Book 1 - Loving-Kindness (The Four Divine Virtues)

Book 1 - The Four Divine Virtues - Loving-Kindness
by Ajahn Amaro

I’m RIGHT, you’re WRONG

When one acts like “I’m RIGHT, you’re WRONG”, then, he or she lost in a childish reaction. We need to therefore learn how to recognize the feeling or rightness and explore it, so that even if we feel we are 100% certain, we can reflect on that feeling before we decide how to handle the situation.

One might be “Right in Fact, but Wrong in Dhamma” when handling the situation without loving- kindness.  

Loving-kindness does not always mean you need to endure in everything that others do wrong to you. Instead of holding your grudge or anger, you just need to establish loving-kindness firmly in your heart, and then you go ahead to give them a fierce response back, again with loving-kindness in your heart and intention to make the situation better for yourself and them.

One who repays an angry person with anger
thereby makes things worse for themselves.
Not repaying an angry person with anger,
One wins a battle hard to win.

One practices for the welfare of both,
One’s own and the other’s
When, knowing that the other is angry,
One mindfully maintains one’s peace.

We can use physical awareness when we are attacked, when we are being mistreated or misunderstood. Rather than letting the mind go into verbal reactions or some kind of escape strategy, we can instead bring the attention into the body and feel: “What’s it like, the sense that I’m feeling attacked?” Rather than letting the mind buy into that self-justification, self-affirming habit, come back into the body and ask: “Where do I feel that? What’s it like? Where I feel that sense of indignation, fear or threat?”

It is very helpful to explore where in the body we feel these different emotional states and then to develop mindfulness of the body. Bringing the attention to that part of the body and fully knowing that feeling of being frightened, under pressure or criticized.

When those feelings, those painful sensations are held with a genuine, open unbiased awareness, that is when letting go, genuine relaxation can begin. “It is really not that big a thing. It’s just a feeling. Why do I do this to myself?” And then, we relax.

Hatred is never conquered by hatred.
Only by love is it conquered.
This is a law
ancient and inexhaustible.

‘I’m Right, You’re Wrong!’ - Forest Sangha