Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 1/29/2009

Question
QUESTION: Dear expert,

There's a question bothering me for quite a long time. The purpose of asking is actually simple: to know how to behave appropriately, since I don't even know it.

There are some people in my life, whom I don't like. The degrees of dislike vary, from slight dislike to severe hatred. In regards of those people, I simply: do not seek revenge on their mistakes to me, avoid contact at all cost and assume they do not live in this world.

A simple example: my wife's younger sister's boyfriend. He committed wrongdoings on me, even before he knew me. He tried to deceive money until I quickly found out and made a prevention. Yet, the younger sister was so blind and stupid, and easily influenced by the boyfriend in a bad way. I demanded their separation, but the family couldn't take harsh action to force the separation. The family only asked her to separate, to which she ignored the order and went on.

When visiting their family, and if the boyfriend was there, I simply ignored his presence and pretended he wasn't there. I assume he's not exist in this world. I also refrain from talking to my wife's sister. I also dislike her now. I told my wife if her sister want to marry the guy, I will no longer regard her as my sister-in-law.

That's a simple example. There are certainly some more similar cases, which I can't possibly outline all here.

I'm asking to consult the more appropriate attitude towards this matter. An easy answer is: forgive. Certainly, "forgive" is not equal to "forget". I don't seek revenge, but they can still wrong me again. I believe, "mercy" is different to "stupidity". To hazardous people, I will avoid. Circumstances often force me to come across those people again.

I'm a Buddhist for many years, even often deliver lectures in my temple, but haven't found the answer to this one.

Thank you in advance for your answer.


ANSWER: Namaste, Albert.

Thank you for allowing me to answer your question.

First off you clearly have a karmic connection with this person/persons you don’t like. If someone did something wrong to you, as you say they wanted to “deceive money”, we believe it is due to a karmic seed ripening.  Since you are a Buddhist, you are aware that if we do something wrong, it leaves a karmic imprint on our mental continuum. When causes and conditions appear for that karmic seed to ripen, it does and something wrong is done to us which mirrors what we did wrong in the first place.  So, if someone steals from you for example, it is because you have planted the karmic seed to cause it. You may currently see yourself as the victim, but if you created the cause for it to happen to you, you must also at some point have been the perpetrator and have perhaps stolen something from someone else.  Therefore, the person that stole from you is just exhausting the negative karma that you yourself created.  So, how can you hate them?

It is very possible that the person you are talking about did do bad things. And it is very common to dislike or hate someone who did something bad.  If they are generally a negative person, it is better to stay away from them.  If they did something illegal, it is right to expect them to pay for their misdeeds.

However, that does not mean we should hate them.  Why?

Well, put yourself in their shoes for a moment.  This person that did the wrong thing is no different than you.  Just like you, they want to be happy. Right? They don’t want to suffer.  But because they are doing bad things, they must in some way be suffering.  As a Buddhist, you know that we are all under the control of delusions. The three main delusions (or poisons) are anger, attachment and ignorance. These delusions cause us to suffer and to do bad things.  Most of us don’t even know we have these delusions that control our lives.  And if we do know that we have these delusions and mental afflictions, most of us can no more control our delusions (such as stopping our anger from arising) than walk to the moon.

As a Buddhist yourself, you must agree that until we reach a fairly advanced state, we are all controlled by our delusions. We are not in full conscious control of our own actions.  Heck, most of us cannot even focus our minds for a minute without having unwanted thoughts arise.  It is like if someone picks up a stick and hits you with it.  Are you going to get mad and hate the stick?  Of course not.  You are going to hate the person wielding the stick.

The same is true with the person in question in your life. Why are you going to hate him?  He is not in conscious control of himself because if he was, he would not do anything that would cause harm to anyone else since that would mean at the very least that he would be creating causes for his future unhappiness.  

Instead, perhaps, we should have compassion for that person because as I said when he does bad things he is not only doing harm to a fellow sentient being, but he is creating negative karma which will ripen in the form of future suffering for himself. Who we should be hating is the delusions in his mind that cause him to make the bad judgements that lead to the bad actions.

Thinking about hating someone creates a negative state of mind.  A negative state of mind plants a negative karmic seed which will ripen when the correct causes and conditions appear into a negative result for you.  So every minute you spend thinking about hating someone, you are only harming yourself because you are creating causes and conditions for your own future suffering.

There are two ways to help retrain your mind and stop your own future suffering.  One is that every time you feel hatred for that person arise, instead of avoiding the person, recite a mantra such as the Avalokitshavara mantra, Om Mani Padme Hung.

A way to begin to rectify and eliminate negative feelings towards people, there is a meditation one can do.  One can visualize sitting in a beautiful place and in front of you is your very best friend.  Once you have visualized your friend clearly, send him or her very positive, loving energy.  Feel that they receive the energy and send it back to you.  After you have done that for a while and it is very strong within you, think of a person you know but have no feelings one way or another about and send them positive energy and imagine them sending you back positive energy.  Once you feel you are receiving strong positive energy back from them, then imagine the person you hate coming and sitting in front of you.  Send him positive energy and keep doing it till you can feel him send positive energy back to you. You will eventually come to love this person as you do your dearest friend.

So here are various ways that as a Buddhist we deal with how to stop having hatred in our lives

I wish you much success and happiness.  Don’t hesitate to ask any follow up question.

Laurie


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for your wonderful answer. It's very enlightening.

Another quite similar question:
In my temple, I have regular schedule to deliver lectures. In my temple, most population is old. The young is very rare, and I'm among the rare. The old people are so ill-mannered that they like to look down on the young people and always find pricks from the young people. They are impolite, and it's as if everything I do is wrong. Such thing caused a growing resentment in me, that I started to refrain from activities in my temple. I believe, I can accumulate merit from other places, like through charity or helping people out there. Yet, there are still times when I have to attend ceremonies, and again what I see is things being done wrongly by the old people who are both stupid and ill-mannered. Pardon me for my harsh judgment on them.

I used to be the president of youth group, and now, no more. I used to be the leading protocol in ceremonies, and now, I started to refrain from the role, unless necessary. I used to deliver lectures on all classes, and now I refrain from most classes. I used to visit my temple at least twice a week in the past, and now it's less than once a month.

Do you think I should continue my service in my temple or just quit? How should I behave on the stupidities that go on before my eyes (they won't listen to me and continue the stupidity)? How should I answer their harsh words?

I await your further enlightenment. Thank you in advance.

Answer
Hello again  –
Glad I could help –As for your current question, I cannot tell you whether or not to teach or participate in your temple.  Only you can do that.  What I can do is give you things that I would think about and meditate on which I have learned from studying Buddhism if I were in the same situation to help make the best choice I could.

First off, I recognize and understand how easy it is to see people we deal with as ill mannered and hard to get along with; and how hard it is to deal with people that we consider impolite and stupid.

1)   Compassion

It seems to me that Buddha, himself had a similar situation as yours.  If you recall the story of what happened right after the Buddha became enlightened. If you remember the story, once he attained enlightenment, he decided he would not tell anyone about the great things that he discovered.  Like you, he had knowledge and an interest in spiritual things. He said he would not teach what he learned because he said that people would not understand what he had to say about what he learned. That is kind of like you, having knowledge and interest in spiritual things but not wanting to share them with others because you do not feel what you have to say would be appreciated.

But as you know, Buddha did decide to teach and went to Deer Park and taught his first sermon on The Four Noble Truths. Imagine how much sadder the world would be if he had not decided to teach.
Why do you suppose he changed his mind and decided to teach? Perhaps it was because he was asked in such a way that his compassion was stirred and therefore he had no choice but to say yes.

The main thing he taught at Deer Park was about the truth.  People are born, they get sick, they get old and they die.  These are the sufferings that each and every sentient being must go through. They are universal.  Realizing that and realizing that no one wants to suffer even the slightest bit is what gives us compassion for all sentient beings.  With such compassion, one loses ones feelings of negativity toward others because we cannot help but see we are all alike.

So, if it were me trying to solve this problem, I would meditate and think about the best use of compassion in this situation.

2)   Motivation or intention

You may want to decide if the teachings that you are giving in your temple are being given by your for the right intention – As you know, in Buddhism, the intention behind why one does something is every bit as important as the action itself.  If your intention in giving your talks is motivated by the sincere wish to be of service to others, then that, combined with your compassion for them should be the determining factors on whether you continue to participate in those functions at your temple or not.  If your intention and motivations do not arise from positive thoughts, but instead arise from selfish or ego driven thoughts, then perhaps it is better to walk away.  
So, if it were me trying to solve this problem, I would meditate and think about what is my real motivation and intention in wanting to teach and be at the temple.

3)   Karma

Also, if you do give lectures and they are not appreciated, then that may be because, according to Buddhism, previously you created the cause for you not to be taken seriously – you may have lied in previous lives and therefore now that seed of that negative action is ripening and so when you want people to listen to you, they are not going to.  So, since you created the cause of not being listened to and appreciated, you are simply reaping the fruit of the negative seed you planted. So, where is the logic in being angry and frustrated at those who are not paying attention to you, when perhaps it was your own negative actions from the past that brought this about?

It is also possible that if the people in the temple and you are never, due to your past karma, going to find a harmonious relationship, then you should not continue to go to that temple; or go as infrequently as possible.

But each time you encounter a negative situation, you burn off that negative karma that caused it and it will never return. So as long as you are really trying to create as much positive karma as you can in the future and as little negative karma as you can in the future, eventually, this negative karma you are going through now with your temple will dissolve away and you will no longer experience trouble at your temple.

So, if it were me trying to solve this problem, I would meditate and think about what karma might be bringing about these negative things that are happening to me and how to be at peace with it.

These are the things I would ponder if I were in your situation which would help me arrive at a conclusion on what to do, based on Buddhist teachings I have learned.

I hope some of this was of some use. Please feel free to comment on anything I wrote.

Laurie