This website is the home of The Four Noble Truths on the web.
Aversion / Anger / Enemy
You may have a reason for getting angry, it may be justified, but that doesn’t bring
you happiness. You have no other choice.
Practice patience.
Those who are manifesting as enemies in this life, they have in previous lives been
our friends who have treated us well, yet we have returned their love with negativity
and harm. We owe them a karmic debt. Recall their kindness. Give rise to love for
them. Accumulate these thoughts in the same way a bee accumulates honey.
The first instance of anger is not a severe fault. Bodhisattvas have anger, but not
grasping to anger.
A situation that makes anger arise – the cause of meeting such a situation is our
own karma. Pray that the negative karma of both is purified.
Eventually shouting back will not bring relief. Then you will want to hit. One day
that will not be enough. You will want to kill.
Anger will grow unlimited until you commit suicide. Some go to meet enemy, and when
they can’t find, they bite themselves.
If you beat a dog with stick, dog jumps on you, not the stick. The dog is smart.
So as soon as anger arises, look inside. Don’t look outside.
Our negative karmic accumulations are being exhausted through the ripening of enemy.
Anger is empty in nature – no color, no shape – but still a cause for falling into
the lower realms. Recognize empty nature. Then it will not become a cause.
Watch anger with awareness. It will self-liberate.
Enemy who has harmed you. If there is left over karma, he will also harm you in next
life.
See both sides, not just the bad. Whose karma is it that we receive bad in return?
Convert enemy to friend. How? Start by asking for help.
Don’t dwell over past, unless it is about kindness we have received.
All the enemies have the same source – a person who has been extremely loving and
kind to one. This person is a karmic creditor. When we don’t repay the kindness,
this person arises as enemy.
Be afraid of the afflictions that arise, not the enemy that triggers it.
When we unleash anger, the other person has friends, it will affect at least 2 or
3 of them. If you can overcome this one enemy [i.e. anger], all other enemies will
become friends.
‘Enemy’ might be a misunderstanding.
If we look at the nature of anger, it isn’t even really there – it doesn’t have a
shape, color. Look carefully. It appears, but it does not exist. [Use the view.]
Anger and love cannot co-exist in the same mind.
Anger is not a friend. It is a portal to the hell realm.
See faults of anger. This is the beginning of patience.
When dealing with an angry person, separate the person from the affliction.
Don’t unleash anger to counter anger.
Transform aversion into compassion.
Enemy can change into friend.
Love your enemy – the benefit is exponential.
People have bad habits and attitudes due to accumulation of obscurations.
Even enemy has positive quality. Visualize enemy. Think of their qualities. Get rid
of hatred.
Don’t regard enemy as negative. Enemy teaches patience. Take suffering patiently.
Enemy is asking for debts.
Enemy cannot send us to hell realm, our hatred does.
Appreciate the enemy.
If someone harms you, don’t be bothered by it. Wish to benefit them.
If someone in your life is giving you a hard time, at least wish that they liberate.