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Happy Hour: Hatred Never Ceases by Hatred, but by Love Alone is Healed

Introduction

Well, we'll go ahead and get started. The theme for tonight's, or this morning's depending on your time zone, meditation is cultivating friendliness, goodwill, Metta^[1] for all beings, yourself included. It is a sense of friendliness and goodwill for all beings, whether or not you agree with them.

Part of the practice of Metta, as the Buddha teaches it, is actually quite a radical practice. It is radical because it's supposed to be unbounded, exalted, and completely unconditional. Of course, for us lesser humans, we don't necessarily start there. To imagine that we can have completely unconditional, unbounded, exalted love for all beings might be a tall order to start with, but it's an aspiration.

Perhaps the way we can relate to it is through a sense of care. Just basic friendliness, goodwill, or care—whichever words work for you, please use that. It's just the sense of goodness, radiating a sense of goodness for all beings so that all beings feel safe. You offer safety, you offer goodwill because of who you are, the way you show up in the world.

If your mind starts to think about all the people whom you disagree with and all the people who do challenging, hateful things in the world, and you wonder, "Am I supposed to love them unconditionally?" Well, not to start with, no. But can we just see their humanity and offer them safety and goodwill? In our practice, we don't meet hatred with hatred. As the Buddha says, "Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed." This is an ancient and eternal law. In order for the cycle of hatred to end, the buck needs to stop with us. Hatred is not returned by hatred; ideally, it's returned by its opposite—love—but at least with non-hatred.

We will start there, and also start where it's easy. We will start with people to whom it is easy for us to extend our sense of care and safety. With that, I would like to invite you to get into your meditation posture, and if you need to move, to sit comfortably. One last thing I want to say before we start is that there are no "shoulds" in this practice of Metta. First and foremost, the practice of Metta offers our own heart safety, ease, happiness, and goodwill. Know that however much you engage with this practice today, you're really doing it for yourself.

Guided Meditation

As you enter a comfortable position, whatever that might be for you—sitting in a chair or on a cushion—arrive in your body. Arriving, settling, grounding, connecting, landing. Softening and relaxing every muscle. Putting down the weight of the world in this moment. Take a moment of refuge to be nurtured and nourished.

Let your breath be soothing and calming. Let the breath be received, each breath landing more deeply. With each out-breath, relax and soften. With each out-breath, let go of more holding, tightness, or tension in your body. I invite you, at the end of the next out-breath, to see if you can let go of more tightness and relax and soften even more. Challenge yourself. Landing more deeply in your body. Then, at the end of the next out-breath, one more time, challenge yourself: can you land more relaxedly inside yourself?

Let each breath be received with a little bit of joy, perhaps. If there is any delight, any pleasure in this act of just sitting and breathing in this moment, let the breath nourish you. The thoughts and activities can wait. Just this moment, simply being nourished in sitting and being breathed.

As each breath moves through your body, can there be a sense of friendliness with yourself in each breath? Let each in-breath fill you as if with a message of goodwill, care, and friendliness. Fill your heart, fill your lungs, your abdomen, your whole body. It is as if you were sent care and goodwill from the beyond and you were simply breathing it in—or rather, you were being breathed. Not with effort, but just naturally, it is done for you.

Care and friendliness filling your heart, your chest, your belly, your face, your eyes, your neck, shoulders, arms, hands. Friendliness, goodwill, warmth filling your sit bones, your legs, your feet.

If thoughts, memories, or plans come up for today, meet them with a smile, with a sense of care and goodwill. Thank them for arising and simply say, "Thank you, but not now. I'm taking this moment for settling, a moment of refuge, a moment of care, of reconnecting with myself. Please come back later."

Care, more safety. Breathing out care, friendliness, goodwill for yourself, and wherever your breath spreads.

Really connect in this present moment with a sense of engagement, a sense of presence. Connecting with the breath. Connecting with friendliness, goodwill—whatever flavor of it works for you—but really engaging, connecting with each and every breath. Connecting with a sense of goodwill through your breath. Goodwill and care for yourself, for this body, for this being that is you.

Allow your care, your friendliness to spread, as if it were spreading with your breath to all the beings who are practicing right now together with you, seen and unseen. It is as if your breath would bring them a wish, as if your breath is embodied with your wish of goodwill for them. May you be safe, happy, healthy, have ease. Around the world, wishing them well, all practitioners just like you. Wishing you well, friends. Wishing you goodness. Friends we have met or haven't met, wishing you well, wishing you ease, goodness. May you be well.

These beings practicing with us here are just like you, just like me. They're human beings, just like me. They suffer physical pain, sorrows, disappointments. They have joys, happinesses, people they care about, and people who care about them. Their inner lives are just as complex as my inner life is to me. My life is dear to me, and so is theirs. Wishing all these beings well; just like me, they just want to be happy.

Include yourself in this care, warmth, and friendliness. May all of us have well-being, goodness, safety, and happiness. May we all be happy. May all of us be healthy. May we all have ease.

Now extending your sense of goodwill, offering safety and goodness to all beings everywhere. Not that based on your wish every being will be well, but it's just planting the seed of friendliness, goodwill, and goodness in your own heart. May all beings everywhere, may they be safe. Be happy. Be healthy. Have ease.

Even those you don't agree with, simply by seeing their humanity. Not condoning any actions in the world, but seeing their humanity. For just like you, they want to be happy. Someone so different from you, you could have been born as they are. You could be born as them, they could be born as you. It is rather random, this lottery of life. Offering non-harming, just offering non-harming, to all beings everywhere.

Understanding that hurt people hurt people, offering the wish of healing and wholeness. Seeing more clearly the suffering of others. Non-ignoring, but not turning away. Not turning your heart away from any being in the world as much as possible.

If this practice in this form brings up a lot of challenge for you, then go back to a simpler practice, what we started with earlier in the sitting. Just breathe caring goodness for yourself. If it starts to become challenging, offer yourself kindness because you're the one who is challenged now. Offering care and compassion. You don't have to push it; there are no "shoulds" in this practice.

For the last couple of minutes of this practice period, I'd like to invite you to gladden the heart by offering Metta, goodwill, and kindness to some being that delights you and makes you happy. Right now, I hear the ducks outside my window; they're bringing a smile to my face. I'm going to offer them well-being. They just made a racket a couple of minutes ago. May they be well. May they have well-being. May they be happy, and swim happily.

Reflections and Q&A

This evening we started with the practice of offering Metta and goodwill. First by connecting with the breath, the breath bringing in a sense of care. Then we expanded. First, we went to all the beings in the room who are practicing with us. After feeling this sense of common humanity, of "just like us, just like me," we extended it further to all beings everywhere.

This was rather fast tonight. Nowadays, with everything that's going on in the world, it's easy when we expand with the sense of offering goodwill to all beings everywhere for a sense of tightness or challenge to come up. There are beings in this world that we may not agree with, whose policies, viewpoints, and actions we do not support. This can be a very challenging practice. How do we keep our heart open? How do we continue to offer non-harming? What are the ways that we can stay present and offer non-harming?

It doesn't happen overnight. My invitation was that if it became challenging at any point for you, please come back to offering care, kindness, and compassion to yourself. Yet, as we continue to practice this sense of goodwill for all beings regardless, there is a sense of resilience in our own heart that develops. A sense of fearlessness that actually supports us so that we're not fazed. There's a sense of stability that grows in us. We are the ones who benefit the most, really, from this practice of offering kindness and care to others in our hearts.

One last thing to say about this is often what comes up for many people is "but, but, but, but..." One teaching to consider is if people who cause harm in the world through their actions and hatred didn't have "dust in their eyes," as the Buddha puts it—if they could see clearly the effect that their actions and hatred were having on themselves and on everyone—they wouldn't be acting in this way. It really is a matter of ignorance, of not knowing any better. This knowing is not a matter of knowledge or information, but it's a knowing in the heart. If their hearts knew better, the harm would not be caused. We offer this goodwill knowing that if all of these beings knew better, if they could see clearly through their heart, the harm wouldn't be caused. So we offer non-harming and care in our hearts, understanding that.

If you would like to share any reflections either in chat, or if you want to raise your hand, I invite you to share before we go into small groups. What's coming up for you right now having done this practice?

Jasna says in the chat that it was a challenging practice. Thanks for hanging in there, Jasna. Let me unmute you.

Jasna: Hi Nikki, I just want to say I had a hard time centering. It wasn't hard to feel love for other people, but I had more troubles being centered and paying attention. That was the challenging part.

Nikki: The part that you found challenging was staying centered because a lot of stories can come up. I suggest, until this practice becomes easier, to perhaps come back to your anchor. Come back to the breath, come back to goodwill for yourself. When there is more stability, then try it on again. When you lose your balance, come back again. It's perfectly fine to do it that way. Thank you. Chris, you are unmuted.

Chris: You mentioned meeting hatred with love, and I was just wondering if you could explore that a little bit more because I find it difficult, especially in this environment right now where it's kind of in our face. How do you actually do that as a person who's trying to practice mindfulness? The only illustration I can get on a micro-level is imagine if you're someone that lives with someone who's beating you in a household. It's hard to tell that person to meet that hatred with love. That's where we are with our society right now. As a mindfulness person, do you just close your eyes to what's going on and take the beating? I'm just curious about your thoughts.

Nikki: I am so glad you brought that up, Chris. Thank you so much. You absolutely will not take the beating. This teaching is not about becoming a doormat. What the teaching is about is cultivating an attitude of love, but not condoning actions. What does that mean? Say someone is attacking you and harming you, and it's not appropriate. You love yourself of course, and you don't want to be harmed. They're harming themselves by harming you. Out of self-defense, stopping them—and if you need to use a weapon also—it's not out of hatred, but it's out of love. Out of love for yourself and out of love for the person: "I care for you, and you're hurting me."

Let me tell a tiny little story. One of the people who brought the practice of Metta to the West is Sharon Salzberg^[2]. There is this wonderful story she tells about being in India on a rickshaw. Making a long story short, she was almost pulled down by a drunken person, and she was really afraid for her life. She felt that if she was brought down from the rickshaw, she would have been raped and killed. As she went to see her teacher, Munindraji^[3], she was quite shaken. She tells him the story, and Munindraji tells her, "Well, Sharon, with all the love in your heart, you should have taken your umbrella and hit the drunken man over the head."

I offer that example because it is wise action. The wise action is: "No, you can't hurt me. And drunken person, you're hurting yourself. You don't know what you're doing out of drunkenness or out of hatred, you don't know any better." Taking the umbrella and hitting them over the head isn't coming out of hatred; it's out of love for myself and care for the being that you are. It is seeing that you're really not acting as your highest self. The divinity that you are wouldn't be harming me in this moment. In this example, the person is drunk, but if the person is not drunk, they're still not living up to the beauty and humanity that you wish they would show up as. Does that answer the question?

Chris: Yeah, a little bit. It's definitely something I have to meditate on more, but I think you gave me a good perspective to think about.

Nikki: It's okay to say a strong "no" and take action in self-defense. In the case of hitting the person over the head, you will be harming that person, they'll be knocked out, but is that coming out of hatred? "Oh, you hate me, therefore I hate you." No, it's coming from love for myself, and maybe in some ways a love for seeing that person change. That is part of this practice of Metta. Thank you for bringing that up, Chris.

Let's see. We have a comment by Neal in the chat acknowledging that hearing that specific example may be triggering for people who have trauma. Thank you, Neal, for acknowledging that and bringing that into the room.

Gita asks, "How do we manage to keep giving Metta when we feel depleted and helpless in the face of ignorance and hatred around us? In other words, how do we keep loving without expecting results?"

That's a really good question, Gita. The practice of Metta is supposed to be nurturing and nourishing to ourselves. I invite you to practice in the way that can be supportive. If it feels like wishing well for all beings everywhere is depleting you and it's just too much, the appropriate response in that moment is to completely turn to yourself. Hold yourself in nourishment and rejuvenate yourself.

As for keeping loving without expecting results, I think that really is the crux of Metta. You are the result. We don't do this practice for something to change in the world. It's often said it's not a magical practice; "May you be well" will not make you well, no matter how much I wish it. However, the result is how your heart becomes transformed in kindness and offering itself a sense of safety. So those are the results. But don't even expect that, because if the practice is result-expecting, it becomes tight.

It seems like we've gotten into conversations, but I think we still have time for an interactive practice. Neal, since you raised the issue, is there anything else that would be supportive to address and bring into the room here?

Neal: Just being mindful of if we bring really traumatizing things into the space, it can lead people who have been in this situation to relive that again and really be a painful experience. It's helpful to be aware of that, and something about trauma-informed or trauma-responsive approaches.

Nikki: I appreciate you bringing that in and bringing that sensitivity, Neal. Part of the practice of Metta is that it can support the heart in having a sense of safety. I think you're referring to the specific story that Sharon Salzberg tells.

Neal: Well, I actually originally wrote the comment before that story, about the idea of someone getting hurt by a significant other. I haven't been in that situation, but just felt like a thing I needed to say at that point.

Nikki: Thank you for raising that. As it's almost five minutes to six, maybe tonight we won't have time to get into small groups. I'm just going to open it up if there are any other questions, comments, or reflections you want to bring up.

Paul: Hi Nikki. You know, one of the responses that I have to rhetoric that can hurt us is to go away from it. Is to stop going to those sources. What do you think of that? It seems to work for some time.

Nikki: I think what you're referring to, Paul, is choosing what is wise. What is the wise consumption of material, say if it's news or social media? At some point, realizing that it's not helpful to be consuming this or being in this conversation, it's wiser not to be a part of it. There is wisdom in that too.

And there are times that you are in the midst of it. Say you have been exposed to hatred on social media, and instead of flying off the handle and typing a reciprocally hateful message, can you see the person's humanity? I'll give an example. Someone has family members with very different ideas and politics than they do, and they're expressing that it's really hard to engage. I asked, "Do they feel heard? Do they feel that you actually listen to them?" And the answer was actually no, because there are a lot of "but, but, but"s that come up when the conversation happens. Creating a sense of allowing the other person to feel heard creates a feeling of understanding.

In what you brought up, Paul, there can be wisdom in turning away, or there could be wisdom in engaging skillfully. In either case, there's a sense of love. Love for yourself because you care for yourself and you turn away, or love in saying, "Let me understand, let me hear you better, let me not just assume that I know where you're coming from" in order to create a sense of understanding.

The question that you asked, Chris, was very helpful in us exploring and learning together, and I think there is a time and place for trauma-sensitive mindfulness. I wanted to bring Neal's comment into the room and honor that too. I would not have had you not ask your question at all, Chris, so I'm really glad that you raised what you raised. It was an insightful question out of care to understand the Dharma^[4]. What does this practice of love mean when somebody might be beating you? And Neal, I also appreciate you pointing out, out of care for other people, "It's not my case, but somebody might be hurt by this." Both are examples of care that you exhibited in the way you showed up tonight. It's not out of hatred; it's out of love. We act out of love. Our world is not perfect, but we show up with love and care for each other and learning the Dharma.

Thank you all for tonight's practice. It was a very rich practice and very rich conversation. May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including us. Thank you all, be well, and take care.