Dear Friends,
Turn on the news, and you’ll likely read about some manifestation of hatred, aversion, ill-will, fear, or variations thereof. Wars, crime, violence. Maybe not as news-worthy, you might have your own internal messages that come from that same source – impatience, judging, blame, harsh self-talk, and so on. We can even have aversion to aversion! “I’m a meditator – I’m not supposed to feel ill-will…”
The practice of mettā, of friendliness, is an antidote to ill-will or aversion.
The Dhammapada has this pithy saying:
Hatred never ends through hatred.
Dhammapada, verse 5, translated by Gil Fronsdal
By non-hate alone does it end.
This is an ancient truth.
Christina Feldman describes how mettā and mindfulness work together to this end:
If the inclination of mindfulness is to turn toward all experience, the inclination of metta is to learn that we can stand beside or near to that which we turn toward. We do not have to love the difficult, but we can care about and befriend it. … The great power of mindfulness is that it enables us to choose what it is that we pay attention to and how we attend to all things. Metta and mindfulness, cojoined, are guardians of the heart. For the welfare and happiness of all beings, we embark on a journey of guarding our boundless heart.
pages 16-17
Jack Kornfield has a short written meditation instruction, which he calls Meditation on Stopping the War Within. It’s an example of a practice of noticing, with mindfulness, difficult experiences, and bringing a quality of kindness to it. Perhaps you will try this today.
It might seem a small thing, but Christina assures us, “We learn to trust that each moment we make an attitudinal commitment to befriending rather than to aversion makes a difference.” (p. 17)
With warm wishes,
Andrea
I get ur statement “aversion to aversion”. Before finding practice (over 10 years ago) when negative/nasty thoughts arose I would push them away cause I didn’t like how they made me feel. It was the only way I knew how to deal with them. I would sometimes feel sick cause it felt wrong to feel the way I did and I didn’t know what else to do.
Now, most of the time, I can sit with ease when these feeling arise. They still happen but I don’t stuff them down. I can see the suffering it causes me and can consciously practice metta. I am more forgiving of myself and able to recognize it’s ok … the feeling is only a feeling and not me. Mars
Thank you for sharing your experience from your dedicated practice over the years. It’s inspiring!
Hi Andrea, I also have a tendency to push away negative thoughts/feelings. What Feldman says is unclear to me : We can stand beside the experience. We do not have to love the difficult thing, but we should care about and befriend it. She ends by saying that “we embark on a journey of guarding our boundless heart”. If we are going near it and caring and befriending it, how is that “guarding” our heart? In what way is our heart guarded? I can sit with something uncomfortable with ease; but I don’t feel guarded.
Thanks, Geralyne
Hi Geralyne,
From my experience, the way I understand this “guarding” of the heart is that we have the potential to protect ourselves from further ingraining habits of reactivity.
When aversion arises, we can be aware of aversion, with mindfulness, and can have the kindness and patience to sit with or allow this aversion, with metta. That gives us time and space to get to know aversion, to see how it arises, how it changes, how it passes away. With this wisdom, then as aversion arises again, we don’t have to be pushed or pulled as much by reactivity.
Ultimately, you’ll have to look to your own experience and see how or if this fits for you. Maybe the word “guarding” doesn’t make sense, and you can find a different way to express how mindfulness and metta make it possible for you to to “sit with something uncomfortable with ease”.
Warm wishes,
Andrea
Hi Andrea, That’s a good question. I think I’ve simply been distancing myself from it while cozying up to my own sense of goodness. It may amount to the same thing, but from a different perspective: I allow this aversion by stepping away from it and noticing what causes it to arise. I bring Metta to it by bringing in a sense of compassion and appreciation for the goodness within. I get the idea.
Thanks, Geralyne