Description: An article I wrote about a Buddhist lecture I attended and a new understanding I came to about one’s enemies.
Rating: G

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Recently I had the supreme pleasure of hearing a teaching given by Gen-la Dekyong, a Buddhist nun and resident teacher of the Shakyamuni Center in Albuquerque, NM, and Spiritual Director for Kadampa Centers in the United States. Her talk was about compassion; how that compassion is the heart of the New Kadampa Tradition, and the most important part of our practice. It was exactly what I needed to hear.*

Buddhist practice involves a sincere wish, not just for the practitioners themselves, but for all living beings to escape from suffering. In fact, to wish for and work toward an escape from suffering for oneself without regard to the suffering of others would negate the requisite mindset of Buddhist teaching. To wish for oneself to be free from suffering is renunciation. To wish for others to be free from suffering is compassion. Gen-la pointed out that, “Compassion comes from renunciation. When we apply the mind of renunciation to others, we have the mind of compassion.” They must go hand in hand. Gaining these realizations for oneself is the secondary objective. “So that I may liberate all living beings from suffering,” is the primary objective. Even the dictionary definition of compassion agrees with this concept: “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”

Our interactions with our enemies can serve one of two distinctly different purposes: They can serve to drive us deeper into our own despair, or they can help catapult us toward profound realizations, through our compassion. An important thing to realize is that it is our choice to make.

Does this mean that we should not take advantage of opportunities to slander those who have hurt us? In self-defense, when our enemies flail about us wildly and leave themselves open for devastating attack, should we take the easier route and go for their heart when we see the opportunity? What would our motivation be for doing so? At times it seems that our choices are to “kill or be killed,” but there is another way. Our choice is often clouded by strong feelings of anger or hatred. When our mind is clouded with these feelings, or delusions, we are not afforded the opportunity to see the truth in the situation.

We must control our delusions. If we do not, we will never be happy. Gen-la said, “There is no option to be happy while not controlling your delusions.” Our delusions are our true enemies, not the people or situations in our lives that we have grown accustomed to calling “enemies.” “Because of our inner enemies,” she said, “…our development of compassion is obstructed. You can’t be selfish and compassionate at the same time. So for every moment we are focused on ourself, we are necessarily not training in compassion.”

In a conflict, while may feel that we are focused on our enemy, we are actually focused on ourself. We wonder how we are being hurt. We wonder what will happen to us. We try to imagine ourselves out of the situation that we have found ourself in. We allow our mind to give rise to anger and hatred. We feel our own bodies tense in anticipation. Our hearts speed up. The acids in our intestines increase. We may sweat, or shake, or have problems sleeping. Even if our enemy is physically far away from us, and we are in the midst of beautiful surroundings, just the thought of the conflict causes our body to react. We imagine things we could do to fight back, or remove ourselves from these conflicts. All of these things show where our focus truly is: Not on our enemy, but on ourselves.

“Until we met Dharma,” Gen-la said, “we didn’t know we had inner demons. We thought all the demons were on the outside. Actually, there are only enemies on the inside. There are no enemies on the outside whatsoever.”

I have only recently studied the New Kadampa Tradition’s view of “taking on the suffering of others.” It exemplifies the Buddhist mindset: That I and all living beings strive to achieve enlightenment, and that I should attain these realizations for the benefit of all, in order to lead others out of suffering. The effect this can have on the mind of the practitioner is profound. It reinforces the idea that we strive to achieve enlightenment primarily out of servitude to others, and only secondarily for ourselves.

Buddhists believe that even those who are the nastiest to you are actually doing you a favor by helping you learn the lessons you need to learn to realize true happiness. In return, as their reward for this kindness, you wish for them to escape from suffering, even as you realize that they are only making it harder for themselves through their negative actions. It is an amazing “twist” of thinking to imagine that someone’s horrible actions toward you are actually doing you good and doing them harm. That mindset actually causes you to generate compassion toward your enemies.

We typically seek happiness through material, tangible things: Better jobs, nicer living arrangements, kind friends to be with, nicer cars, more expensive possessions, the accumulation of wealth, etc. It isn’t until we realize, however, that as Gen-la says, “Unless we control our mind through reducing our inner enemies and improving our love, compassion and wisdom, we will never attain the happiness we seek.”

It is a difficult lesson to learn and a hard concept to grasp. But to understand it can lead to profound realizations: Our “enemies” don’t exist, except the enemies in our own mind. When we overcome those enemies through compassion, we have a mind that is free of suffering. Suddenly, we have no problems. At that point, no matter what happens, you remain free of suffering.

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* I’ve heard that it is said, “Never trust someone who tells you exactly what you want to hear, then tries to sell you something. Thankfully, Gen-la didn’t try to sell me anything.