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Guided Meditation: Non-Hate

Warm greetings from Redwood City and Insight Meditation Center. I am filled with a degree of happiness and delight to be here, and oddly enough, to be able to talk about this very important topic for our society and our world: the three roots^[1]. We will continue today a little bit with the second root of hate.

It is a little odd to be happy to be talking about it, but it is mostly because of the opposite: the possibility of non-hate. That is so welcome and inspiring for me. There is a very famous poem that probably many of you have heard, and popularly in English, it often goes this way. It is a Buddhist poem from the Dhammapada^[2]: "Hate is not overcome by hate, but by love alone is it overcome. This is the ancient truth."

The literal translation of it is: "Hate is not overcome by hate. By non-hate is hate overcome. This is the ancient truth." The difference between saying "love" and "non-hate" is that non-hate is inclusive of a wider range of attitudes, motivations, and emotions than love. Maybe love could include much more, but love is something a little more specific. Non-hate, in my mind, opens up the possibility for a wide range of alternatives to hate.

As a reflection during this meditation, before we start, you might want to consider—if you had a blank slate, left alone to yourself, what is the opposite of hate? What is the opposite that fits into the category of non-hate? What is the opposite of hate, and where do you feel that? How do you know that? What is your experience of that? Do you have any reference point in your body for the opposite of hate, for non-hate? We will use this as a reference point for the meditation today, if it is available. If it is not available, that is fine as well.

I will talk more about this during a later talk, that there is freedom to be found by being carefully attentive to the difficulties we have, the unwholesome states of mind that we have.

So, please take your meditation posture and gently ease into it. Spend a little bit of time moving around, rocking back and forth, and feeling the weight of your body against whatever is supporting it in the pull of gravity. Feel what is holding you from falling through the floor—your chair, your cushion.

Gently close your eyes, and gently lower yourself into your experience of breathing. Somewhere in your body, there are sensations associated with breathing. Rather than being in the control tower looking at it and thinking about it, relax the control tower. Relax the effort of thinking, figuring out, and trying with any kind of tension. Instead of being in the control tower, be in your body, in the physicality of the sensations of breathing.

That might be in the nostrils, it might be in the chest, in the diaphragm, or in the belly. Perhaps you can follow the inhales and exhales. Follow with a kind of intimacy. Maybe as you exhale, relax your belly. Sometimes, if the belly is relaxed, as you inhale the whole belly area expands outwards. Sometimes, rather than the chest doing all the work of expanding, it is the belly that expands.

Take a few moments to feel the belly moving as you breathe. Perhaps deeper inside than any tension or holding you have, there is also a place where breathing can be easeful and relaxed. Even if parts of the breathing are not relaxed, see if you can find that place within. Find that part in your body where the sensations of breathing just seem to appear peacefully on their own.

Then, do not think about an answer, but just see what arises for yourself. It is a contemplative question. See what response there is within you as you hear this question; no response is fine. For you personally, what is the opposite of hate? What inside of you corresponds to non-hate? What wholesome states exist in you? Is there a place inside your body that you associate with this non-hate? Where are those feelings in your body? What corresponds in your body to this state?

As we sit here, perhaps in a quiet, relaxed way, stay close to this place of non-hate. Maybe breathe through it, breathe with it. If you drift off in thought, let go and return to this place in your body, this possibility of non-hate. For the minutes we are here, perhaps you can trust and have faith in whatever there is inside that resonates with a wholesome state, the possibility of non-hate.

Then gently and carefully, perhaps you can open your mind to also be an expression of non-hate. Allow your gently open mind to operate in a relaxed way. Perhaps there is a reference, a way of being in the mind—maybe in the corner of the mind or deep inside—where the mind's capacity for non-hate can be a reference point, a support, a home. Even if there is difficulty or aversion in the mind, acknowledge it and let it be. But if possible, center the mind on its capacity for non-hate.

Reflections

As we come to the end of the sitting, I would like to read to you some of the wholesome behaviors that the Buddha emphasized—behaviors that could represent non-hate. You might listen to these and let these words or ideas be received in some deep place, with the idea that maybe they resonate with something that is true for you, real for you, inspiring for you. Maybe they are qualities that are relevant for how you want to live today, this week, this month, this life:

Being compassionate toward all living beings. Reuniting those who are divided, promoting friendship. Speaking gently and courteously. Speaking what is factual and useful, and wishing that others be free of affliction.

To bring compassion to this world, to promote harmony and friendship, and to meet people with gentleness and basic courtesy. To speak what is true by knowing something about how to speak the truth. Speaking what is useful, and wishing, supporting, and helping others to be free of affliction.

May it be that as we come out of this meditation, in whatever ways we have given ourselves over to the practice and whatever intention we have had to be true, may it be for the benefit and welfare of all beings everywhere. May all beings have an experience of happiness, peace, friendship, and support. May all beings everywhere have the feeling, the experience, and the benefit of receiving great support for their lives.

May we all support each other.