Buddhism, Icicles, and Trying to Love Your Enemies

It’s often said that Buddhism is built on two core principles - wisdom and compassion.

\r\n\r\n

On intensive meditation retreats, I spend most\r\nof my time engaged in wisdom-based practice, with mindfulness at the root. But\r\nit ismetta, the Pali term for loving-kindness, that imbues the long,\r\nsilent days with a fundamental heartfulness.

\r\n\r\n

Mettacan be cultivated through a variety of techniques. One\r\nbasic approach begins at the easiest point of entry, offeringmettato\r\nourselves and to a “benefactor” — a person towards whom the heart is naturally\r\ninclined with gratitude. Once gaining some stability there, next comesmettafor\r\na “neutral person” — someone familiar to us, a passing acquaintance perhaps,\r\nwho elicits neither malice nor specific good will.

\r\n\r\n

Then it gets interesting. And harder:Mettafor\r\nthe “difficult person” or “enemy.” Here, we extend loving-kindness to someone\r\nwho has harmed or wronged us. Towards whom we feel anger, even hatred. This is\r\nnot meant to exonerate or condone unethical behaviors; instead, it is a\r\nrecognition that feeding resentment or nurturing a vendetta serves no benefit.\r\nObviously, this catapults the practice to a new level.

\r\n\r\n

Other than transient annoyances and\r\ngrievances, I have few candidates with whom I easily slot the “difficult\r\nperson” position (we’re talking personal relationships, not politicians). I am\r\ngrateful for this. But there are two applicants who regularly vie for the vote.\r\nOne was a dear friend who abruptly ended our relationship a few years back and\r\nignored numerous attempts to bridge the breach. The second is a colleague who\r\nhas long held me in a negative light, for reasons I’ve never understood. I’ll\r\ncall them Aaron and Vincent (well, Adolph and Osama make such clunky\r\npseudonyms).

\r\n\r\n

While on retreat, thoughts of Aaron or Vincent\r\nwill occasionally enter my awareness.

\r\n\r\n

These appearances take many flavors: I’ll\r\ncatch myself in mental battle, scripting imaginary conversations, arguments, or\r\nrebuttals; I’ll be seized by anger, resentment, or shame; I’ll re-analyze, for\r\nthe umpteenth time, what went wrong, whose fault it was, or how to heal the\r\nbreach. At times, I will offermettato them. Other times I\r\nwill offermettato myself, for the pain of carrying wounds\r\nthat have yet to be assuaged. Or, I may envision, with dark pleasure, their\r\npublic humiliation.

\r\n\r\n

In the silence I can go days, even weeks,\r\nwithout Vincent or Aaron popping up. I have also gone long stretches feeling\r\ngenuinemettafor them, indeed for all of us as we muddle\r\nthrough the messy thicket of human relatedness. But then the fire or ice of my\r\nresentment will reappear, and at moments come to dominate the landscape.

\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n

I believe in this practice. I believe there is\r\nbenefit in navigating one’s psyche towards kindness, even for those we perceive\r\nas having wronged us personally or who cause harm in the world. I have\r\nexperienced, repeatedly, that when I actually open my heart in this manner I\r\ntouch a deep happiness and humanity, certainly more so than when I indulge\r\nfantasies of revenge or nurse my grievances, which taste sweet in the moment\r\nbut invariably leave a toxic aftertaste.

\r\n\r\n

Still, no surprise here: these beliefs don’t\r\nmake the journey towards kind-heartedness any less circuitous.

\r\n\r\n

One afternoon deep into the retreat, walking\r\nback to my dorm room after lunch, I stopped to gaze out the windows of the\r\nnarrow second floor hallway. It was a bright winter’s day. The sunlight blazed\r\nthrough a long line of windows.

\r\n\r\n

My interest gravitated to a row of icicles\r\nhanging off a nearby roof. Slowly, I watched the early afternoon sun inch\r\ndiagonally across the roof. At first, the dozen or so icicles, of various\r\nlengths and thicknesses, were all shaded. But I arrived just in time to see the\r\nsun gradually reach one icicle after another. Exposed to the first direct sun\r\nof the day, each icicle started glistening, and then melting.

\r\n\r\n

How fun! I started predicting: how soon after\r\nmeeting the sun’s heat would the icicle start dripping, and then dislodge\r\ncompletely from the roof’s edge? It was the perfect day for this impromptu\r\nentertainment — warm enough to send several icicles, one after another,\r\nplummeting down to the ground, each dropping like a dagger disengaged from its\r\nsheath.

\r\n\r\n

Towards the end of the row, at the corner of\r\nthe roof, the icicles were thicker and longer. This was evidently the spot\r\nwhere icicles were most apt to form, and to linger the longest when they did.\r\nThese icicles also dripped, but more slowly than the others. Their mass was too\r\nentrenched to fall or melt completely away, at least that afternoon. They\r\nweren’t permanent - this is New England, and spring would eventually come - but\r\nfor the foreseeable future these icicles would remain affixed to the roofline.

\r\n\r\n

And so I thought of Victor and Aaron. My most\r\njagged interpersonal wounds are like stubborn icicles. I can go for days, or\r\nseasons, with no ice in my heart. But when I start ruminating on who has\r\nwronged me, on my “difficult” person, it’s the Victor and Aaron icicles that\r\nform in the least sunny corner, drip away the slowest, and most resist melting\r\nfor good into a soft puddle of water.

\r\n\r\n

(I spent the winter of 2012 in silence on a\r\nself-guided retreat at the Forest Refuge, a Buddhist meditation center in rural\r\nMassachusetts. This twice-monthly blog explores how intensive retreats offer a\r\ncompass for everyday life).

By Steven Schwartzberg Ph.D. clinical psychologist, dharma student, intentional nomad – Huffingtonpost

\r\n\r\n

Source from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-schwartzberg/on-buddhism-icicles-and-t_b_9004018.html

\r\n\r\n