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Tantra
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THE AWAKENED HEART (Bodhicitta)
Equanimity in Relation to Our Enemies
**** UNDER CONSTRUCTION ****
Updated November 27th, 2011
When first reflecting on our erroneous notion of the permanence and continual satisfactoriness of our relationships with sentient beings, we need to look at the types of relationships we have with others. We basically categorize beings or people in terms of Like, Dislike and Indifference. I will use the word "person" from now on as we usually relate mostly with our own species, but we have similar relationships with all types of beings.
The main practice for developing equanimity is to imagine our enemies on our right-hand side, our friends on our left, and strangers in the centre. We then reflect on our enemies and try to equalize our feelings towards them. We then bring up our feelings about our friends and examine them from a wider perspective and equalize our relationship with them. Finally, we add strangers to the mix and contemplate the changeability of all relationships.
OUR ENEMIES:
First of all, our enemies are usually someone that we dislike or hate, feel angry at, or feel afraid of. It is usually the result of some harm they have done to us or some desire that we have had that was frustrated by their actions. It could also be the result of some harm or frustration that we predict that they will create for us in the future.
We could also look upon someone as an enemy if they have values or goals that are different from our own. This is usually the result of thinking that everyone should have the same values and goals as we do.
We classify this person as an enemy under the notion that this person will always act this way, that our relationship with them will always be negative, that we are supposed to have constant satisfaction in our relationships with others, that their negative behaviour is independent of our own actions and that they behave negatively because that is their nature.
However, if we stop to think for a moment, we will realize that this is not entirely true. There are many circumstances where people momentarily obstruct us or do something that we don't like. It's usually only through continuous repetition of obstructing acts that a person "becomes" an enemy.
These people who are our enemies also have friends and are possibly even friends with people that we also consider friends. So therefore they also do things to others that make them likeable. This means that they are not always causing harm or creating difficulties.
Also, in the beginning of this persons existence as our enemy, they were probably a stranger and may even have been a friend at one time. Also, most of the time, we are indifferent to the lives of our enemies and only react to them when they are creating problems for us. So most of the time, we treat them like strangers.
This means that it is also possible that, under certain other circumstances, our goals and desires may match those of someone that we now consider an enemy. In which case, we would be working together and could even become friends in the process.
Because of this, it is Incomplete for us to assume that our relationship with this person that we now call an enemy will always be unsatisfactory. It is inaccurate to treat this person as if they will always be our enemy and will always harm us or cause us difficulties.
Their causing harm is temporary but it is also related to our own goals and desires and our own definition of harm. They may not even be aware of the goals and desires that are being obstructed by their actions. Therefore, their role as enemy is also our own fault and doing, because of the goals and values that we hold on to and our inability to communicate those goals to others. We tend to do the same with a lot of aspects of our reality. We focus on one aspect of our world and ignore the others. We need to continually return to the wider view of what's happening. There isn't just bad people and bad things happening, there is also good. We have both abundance and lack happening in all situations.
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GOOD
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ABUNDANCE
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NEUTRAL
BALANCE
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LACK
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BAD
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We can't just focus on the good and on the abundance. As soon as we set up a goal in our minds, people, situations, and objects that "obstruct" that goal will appear. What we are lacking to achieve that goal will become evident. This is all part of our relative reality. We often make the mistake of taking this personally. These obstructions are a message of what we have to deal with and work with in order to achieve our goal. They are a message indicating the difference between our current circumstances and the circumstances we need to be in in order to achieve what we're trying to accomplish. At this point we have the choice of working with the obstructions or abandoning our goal.
People acting like an enemy towards us is also dependent on several other factors. Their own experiences may compel them to feel differently than us regarding a certain situation. They may not be aware of the importance that we place on certain things, or their own desires in relationship to something may conflict with our desires and, as everyone has a tendency to place their own desires above everyone else's, this may be part of the cause of our disagreements.
Their feelings and reactions are done in relation to our feelings and reactions to a particular object or situation and therefore their obnoxiousness is not independent, but arises in dependence on all these circumstances, including our own actions in relationship to them. We may appear difficult, obstructive, and unreasonable to them as well, even though we consider ourselves to be very reasonable. All of these factors are evidence that the person is not an enemy by nature.
Also, the criticisms of our enemies can actually be valuable. A friend will not always tell us about areas where we need improvement or areas of our life where we make mistakes or misbehave. Our enemies and those critical of us are valuable because they can provide us with more realistic feedback about our own actions, communication and thought processes. They may also be highlighting things that we need to consider or reflecting details we have missed in our goals and actions, rather than deliberately trying to obstruct us. Through our interaction with people who have different goals and values from us, we learn about other possible ways of relating to the world, thus expanding our awareness.
So the nature of friend and enemy is really quite fluid and is definitely not fixed. We often react as if these people will never change and will always respond in the same way. This attitude denies the possibility for change at any moment or even denies the possibility of change over time and under different circumstances. For instance, a sudden death in the family might change an enemy's whole outlook on life, but we will not recognize it, because we have become so accustomed to viewing and treating this person as an enemy who will always treat us the same way. Even from one day to the next, someone that was obstructive one day, might feel more obliging another day, but we will tend to treat them as if they would still be difficult, because we have pre-defined them and their reactions.
If someone, out of anger, hits us with a stick, we don't get angry at the stick, because it is moved by the person. Likewise the person is moved by anger and so is not responsible for their actions. We also don't get angry at the fact of having a body which is also a cause for being hurt by the stick.
Similarly if we are treated rudely by our elderly parent or grandparent, because they are suffering from dementia, or if someone who is very sick, is angry and miserable, we are understanding and patient with them because we realize that their reaction is the result of their sickness. We should treat all anger and mean-ness of others in the same way, as an illness which causes them to behave improperly. We need to try to become aware of all of the things that come together to make a person irritating, many of which are the result of our own desires, goals, and attachments or the difference between our desires and theirs.
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