Spreading Friendliness

Q: So, previously I was taught about the brahmavihāras and I wanted to come here and find some clarity in regard to them. I found a Sutta that speaks on them, it’s called ‘Removing Resentment’, that’s how it’s translated, Aṅguttara Nikāya 161. “Bhikkhus, there are these five ways of removing resentment by which a bhikkhu should entirely remove resentment when it has arisen toward anyone. What five? One should develop loving-kindness for the person one resents. In this way, one should remove the resentment toward that person. One should develop compassion, one should develop equanimity, one should disregard the person one resents and pay no attention to them. In this way one should remove that resentment. Or one should apply the idea of ownership of kamma to the person one resents thus, ‘this venerable one is the owner of his kamma, heir of his kamma, he has his kamma as his origin, relative, resort, he is the heir of his kamma, good or bad.’ In this way one should remove the resentment toward that person. These are the five ways of removing resentment by which a bhikkhu should entirely remove it.” I was wondering if you could say more in regard to mettā, compassion, equanimity…

N: Yeah, that’s the thing: mettā is translated as ‘loving-kindness’, but it’s actually quite a silly translation. You’re lovingly kind…? It means friendliness. Imagine if a stranger is saying something hurtful to you. ‘Who do you think you are?’ And you’d get upset. Now imagine if your friend starts saying something, a really, really good friend. It’s much harder to get upset. Because you experience that person through the framework of friendliness - they are your friend. So that’s the difference. It’s not what they said, and how they said it, and how you reacted. It’s the context of that saying. That’s something your mind is responsible for. So you want to practise mettā, as in you want to develop the framework of friendliness toward all beings. All beings are your friends, even the ones that want to harm you. You cannot possibly experience ill-will. But ‘loving-kindness’, it’s more of a smarmy thing to do. ‘Oh, but I love them, they hurt, but I love you back.’ No, that’s you overshooting the mark. You don’t need to love them, you just need to not hate them. That’s the Dhammapada verse, it says “hatred is not abandoned by hatred, only by non-hatred can you abandon hatred.” And people often jump to translate that as “by love you abandon hatred.” No, you abandon love by non-love. You abandon hatred by non-hatred. Love is an equal impediment as hated is. So think of mettā as friendliness. That’s why if you’re of a friendly disposition you can’t hate anyone. That’s the natural compassion already. If your perspective is not restricted with your anger and your conceit, that perspective in itself is what carries compassion. Because you have a better sight, again, better perspective on what’s going on. And that’s why that then culminates in equanimity, the four brahmavihāras. If you’re friendly, if you’re compassionate, you’d be indifferent to whatever that person chooses to do. It will not prompt ill-will in you, it will not prompt lust in you. So you will be equanimous, imperturbable.

Q: I guess the opposite of compassion is not cruelty, or to not have the desire to harm someone.

N: Yeah, compassion as a translation, you can say it’s non-cruelty.

Q: So that’d be the difference between this friendliness and compassion, is that friendliness is in the lens of seeing whoever it is as a friend, and compassion in regard to any sort of action toward them.

N: Yeah, it’s even more encompassing than just friendliness. Friendliness is the basis, and it’s a sufficient basis, I mean you can just develop mettā and experience complete dispassion eventually as a result of that framework. If you were to take it further, the same principle, and you develop compassion, it would be extended even further. In the sense of, it’s not just about the person, but even whatever they were to do, you would still maintain compassion. As in, you would still act, and make the effort if it comes to it, for their well-being.

Q: As opposed to acting out…

N: Yeah, you wouldn’t be acting in response to what they’re doing. Because you wouldn’t lose perspective, because you are already established upon the framework of friendliness. That’s what I mean, the compassion would naturally come out of it. Because you’re not compassionate when you lose the greater picture. You know like, everyone’s experienced something like this, somebody says something and you get angry, and then somebody tells you ‘his parents just died’ or something. And then suddenly you feel compassionate although nothing has really changed. He’s still insulting you and saying bad things to you. But now you’re not angry with him, because you’ve understood the context that he’s in pain. And then you can’t have the anger. So you have anger when you don’t have perspective. But now imagine you develop the ultimate perspective that doesn’t even depend on the context in regard to that person. Even if his parents didn’t die, even if he’s not in pain, if he’s just being an utter, complete idiot. Rude, whatever, offensive. He’s still a being. And that’s like that ‘beings are owners of their kamma.’ It’s not like something you need to psychologise, like ‘oh, he’s the owner, he’ll pay the price.’ No, literally, means recognising that knowledge that beings are bound with their kamma, means he’s subjected to his own actions, to his own lack of wisdom, to his own ignorance, to his own passions. Completely unaware of it. And you cannot be upset on that account, because that’s what ignorant beings are. So in that sense, you wouldn’t have any animosity towards him.

Q: I have another Sutta, the next one following it, also called ‘Removing Resentment’. And it goes through five ways…

N: Oh, before you go through the next Sutta, that’s why also that friendliness you practise towards all beings, animals too. It’s the same framework. Obviously, most often these things are prompted in people by interacting with other people, but it’s the same. Animals, pleasant animals, unpleasant animals, the ones you fear, the ones you hate, the ones you like, the ones you dislike. Same with people. So the mind of friendliness means mind of non-harm, because you wouln’t harm a friend. Even if the friend’s trying to bite you, you wouldn’t lose the context that he is your friend.

Q: I’m trying to think of how I’ve seen, sometimes compassion interpreted as the action, or the reaction.

N: It’s the reaction, yeah, like you practise compassion by spreading love, by spreading this, by beaming it, by radiating it.

Q: But I’ve also seen it as like, wishing for that person’s benefit.

N: Yeah, like ‘I wish you well’, well-wishing is your mettā practise. No actually, mettā practise is understanding what the nature of friendliness is, what the framework is, and then cultivating it regardless of whether somebody is upsetting you or not. That’s why there’s those Suttas where the Buddha said he would go and sit down, establish his mindfulness to the mouth, and then enter jhāna. Or, he would come back from piṇḍapāta, sit down, and establish his mindfulness of the mouth and enter the second or third jhāna. Or, he would come back from piṇḍapāta, establish his mindfulness around the mouth, and practise development of mettā, the four brahmavihāras. So it’s something you do when you’re on your own. If your mind is developed in that framework, that everybody’s your friend regardless of their actions and words, then when you do encounter people, they would be within that framework automatically. They would be friends. And you don’t need to do anything, you don’t need to make any effort towards them. Because that’s not what friendship is. It’s the attitude of the mind where the friendship is, that’s what I mean by ‘framework’. It’s not like ‘may my mother be well.’ Of course you wish your mother to be well! ‘May my friends be well.’ Why do you keep repeating this mechanically? No, understand… Take your friend, take your mother, take people that you regard with a friendly eye, and understand the nature of friendliness, regardless of the content of the people. That’s why brahmavihāras are ‘lofty abidings’. Because you actually transcend the content of engagement, passion, ill-will, all of that. You do it rightly, you will abandon sensuality as well.

Q: The brahmavihāras, were they exclusive to only the disciples of the Buddha, the Noble Ones?

N: Well you need to have a right view for any type of mind establishment. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trying to do it rightly.

Q: I’m thinking about, in regard to other ascetics, like with jhāna.

N: Well I don’t know, I don’t think it was mentioned that much in the Suttas in that sense. But I would assume there are probably people who cultivated compassion towards the whole world, plants, inanimate objects. From the ultimate point of view of arahantship it’s not adequate, but it’s probably still a quite decent mind development to not be able to hate anything or anyone. That’s already quite something. I think even Jesus might have been teaching that, in a nutshell. So I think people get some recognition of it. You have those other Indian holy men and it was often revolving around that non-harmfulness, the ahiṃsā principles, the Jains. But yeah, I think the way the Buddha was teaching it is more like, properly done, in the sense of, properly established upon the nature of that thing and then you understand it. And then you don’t need to be emulating or going through the motions of expressing it, so to speak.

Q: Using the cultivation of brahmavihāras in regard to right view for uprooting conceit and sensuality…

N: Well, imagine now that you go back to your kuṭi and recall a friend in your mind. Not the specific character of a person, but just try to ponder and discern the signs and characteristics of that friendship aspect, the nature of friendship in general. What is your mind like when it’s experiencing the phenomenon of friendliness? The more familiar you become with that friendliness, the more established that phenomenon is. Regardless of who you have to deal with, it will be seen through that phenomenon. And that’s why you’d be unable to hate them. Not because you love them. You don’t need to love them, all you need to do is not give in to hate.

Q: And the term ‘love’, how I always see it is like, if something is taken away, if that thing that I love is taken, then there’s going to be sadness emerging from it.

N: It is, it is. And I think there’s almost like a semi-intentional effort to blur the line between love, which is inevitably infatuation, attachment, requirement, need, and the ‘spiritual love’, which is clean of that, and pure of that. That’s impossible. If it’s love, means you’re overshooting the mark. If it’s hate, means you’re overshooting the mark. You’re not seeing the middle of it. And people think ‘well, the Buddha had love’. No, he didn’t. He didn’t even want to teach. He said it’s a hassle, why would I waste my time, eight out of ten people won’t understand what I’m saying. And when the supreme brahma then came and asked him three times, begged him to do it because, well, at least two out of ten people will understand it, and to that extent, it’s a great thing. And then the Buddha decided he’d teach people, not because he loved them, but because he had compassion. In the same sense a doctor who knows the cure to the illness of humanity, humankind, would decide to share his medicine.

But he said himself, when a man asked him, ‘Do you get elated when your disciples fulfill your teachings? Do you get sad when they don’t?’ And he said ‘Let me ask you in return: somebody comes and asks you for a way to a certain village and you tell him, at this junction, take left, and then that person takes right. Are you upset on account of that?’ And the man says ‘No, I’ve done my bit, but he chose to go the opposite way.’ ‘So it is with the Tathāgata, I’ve done my bit. If a person chooses not to follow it, that’s displeasing in a way, like I’ve wasted my time, but that displeasure does not overcome, and obsess, and possess my mind. Then somebody does what I instruct them to do, then I’m pleased because they’ve followed my instructions through and through, and I didn’t waste my time talking to them. But that pleasure does not overcome my mind, and obsess it, and possess it, and so on.’ So yeah, it’s a compassion, of ‘I can help you, and here is the cure, here is the medicine, here is the diet. Here is a strict set of rules you have to adhere to, and follow what I say. You don’t do it, how could I possibly care about that. Not my problem. You do it, good for you, now you see for yourself.’ And that’s it. But people like these blurred lines between love and ‘spiritual love’ because it allows you to indulge this great compassionate love, which all revolves around your conceit as well. And ‘oh, well the Buddha loved all of us’ - no, he most certainly did not.

Q: That reminds me of the one Sutta where the Buddha says to the horse trainer, ‘I kill them, after I try to train them and they still don’t listen to me, then I kill them. How? By not talking to them, and removing resentment also in regard to them, ignoring them.’

N: By being finished with them, yeah, ignoring them, paying no attention to them.

Q: In the following Sutta it talks about people of different bodily behaviour, impure, verbal behaviour that is pure, and regarding them as such. Some of them have placidity of mind, and how one should regard them. I’ve seen a certain portion of this Sutta quoted before in regard to cultivating compassion, and I’ll read that line now. It says ‘how, friends, should resentment be removed toward to a person whose bodily and verbal behaviour are impure and who does not gain an opening of mind, placidity of mind from time to time?’ And it says ‘suppose a sick, afflicted, gravely ill person was travelling along a highway, and the last village behind him and the next ahead of him were both far away. He would not obtain suitable food or medicine, or a qualified attendant. He would not get to meet the leader of the village district. Another man travelling along that highway might see him and arouse sheer compassion, sympathy, and tender concern for him, thinking ‘May this man obtain suitable food, suitable medicine, and a qualified attendant. May he meet the leader of the village, may he not encounter calamity and disaster right here.’ And so too, when a person’s bodily and verbal behaviour are impure he does not gain, from time to time, an opening of mind, placidity of mind on that occasion. One should arouse sheer compassion…

N: By the way, whose translation is that?

Q: Bhikkhu Bodhi’s.

N: Right. Well, that’s kind of self explanatory. A person might not see that it’s for their welfare to be restrained, and develop their mind, and calmness, and so on. So you try to help them so they can see that it’s for their own good. But that’s all you can do really. That’s why even the Buddha said, even though he’s the supreme Buddha himself, enlightened in every way, he said ‘all I can do is point the direction’.

Q: I’ve seen this particular part of this Sutta quoted sometimes in regard to the well-wishing.

N: Well, that’s the thing. In order for you to do the well-wishing, you have to forget, and ignore, and be unaware and non-discerning of the fact that you’re already compassionate. Most people already have a recognition of what compassion and helpfulness and friendliness is. But practising that is more like discerning the nature of those phenomena, not emulating this whole new artificial method of compassion on top of it, so you can somehow reconnect with it. You’re doing it instead of that. Which means the more you commit to this ridiculous method of ‘how are you feeling now, I’m so concerned about you…’ you will be covering up the natural compassion which won’t just be saying things which are compassionate, but will have a compassionate perspective, and say things that are helpful, that might not necessarily make that person feel better. That’s like when the doctor tells you what the medicine is, it might not be a pleasant thing to hear. ‘This is the treatment, but it’s factually for your own good.’ But if the doctor just pats you on the back, hugs you, cries with you, full of loving-kindness, doesn’t want to upset you, it’s not for your own good. You’ll die ill, because the treatment is too unpleasant to admit. And if people ever actually made the effort to start reading the Suttas, they would see that the Buddha was sometimes extremely, extremely harsh in his verbal telling off to the monks that were not practising, or getting careless. And not like, idiot monks, monks that didn’t know what they were doing. But like, monks that were already established in Dhamma, like Venerable Ānanda and others. ‘How can somebody full of love speak like this?’ And if that upsets someone who reads it, don’t even go and read the Vibhaṅga stories, when the monks broke the rules, how the Buddha then spoke to them.

So that’s what I mean, it’s nothing to do with that smarmy love and spreading my joy to you. It’s more like, out of my friendliness, I can help you, and that’s why I’m not sacrificing my own perspective which you are not aware of. See like, the other man knows that there is the end of his suffering if continues walking to the next village. He will get the proper care. The man who is stuck in between, he doesn’t know that, and he doesn’t know that this man knows that. So yeah, it can maybe sound arrogant to him that this man is telling him where to go, but if he makes the effort he’ll confirm it for himself. And he’d find out, this is pure compassion, pure non-arrogance, because he didn’t have to say that to me. It was nothing to him. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t love me, doesn’t even want to spend time with me, so to speak, yet he still helped me. So that’s what I mean, compassion and all these things, even jhānas by the way, are developed by undoing everything that blocks them in your experience. And one of the main things that blocks them is the idea of a method, and performance, and set of prescriptions, ‘this is how I do this, this is how I do this’. Because even in the brahmavihāras, people try to emulate and do it mechanically, this spreading of mettā. As if you can spread your friendliness, ‘here is some, and here, and here.’ But, how would you then spread upekhā? How can you spread, how can you beam and spread rays of indifference? How does that work? So you are beaming indifference? ‘Here’s my indifference to you.’ No, it’s the framework in your mind. If your mind is developed to the point of imperturbable equanimity, nothing matters any more. Nothing can perturb that mind because it’s seen in the right order.

Q: I’ve seen it too, people, teachers, prescribing like ‘oh, if you feel hate, you need to get rid of it.’

N: Because people are so much dependent in their lay life generally, even monks actually, on having something to do. And if I have nothing to do, well I’ll start going mad. So even then when they take on the practice of Dhamma, it just becomes a new thing which is something to do. Which is my duty, my method, my meditation technique, and all that. And you become dependent on having to do it. So that’s why if you come across ‘instructions for meditation’ you can’t do it, you can only understand it, which is not on the level of doing. For many people that’s hard to accept. Because that means they need to undo their compulsive dependence upon having something to do. And that’s frightening. It undermines you existentially, which means you will have to feel that. But those who are not afraid to do it, then they get to see the direction where the mindfulness, and understanding, and discernment, and everything else the Buddha talks about is.

Q: So, in regard to having to experience being around a difficult person, and then hatred or resentment arising in regard to them. Instead of standing there, in your mind, wishing, radiating mettā…

N: And you shouldn’t try to get rid of that resentment, in a sense of ‘this should not be arising’, because it’s already there. You don’t want it, obviously, yet it’s there. So you now trying to go against it, while it’s there, it’s just confirming its presence even more. Instead, you want to include it in the right context. Context that you would have had to have understood beforehand and developed. You can’t include it magically in the right context through a set of prescribed motions and mechanical methods, because that’s not what the context is. So you want to understand the context that can include resentment. Context of friendship. You can be upset with your friend, because he’s saying something, or he’s acting inappropriately, whatever that’s upset you. But you still don’t question your friendship. And to that extent, you’re still not losing perspective on your behaviour. Means even if your friend is acting like an idiot, you’re not going to get upset and dismiss him, you’ll try to help him, because he’s still primarily within the framework of friendship. Yeah, if he really pushes it, then you might dismiss the whole framework. But in this case, you want to not dismiss the framework in regard to people who you don’t even know. Because you can still maintain the framework of friendliness.

People, animals, you don’t even need the engagement on the level of personalities. So anything, opposite of me, is within the framework of friendliness that I cultivate. So if I experience resentment, it’s within the framework of the friendliness I cultivate, thus it’s not really the resentment that you will act out of. And then it will cease as resentment. It’s gonna be just a response of ‘this is genuinely foolish behaviour that is disagreeable.’ So then resentment is just seen as a disagreeable counterpart of that behaviour. But it’s not taken personally, and it’s certainly not rooted in your anger or ill-will any more. Because that’s what the Buddha would say, sometimes if you get paired with a fool, factually his behaviour is foolish, he’s a foolish man, you leave, you don’t want anything to do with him. But people like to think it’s this non-discriminating, all-encompassing universal love towards everything. ‘I just love everything, I’m in love with everything’. Which means, ‘I’m oblivious to the nature of action of that person, I don’t see how they behave, because I just love everyone, I don’t care’. No, you do care, you’re just trying to override it, and pretend it’s not there.

Q: Is there a way of, if you see that you’ve lost the context and you say ‘I should not say anything, I should not do anything, I should walk away’ that is the extent of your…

N: Yeah exactly, if you’ve lost the context, and you’re certain that you cannot act out of the right perspective, then yeah, you restrain. You restrain yourself, walk away, or ignore until it subsides. Because you obviously haven’t developed the framework enough, sufficiently enough.

Q: I’ve seen people say that would be your act of compassion or friendliness, because you did not engage at all.

N: Yeah, that’s true. Because you have hatred on one side, and non-hatred on the other side. You have acts of hatred on one side, and acts of non-hatred on the other side. So to that extent, you’re contributing to the betterment of that situation. So yeah, if it comes to like, if you walk away, you can’t act out of hate then. So to that extent, you’ve prevented half of the hate that would have been in that situation. That would have then escalated the opposing end of the other hate. That would have then escalated further. That’s why hate breeds more hate.