmful to them. We can harm others by ignorance, by not knowing, or not wanting to know certain things. We may not want to know about factory farming, so that we become complicit in the suffering of other creatures through ignorance. So this perhaps is a way in which avihimsa comprises the whole Buddhist path, because its practice involves working on all of the klesas. To some extent harming living beings is inevitable. If we walk along a grassy path with every step tiny creatures that are probably being crushed. If we switch on a light we are using valuable energy, driving a car causes all kinds of harm. The Jains try to eliminate such harm from their lives as much as possible - they wear a net over their mouths so that they dont breath in small insects and they brush the path ahead of them. But I think that within samsara it is not to be possible to cause no harm; it is impossible to reach a state of complete ethical purity. So how far do we go? There are all sorts of decisions to be made, multiple choices, possible compromises.

One approach is to chip away at the limits of our knowledge to find out more about the effects of our actions on the world. Recently I decided that I would read Bodhipaksas book on vegetarianism, I had been putting it off because I knew that it would be an uncomfortable read. And I was right, it is an uncomfortable read, especially as I am not, at the moment, vegan. There is a connection between the egg that one eats and the day old chicks which are smothered, this is uncomfortable to know. So how far do we choose to go along the route of non-harm? Perhaps the answer is simply a bit further. Wherever we are now, we could seek to take the practice further, rather than stay within the comfort zone of current choices. There is no ultimately pure ethical state to attain, but this approach acknowledges that avihimsa is a path of practice. Another aspect of avihimsa is surrendering the wish for retaliation. This is something which we aspire to do within the Order, we undertake to give up the desire for revenge. There is a book that I read recently that I found very moving indeed, unfortunately I cant remember the author but the title was The Railway Man. It is a true story of a man who had been a prisoner of war in a Japanese prison camp. He had been horrendously tortured. There was one particular Japanese army officer that he came to associate very strongly with this torture, he was the translator and interpreter. Because he had some communication with him this man came to be the most feared and hated of all the people that tortured him. It is a long story but towards the end of his life through all sorts of strange co-incidences he came to meet that man who had been the object of his hatred. That man asked for his forgiveness. And the torture victim forgave his torturer. I read this passage over and over again, because there was a message of hope within it. This is the hope that even the greatest harm that beings do to one another can be overcome, can be forgiven. And this is what we aspire to do in the Order, to develop that degree of non-reactivity to harm. This is why we confess, why we apologize, why we forgive. We want to put our energy behind overcoming all the strong evil in the world. It is difficult, forgiveness is difficult, hurts done can be very great indeed. Sometimes we cant just forgive straight away just because we want to forgive. But perhaps if we see ourselves as on the path of forgiveness, that we have the will to forgive, the will to let go of hatred, the will to set up the conditions for that forgiveness to happen. Another aspect of this practice of forgiveness, of non-retaliation, of the creation of harmony in the Order is the willingness to engage with other people in dispute, the willingness to enter into those problems, those difficulties if we are in a position to be of help. This is not out of a vicarious interest or nosiness but out of a genuine desire to heal disputes. As Bhante quotes in the Ten Pillars, a Bodhisattva loves harmony, is passionately fond of harmony.

There is a specific meditation practice to help develop avihimsa; the Bodhicitta practice. This is a sort of imaginative re-enactment of a great drama.

We begin by bringing up all the figures on the Refuge Tree, the embodiment of the Three Refuges, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, so that they are present before us. They represent all the beings that embody a compassionate response to suffering. And then we reflect on suffering, the suffering both of others and ourselves, thereby we contact a sense of solidarity with others, recognizing that the desire not to suffer is common to all. Then we begin to engender a strong wish that ourselves and all other beings should not suffer. But we dont do this in isolation, not merely relying only on our own resources. There before us is the Refuge Tree, filled with all the great compassionate beings, who also wish for and have dedicated their lives to the welfare of all, embodiments of the Bodhicitta. We are not alone in this wish, we are strengthened in our determination by all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Then, consciously, deliberately, even willingly we conjure up the suffering of all beings, represented by a great black cloud of defilement. Consciously, deliberately, even willingly we breath it in and as we do so a miracle begins to happen,. The black cloud meets our compassionate aspiration, fed and supported by the compassion by all the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. It changes into pure white light, pure moonbeams, which is what we breathe out onto the world. The suffering is purified. Thus we remain, at least in our imagination, potent, not overwhelmed by the suffering. We do not respond by going down the old pathway of aversion and ill-will, instead we are creating a new pathway of compassion. The heart becomes a crucible of transformation as we breathe in impurity and suffering and breathe out love and compassion. What we contemplate we become. We may have plenty still to be transformed within ourselves, but by contemplating ourselves as containing the Bodhicitta, capable of meeting suffering without aversion, without ill-will, we gradually, slowly, perhaps sometimes imperceptibly are effecting that transformation. We are beginning to participate in the being of the Bodhisattva whose very breath is entirely imbued with compassion. And all I want to say in conclusion is this - may we all continue to do so, because the world is burning.