by Sister Medhini
so mettāsahagatena cetasā ekaṃ disaṃ pharitvā viharati, tathā dutiyaṃ, tathā tatiyaṃ, tathā cattthaṃ . iti uddhamadho tiriyaṃ sabbadhi sabbattatāya sabbāvantaṃ lokaṃ mettāsahagatena cetasā vipulena mahaggatena appamāṇena averena abyāpajjena pharitvā viharati
He lives with one direction pervaded by a mind endowed with friendliness, likewise the second, the third and the fourth. So above, below, across and in all directions, everywhere, he lives with the entire world pervaded by a mind endowed with friendliness – great, exalted and immeasurable, without enmity, without ill-will.
-MN 7
This passage should be seen as a description of the nature of a mind of friendliness. That is, mettā is of a nature to be boundless; to pervade the whole world in all directions without limit. And so any notion of that mind established in mettā needing to direct active effort towards being friendly in regard to particular persons or things is inapplicable. The development of a mind of friendliness is the development of a boundless mind.
The description in fact makes no mention of other people, and this is because the purpose of dwelling in mettā (and the other brahmavihāras) is not to live in harmony with others, or to have pleasant thoughts about others. It is in fact totally unconcerned with others. Rather, the purpose is developing the way of living and thinking and seeing the world that does not carry the basis for ill-will or enmity in any shape or to any extent. That is why the mind that has learned the meaning of dwelling in mettā and become established in it to the extent necessary would become incapable of ill-will; enmity becomes literally inconceivable.1
The basis of enmity is far broader than one particular mental state, although the state of mind of anger or ill-will is of course the most obvious symptom of it. It encompasses one’s whole mode of being; in other words, the capacity for enmity in one’s experience is a measure for one’s capacity to suffer. It is obvious that becoming free from this can only come from first uncovering and understanding that basis of enmity, which we all end up carrying around with us unless we make the necessary effort to undo it.
Although the purpose of mettā is nothing to do with others, ill-will on the other hand is very much concerned with others, or more precisely, with certain orientations and attitudes that infect and affect the whole framework of one’s experience of others. Whatever interaction or relationship with others one might have; pleasing or unpleasing, towards love or towards hate; relies on and can only come through that same framework that allows for both. But people generally live entangled with other people and dependent on them physically and emotionally, which means that the framework of others in the most general sense remains perpetually covered up by this entanglement and engagement. As long as it remains covered up, not understood and unabandoned, there is no possibility of a mind of non-enmity.2
Therefore the immediate and basic work to be done by a person who wants to go above enmity, is to separate himself from others in the coarse and obvious ways. To give up, that is, the habits of relying on and using them for safety, pleasure and comfort.3
‘Others’, in the most general sense, as a direction that is always present in any experience (regardless of who or what one regards as pertaining to it at the time), is what practically speaking represents a domain that is characterised by uncertainty and unavailability.
By this I mean that while one can look to other people for what one wants, or can try to help them or affect them in different ways, what makes it possible for them to, for example, either help you or hurt you, to love you or hate you, to react in one way or another in any given situation, is utterly beyond reach. This is the direction from which any threat to one’s existence is felt to originate. It is equally the direction from which the greatest and best blessing or good fortune might come. ‘Others’, in short, means ‘there’s no saying which way it will go.’ No matter how much someone has managed to gain a sense of security and familiarity within certain groups or communities, even if one were to become the ruler of the entire world, there would always remain ‘something other’ that one has no access to. When it is not ignored, it is what is immediately known as unavailable and by definition impossible to own.
The foundation of enmity can be boiled down to the standpoint and orientation of opposition in regard to the domain of others as a whole. This is in common not only to all forms of enmity, fear and ill-will, but equally sensual attraction and emotional dependency.
One can feel opposed to this or that particular person or thing when regarding it specifically as a threat or adversary, but the opposition as it is meant here, as a foundation for living within the sphere where enmity applies, is based in one’s internal relationship with the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and imagination; whatever is seen, heard, sensed and imagined; and whatever is felt – agreeable, disagreeable, neither-agreeable-nor-disagreeable – in regard to what is seen, heard, sensed and imagined. It is a matter of, quite literally, ‘taking a side’ when it comes to the totality of this.
This means, to put this as concisely as possible for the moment, that when it comes to certain aspects of this totality – most fundamentally the sense faculties and what is felt in dependence on them – one is habitually looking past their facticity, towards what one takes for granted as an opposing object, separate and at a distance. And in this way one is implicitly taking the side of the senses – that is, regarding them as personal and holding them dear.
To put this in different words: when something a person sees is pleasing, he habitually ‘sticks’ to it and welcomes it, while forgetting the seeing of it. When something he sees is displeasing, he habitually rejects and resists it, equally looking past the seeing of it. The same applies to what is heard, smelled, tasted, touched and imagined: either way, whether rejecting or welcoming these things, one is regularly accepting, taking for granted and reinforcing the direction of emphasis that these experiences naturally offer: ‘this is the source of my pain’; ‘this is the source of my pleasure.’ It is in this way that he ends up continually looking past the phenomenon of pain or pleasure as such, and holding whatever is felt dearly as his own, whether as ‘my suffering’ or ‘my happiness’. By the same token, the direction of that which he is welcoming or rejecting is constantly being placed and maintained by default on the side of the ‘other’, that is the opposition.
For as long as someone is living in this way, unknowingly holding the domain of ‘others’ at a distance and cultivating opposition to it as a whole – he cannot recognise the fact that that entire dimension of ‘otherness’, together with its undermining and threatening nature and its absolute unreachability, is bound with and inconceivable apart from that very seeing of it that he takes to be ‘his’ seeing, the hearing he takes to be ‘his’ hearing, the imagining he takes to be ‘his’ imagining, and the feeling he takes to be ‘his’ feeling.4
In other words, the unavailability of ‘others’ as a direction, is what reveals the unavailability of the seeing of them, hearing of them, sensing of them, cognizing of them: one’s ‘own’ senses and feelings in dependence on them belong entirely to the domain of others. And when one can be affected, threatened or enticed by others, it is because one is taking up these complete others and holding them as one’s own.5
By the very fact of taking these complete others as mine, one is at the same time viscerally opposing all that is ‘other’. Taking the side of the senses, and taking the side of whatever is felt in dependence on them, entails by definition engaging in a total and absolute resistance to and denial of the whole nature of the domain of others6. The dissonance that results from maintaining this contradiction in the heart of one’s existence, while doing everything to get away from it apart from looking at it and undoing it, is one way of describing what dukkha is in its core. And it is because of this self-generated conflict with the nature of everything- not because of the domain of others being inaccessible and uncertain as it actually is – that it threatens one, oppresses one, and remains as a basis for enmity and ill-will.
So, for as long as a person is regarding his senses and feelings as his personal property, it is impossible not to regard others as potential enemies, even if they are not currently seen as his enemies at the time. For the same reason, if one abandons the gratuitous and contradictory taking the side of what does not belong to him, there cannot be any ground for opposition in regard to others, regardless of what they might do. Enmity or ill-will simply cannot apply there. Neither, for that matter, can love or intimacy.
On seeing a form with the eye, when it is pleasing he is impassioned with it, when it is unpleasing he is averse to it. He dwells without established memory of the body, with a limited mind. And he does not understand the freedom of the mind and the freedom of wisdom as it is, wherein those evil, harmful things cease without remainder. Engaged as he is in favouring and opposing, whatever feeling he feels, – whether pleasant, unpleasant, neither unpleasant nor unpleasant – he delights in that feeling, accepts it and remains holding to it.
– MN 38
The practical meaning of “dwelling without established memory of the body” in this context is that while this person is impassioned with seeing something pleasing, or averse to something displeasing, he only sees what he sees, and forgets the physical ‘seeing’ of it. (The same goes for all of the other senses, including imagination.)
This apparently insignificant detail, which does not make any material or measurable difference to one’s experience, is nonetheless the difference between going with the grain of samsara, and going against it. It is by repeatedly and habitually looking past the ‘seeing’ while only seeing what one sees, that one becomes opposed to it again and again, and keeps taking the side of the eye that sees, which is the basis for taking up whatever one feels in regard to it.7 The mind in this way remains bound by that feeling, which again is how it is bound to opposition and enmity, as well as to birth, death, pain, sorrow, lamentation and despair.
Now delight in feelings is taking-up (upādana). With his taking-up as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering.
– MN 38
If one, having understood this, does not forget this container of the bodily ‘seeing’ (and likewise for all other senses) regardless of what he is seeing, that is how one begins to establish the correct memory of the body while being within it. Understanding the meaning of this, and training in it throughout one’s days and nights, means learning to undo the habit of unknowingly taking the side of the body of senses, and whatever is felt in dependence on it.
And what, bhikkhus, is the nourishment for the arising of unarisen ill-will, and for the increase and development of arisen ill-will? There is, bhikkhus, the sign for opposition (paṭighanimittā). Repeatedly attending that unreflexively – this is the nourishment for the arising of unarisen ill-will, and for the increase and development of arisen ill-will And what, bhikkhus, is the starvation of the arising of unarisen ill-will, and of the increase and development of arisen ill-will? There is, bhikkhus, the freedom of the mind by friendliness (mettācetovimutti). Repeatedly attending that reflexively – this is the starvation of the arising of unarisen ill-will, and for the increase and development of arisen ill-will.
– SN 46.51
‘The sign for opposition’ (paṭighanimittā) and ‘the freedom of the mind by friendliness’ (mettācetovimutti) – these are not to be seen as two entirely separate things that arise independently. Wherever there is the sign for opposition, or to put it another way, the ‘offer’ of opposition – there is simultaneously the potential for the freedom of the mind by friendliness. In other words, that possibility of non-opposition without limit or measure is what is obscured by attending wrongly to a situation that naturally ‘points’ to opposition.
Attending wrongly, unreflexively (ayoniso) to that which ‘points’ one in the direction of a given opposition, simply means taking this ‘sign’ at face value and its given emphasis on ‘this or that other thing’ as the source of one’s problem (i.e. the source of pain).
Attending rightly, reflexively (yoniso) to the same situation with the same significance, means simply not accepting at face value its natural pointing towards ‘the opposition’, while the pressure towards accepting it is there, and not before or after. This is different from totally denying that significance, pretending it is not there, or refusing to acknowledge it. The point is that there is no need to ‘do’ anything more than not take for granted that natural direction of emphasis that points towards ‘something’ as the cause of the pain one is feeling.
This is also the place to mention that what practically constitutes ‘the sign for opposition’ on any given occasion (i.e. what it ‘points towards’) vs the extent of what can become included in the personal side (that on behalf of which one becomes opposed to something else), is not at all fixed; and is determined by how it is regarded and which aspects of the situation are wrongly emphasised and attended; not by their content. Even other people and their feelings can become included into the side that is taken up, on whose behalf one acts towards what is against them; and conversely even the image of one’s own self can be taken as the enemy towards which the mind expresses and carries very real ill-will.
An example that might help to illustrate this: suppose a person is feeling displeasure on being given a harsh reprimand or criticism by somebody else. He could accept at face value the ‘sign for opposition’ that points towards the person who dared criticise him; whether fairly or unfairly, as the source of his own displeasure on hearing it, and that is how he would be implicitly ‘taking the side’ of that displeasure while becoming opposed to the other person. This is the basis for further resentment towards them; irritation or irrational self-justification, etc. But in the experience of being criticised or reprimanded by somebody else, their displeasure or disappointment is also manifested as such. And this ‘external’ displeasure, if it is what becomes the focus and basis of unreflexive attention, can equally become what is taken up as a standpoint for opposition. In other words, there is also the ‘sign of opposition’ in this situation that points towards ‘your behaviour, your action, your thought’ as the source of another’s pain8; and accepting this at face value is how someone can become opposed to and angry with himself ‘on behalf of’ the feelings of others.9
Which of these potential directions one’s mind will be inclined to take at any given time depends to some extent on the situation, as well as on the tendencies of an individual. The point is that anything that is seen, heard, sensed and imagined can equally become the basis of opposition: the fact that a thought is of ‘myself’ does not prevent it from being regarded as an enemy and in this sense an ‘other;’ and on the other hand even something that is manifestly and self-evidently outside of one’s domain does not prevent it from being taken as an intimate association. In brief, all signs for opposition are equally groundless and all forms of intimacy are equally gratuitous.
Not accepting such sign of opposition at face value, without denying or further interfering with them10, is how one does not lose sight of the broader perspective in regard to it. And that ‘bigger picture’ is in itself what can eventually become known as the freedom of the mind by friendliness, by repeatedly undoing and not accepting the given emphasis towards opposition.11
This does not feel like the friendliness one is used to, which is always ‘in relation to’ enmity, which depends on intimacy and on people. (And for this reason, if one does not stick to developing it to the sufficient degree in spite of its not feeling ‘right’ according to what he expects, he will not recognise it for what it is.) Mettā is, rather, the ultimate non-enmity amidst enmity: while the conflicts and hostilities inevitably go on within the domain of others, the mind that, through training, has been withdrawn from both entanglement and opposition in regard to the totality of that domain, sees its full extent and is without a stake in any part of it, cannot help but dwell with non-enmity that is truly without limit and that pervades every direction.
susukhaṃ vata jīvāma, verinesu averino. verinesu manussesu, viharāma averino.
So very happily we live! – without enmity amidst enemies. Among mankind in enmity, rid of enmity we dwell.
-Dhp 197
sa sabbadhammesu visenibhūto, yaṃ kiñci diṭṭhaṃ va sutaṃ mutaṃ vā. tameva dassiṃ vivaṭaṃ carantaṃ, kenīdha lokasmi vikappayeyya.
In regard to all things he has become unopposed/ disassociated – Whatever seen, heard or thought. Living transparently seeing like this, By what in the world could one define him?
-Snp 4.4
- ‘I have developed and cultivated the freedom of the mind by friendliness, made it my vehicle and basis, carried it out, consolidated it, and properly undertaken it, yet ill will still remains, taking over my mind.’ He should be told: ‘Not so! Do not speak thus. Do not misrepresent the Blessed One; for it is not good to misrepresent the Blessed One. The Blessed One would certainly not speak in such a way. It is impossible and inconceivable, friend, that one might develop and cultivate the freedom of the mind by friendliness, make it one’s vehicle and basis, carry it out, consolidate it, and properly undertake it, yet ill will could still remain, taking over one’s mind. There is no such possibility. For this, friend, is the escape from ill will, namely, the freedom of the mind by friendliness.’ AN 6.13 ↩︎
- ‘People are bound by people/ for people depend on people./ People are hurt by people/ and people hurt other people. /Then what is the benefit of people for you,/ or what is created by people? / Having hurt many people/you should leave these people and go.’ Thag. 2.15 (Reading ‘gaccha taṁ = tvaṁ’ in the second last line.) ↩︎
- It might be worth pointing out that running away from everybody and living in a cave is not the way to do this. Physical seclusion is useful and necessary to some extent; but simply dwelling alone in and of itself does not teach you how to ‘not delight in company.’ The purpose of physical seclusion should be seen as training oneself in living ‘as one who is alone’ even amongst others, and therefore too much of seclusion at the wrong time, and especially undertaken for the wrong reasons, can result in obscuring the problem rather than addressing it. Independence of others is primarily achieved through training in authenticity, morality and renunciation, and by accepting responsibility for one’s choices and their consequences. If the relevance of this to ill-will and anger is not obvious, it will become so as one starts actually putting it into practice. But one point that can be mentioned immediately is that this foundational training obviously includes abstaining from acting or speaking from irritation, resentment or other forms of ill-will. In doing so one will already be giving up a whole sphere of enmity that relies on such outward expressions of it for its existence. If one is putting this first and taking it seriously, it will, in the first place, be relatively easy to see where further work of internally disentangling oneself from others applies; and in the second place, the mind will be strong enough to do it. In other words, the following paragraphs will be applicable. ↩︎
- See SN 35.68: ’Venerable sir, it is said, ‘the world, the world.’ In what way, venerable sir, might there be the world or the description of the world?”
“Where there is the eye, Samiddhi, where there are sights, eye-consciousness, things to be cognized by eye-consciousness, there the world exists or the description of the world.
“Where there is the ear … the imagination, where there are images, imagination-consciousness, things to be cognized by imagination-consciousness, there the world exists or the description of the world.’ Also SN 35.116: ‘That in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world—this is called the world in the Noble One’s Discipline. And what, friends, is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world? The eye is that in the world by which one is a perceiver of the world, a conceiver of the world..’ ↩︎ - Here, monk, a monk has heard: “All things are not worth depending on.” When a monk has heard this: “All things are not worth depending on,” he directly understands the totality. Having directly understood the totality, he fully understands the totality. Having fully understood the totality, he sees all signs as other. He sees the eye as other, sights as other, eye-consciousness as other, eye-contact as other, and whatever arises in dependence on eye-contact, agreeable, disagreeable, neither-agreeable-nor-disagreeable, he sees that as other….(similarly for the other senses.) SN 35.80 ↩︎
- This, by the way, applies equally to sensuality as it does to ill-will, both of which rely on opposition to others and denial of the nature of others. This is why abandoning ill-will implies abandoning sensuality as well. ↩︎
- More precisely, agreeability or disagreeability becomes felt as my pain and my pleasure ‘in’ that body that is being overlooked and taken for granted: in other words, taking the side of the senses makes one liable to be contacted by sights and sounds and to feel pain and pleasure there – it ‘lands on’ that side that one is taking. ↩︎
- The same principle of taking up the side of other people’s feelings can of course also lead towards enmity in regard to other things that are ‘further’ opposed to them. One example of this being taken to extremes would be when people, on hearing news reports of injustice and oppression of people in a distant country which they cannot point to on a map, nevertheless feel the pain of that whole nation of individuals and take it upon themselves. Because of unknowingly taking the side of this pain, they also take up the opposition of the oppressors and willingly volunteer to fight in a war against them. ↩︎
- The only way that anger or harshness of others directed at one can become felt internally (i.e., that one can be affected by it) is by the mind accepting it and ‘replicating’ it on its own, so to speak. This of course does not only apply to ‘self-hatred’ specifically, but becoming affected by the feelings and actions of others in any manner. See SN 7.2: ’ “What do you think, brahmin, do your friends and colleagues, kinsmen, relatives or guests come to see you?” “Sometimes they do, Master Gotama.” “And what do you think, brahmin, do you offer them cooked food or uncooked food, or something to taste?” “Sometimes I do, Master Gotama.” “But if they, brahmin, do not accept, to whom does that then belong?” “If they, Master Gotama, do not accept, that still belongs to us.” “Just so, brahmin, when you abuse us who are not abusing, try to anger us who are unangered, quarrel with us who are not quarrelling, we do not accept that from you. It still belongs to you, brahmin! It still belongs to you.” ’ ↩︎
- For example: falling into replacing one source of opposition with another (‘It’s not his fault, it’s my fault’); sorting out in one’s mind exactly who was wrong and who was right according to some external standard; trying to replace an ‘irrational’ thought (‘I feel like so-and-so might hate me’) with a rationalised version of it (‘I am imagining things, they don’t hate me’) trying to prevent the displeasure one felt from arising, or thinking it ‘shouldn’t’ arise; replacing unpleasant thoughts with pleasant thoughts, practicing forgiveness, etc. All of these might end up being done when one has no other recourse, and if they are the only alternative to acting out of coarse anger, it is still better than the former; but fundamentally all such interferences assume the same basis of opposition and are done on top of it; and thus cannot possibly bring one closer to understanding or undermining it. ↩︎
- It should hopefully go without saying that all of the above is utterly inapplicable for as long as somebody is doing actions with body, speech and to some extent with thought, which are based on already accepting the sign towards opposition; and already mentally favouring or resisting whatever is seen, heard, imagined, etc. This acceptance is what practically translates to being ‘directed’ towards specific actions and behaviours of the unwholesome variety. Therefore the root of opposition ‘below’ this, can only become discernible when one is withdrawn from physically engaging in those behaviours. For almost everyone, withdrawing from this constitutes the vast majority of the work. ↩︎