How To Give Up Ill Will - Part Two

The five hindrances are different types of dullness, distraction, and disturbance that cover and suppress our mind preventing us from experiencing clear, beneficial, and peaceful mental states.

This video introduces the hindrance of ill will, so we can understand how they function as negative mental states and what skills and methods we can learn and practice to let them go, reduce their intensity, and eventually abandon them completely.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome to Lifetimes of Learning,

A production at the Buddhist Education Centre,

Which is a part of Buddhist Discussion Centre Australia.

In our podcast series,

We will be discussing the wisdom and teachings of Buddha from 2600 years ago,

Which can help improve our happiness and lives at a deep level in this modern era.

In this podcast,

We will cover Part 2 of How to Give Up Ill-Will.

Wherever you are,

We invite you to bring your attention to the present,

And smile and listen to the teachings of the Buddha.

So,

Okay,

We go back.

The first thing is we be in the present.

The second thing is we recognize the characteristics of these hindrances,

In this case ill-will.

So we can recognize this is an unwholesome mental state,

And it's actually ill-will.

The next thing is you recollect the disadvantages of this mental state,

Because remember,

With the mental state comes with.

.

.

It's like it's got a script that sucks you in,

And you think,

You know,

It's like you get caught up with it so easily.

And it seems justified if it's angry.

It seems like it.

.

.

Of course you're entitled to yell back,

Right?

So you have to remember the disadvantages.

You have to reflect on them as a counter to all the belief,

The habit,

Habitual belief we have in these dud minds.

So you recollect on the disadvantages.

This can never lead to my well-being.

I can't get bright.

I can't get happy.

Any good quality I want,

I can't get if I use this unwholesome mental state.

Then you can use the meta.

And basically you're trying to not defeat the ill-will.

You're trying to get off it.

You're just trying to switch,

Move your position,

Like a set of points on a railway line.

If there's no points,

You can't get off.

You're stuck,

Right?

All you can do is go in that direction.

You've got to build a set of points,

Which gives you the possibility,

If you're awake,

If you're mindful,

I've got to get off this now.

I'm going to switch and go that direction.

And that's really the method of letting go,

Is to go to something that's wholesome,

Deliberately.

And to already have the thing,

Like a tool in your pocket,

Ready.

You don't have to go running around and you don't have to build it.

You actually have it ready to go.

And that's meta.

The next thing is patience.

In Buddhism,

People,

All sorts of situations can be extremely difficult.

In fact,

Enormously burdensome and almost,

We all know the world has that enormous range of complexities and difficulties.

But patience understands that's the nature of the world.

It doesn't sort of fight that nature of the world.

It doesn't think something's going wrong,

You know,

Because that person's yelling at me.

They shouldn't yell at me.

Or that thing went wrong.

Oh,

That shouldn't happen,

You know.

That's the way the world is.

The world is like that.

There's gain and there's loss.

There's praise and there's blame.

There's honor and dishonor.

These things are part of the world we live So we need an operating system that can operate well in that world as it is with all those options of pluses and minuses,

You know,

Things we like,

Things we don't like.

And patience is realistic in that respect.

It understands that this is the way the world is.

But I just need to maintain my wholesomeness and ensure that what my actions are,

Are wholesome.

And it's like I'm building a better world than this one.

I'm building a world that will be a lot easier and won't have so many difficulties.

And the world that I'm building is my internal world.

I'm building a world where I can deal with life.

And life doesn't destroy me every day in that way.

So it's an internal world that's well equipped to deal with the difficult world,

The external world.

Patience.

We have to understand patience.

Patience is like a wisdom of recognizing the nature of the world and that we shouldn't be so embedded that everything hits us.

It's like we should have a level of Teflon coating on us that enables us to move through those difficult things.

Sometimes the example is given of a rock in a stream.

If our nature was to bang into the rock,

That would hurt a lot.

But if our nature is to be able to go around like water,

It's like the rock didn't really cause any problem.

It's a big solid obstacle.

But there's some flexibility and pliability that enables the water by its nature,

The fluidity,

To just move around.

Maybe that's an indicator of how we need to be.

And patience is like that.

Without patience we're just banging into everything.

So patience means that we understand we don't have to bang into everything.

This is just everything that comes is impermanent.

That's the nature of things to pass.

So the problems we have today,

Maybe two weeks away some of those will be gone.

They're impermanent.

So patience.

The other thing is,

I think we'll stop for a moment.

You've got a question.

This is probably more relevant to the Chinese background people because in our language patience has a tone of tolerance.

Tolerance.

That's a good word.

A better word.

But in our sense tolerance is actually like you sort of suck it up.

It's not the kind of patience that we're really after.

Can you expand a little bit more so that we don't use the wrong kind of mindset when we're thinking we are being patient.

We're actually making us angry because we're bottling up our anger and frustration and thinking that is patience but it's not.

Yeah,

It's true.

It's not really patience because patience is a wholesome.

So it's true that we can sort of bite the bottom lip and just soldier on as they say.

But there's not really any letting go in that.

So patience has an element of letting go and it's based on understanding.

Look,

Okay,

This is difficult but it will pass.

They are being nasty but if I say,

If I fight them,

It's not going to help.

I have to bring a different approach to that.

So it's firstly to say that this is an impermanent thing.

They'll be yelling for a minute and then it will stop.

And my yelling back won't help.

So it's just to know that it's okay.

When someone yells at you,

You say it's not okay.

They shouldn't do that.

They shouldn't.

They must.

Why?

There's all this rage about why?

They're not entitled.

They shouldn't.

There's a lot of shouldn'ts going on.

But can you say it's okay?

That's another self-talk,

Isn't it?

Now we're very conditioned to be affronted when people say unpleasant things but maybe with a view to building this skill set,

To be able to be standing there and saying to ourselves,

Look,

It's okay.

It's impermanent.

They are upset but I'm not taking it on board and it's okay.

It will pass.

And it's to do with our internal way of processing that experience.

So does that make sense?

Yes,

It does.

But I think like most people,

The challenge would probably be when you're on the angry mindset,

Patience is not there.

No,

That's true.

So the idea here isn't to go into the world with no skills and no tools.

We're already in that position.

It's to build new skills and new tools and then go along with those and have them,

These are internal mental skills,

That we can use those skills when we need them.

So if we build the mind of Metta,

Definitely that's available to us.

It's like you have to switch it on and it's going to help.

You can build patience and patience is a way of looking at things,

Firstly.

It's not to think that they shouldn't do it.

Yes,

There's a rationale around that but it's about how do I deal with this in a way that it doesn't do any damage and that I don't react and make the situation worse.

So what's a way which is sober and it knows that it's difficult but it can navigate that without becoming unwholesome.

So one way is,

If possible,

You can reflect that people can be under a lot of stress,

A lot of difficulty.

They have their own struggle and that quite often that can lead to them behaving in ways that are not pleasant or not fair even.

If we can understand that we don't know where people are coming from,

We don't know what their experience is and what they're dealing with from their side.

So we've got to allow them to be angry.

It's not that we're condoning them.

We're not saying that's a good thing but we don't have to fight back.

If you can get to a view of compassion that they're in a lot of difficulty right there with their anger.

They're disturbing themselves.

They're like out of control.

So I don't want to add to that.

I don't want to make that any worse.

So it's like my position is to be kind to myself in that situation.

And you have to build it as a skill.

You have to learn.

Try it out.

Try it out on little things with an answer in your face and build a way of managing with little things where you find you can maintain a wholesome mental state.

Then bring that new skill to something a little bit more fierce or difficult.

And we have to find out how to manage difficult things which are normal in a way that isn't unwholesome.

So that's our way.

Now I can give you an example.

So for example one of our students would get annoyed quite a lot.

He had a very stressful job and very difficult conditions to work under.

So we were talking about this because he was saying,

I get annoyed a lot at my work and I find many things,

You know,

Customers,

Reactions,

The stress of the work that he was in.

He was in a retail environment.

So we talked about it and I said to him,

On average how many times would you get angry every day in this sort of difficult environment you're in?

And he worked it out.

He said about 20 times a day I'd get more than just a little bit annoyed,

You know,

I'd have a quite reactive,

Bad reaction.

He wouldn't hang it on anyone but it was internally.

So it meant that he wasn't enjoying working there particularly.

So we said okay.

So we came up with a strategy that he can have,

Instead of 20 times a day he can be angry or he can get annoyed 10 times a day.

That's it.

There's a limit.

It's not unlimited.

There's a limit.

It's 10.

And he has to count.

He has to track how often he gets annoyed and how often he feels like this.

And he's trying to practice,

Remember.

He also knows about Metta and he knows about what practice is.

So it's a challenge for him to learn to navigate his day without getting upset more than 10 times.

And so he said alright I'll do it.

And I said that's the limit,

10.

You can't be upset more than 10.

So he had to learn how to be in the same circumstances,

The same environment,

But to moderate,

To have some level of restraint,

To have some level of patience and loving kindness,

Enough that he could limit this to 10 times.

And actually within a week he said it's not,

I can do it.

You know,

10 times,

If I'm tracking it like this and I'm being deliberate and I have a plan and I have a strategy,

I've found that I can do that.

So he ended up,

He used to have little black beads,

Was it?

Buttons.

Buttons.

And every time he's angry he'd put the button,

Well if it was at home he'd put it on his altar.

So that was his method of keeping count.

So he tracked it.

So after a week he was doing quite well.

He got it down to 10 a day.

And he wasn't suppressing it.

He was just learning how to do this and keeping tabs on,

You know,

That there's a limit.

I'm not accepting that I can just do it whenever I want.

I'm putting a limit on it.

How long did it take?

It took him about a month.

Yeah,

I think so.

After a month he got it down to like 2 times a day.

2 buttons a day.

So he was learning how to operate in a way that he wasn't using his angry mind.

He had found other options.

And that's what it is.

It's about having other options and learning them and then using them and building that skill set as a new mental skill set.

And I think he got to the point where he wasn't getting at that level that he'd identified at all anymore.

But obviously there was another subtler level.

It wasn't as full on.

He'd cut that level off but he had to go down to another level.

And then it could start again.

He had to start investigating.

And having a real strategy about how to manage my anger.

Having a plan and working on it.

So he learnt about his own mind and he learnt about his own way of reducing the unwholesome and increasing the wholesome.

So the same with patience.

It's about you have to build an operating system that has some of those elements in it.

And maybe,

I think it's very helpful to measure things because then you can track whether you're actually improving.

So we're looking at ways of learning obviously to let go of ill will but eventually with the idea of abandoning ill will.

And there's lots of methods that we can use if we have this intention to build up ways and skills of dealing with difficult things and learning to let go.

So one thing I've noticed that's quite helpful is say my mind is dwelling on a negative.

So I will pick something that I actually really like and I'll think about that deliberately.

So there's something that always brings a lot of fun to my mind is my grandkids and my granddaughters.

So even if I just think of them I'm smiling and that's enough.

It's just change off the gramophone record going round and round on the same thing.

Pick something that's delightful,

That you do like,

You do enjoy or brings you fun or brings you relief or that's essentially wholesome.

So in the case of me that would be something that would be actually very powerful and it brings a sense of delight,

It lightens me up,

It takes the seriousness of the unwholesome.

The unwholesome is very serious.

Like an annoying mind is taking the problem very seriously.

It's so much serious that it doesn't like it.

It's very serious.

So if you pick something that's frivolous that you like or joyful that you like and just think about it.

Sit down for two or three minutes and think about that.

It completely shifts your whole mind.

And the point is you've interrupted the stream of the unwholesome.

So it's like you've weakened it.

You've weakened the strength of it.

So once you get back up and get on with what you're doing,

Your mind might go back to the annoying thing briefly but you're in a much better position to just leave it,

Let it go,

Not jump into it,

Not play with it,

Not get back on board and go down that track again.

It's like you've given your mind enough time to recover from being annoyed that you've now got a sort of a stable platform.

When the annoyance comes back,

It's not too difficult to move on.

So it's things like this.

It's about the skill of changing to a different mental state which is a wholesome one and allowing the other one to recede in your awareness and be less predominant.

And also,

I think Simon,

You can talk the same sort of thing,

The skills or the attitudes of help to give up and not cultivate the unwholesome.

So the beginning of how we do that is we have to make a decision in our minds that we're going to really get good at sending that up,

For example.

It's always good to start with one thing at a time because it's much clearer.

If there's too many things,

It's all too much and we don't engage in the process.

But what you have to do is you have to get professional about these practices.

It's almost like someone is actually paying you to be really good at Metta.

And so then that starts to change the way that you think about it.

You go,

Oh,

Okay,

So my project is I'm going to be really good at Metta.

So that means,

Therefore,

I need to have a practice of doing it every day.

It also means that I have a process where all the challenging people in my life are going,

I'm going to reduce that level of challenge.

So,

You know,

I know who they are and I know exactly how they press my buttons.

So I'm going to start to think about how I can use Metta in order to reduce those situations.

So you get very deliberate and explicit about the practice.

If you can cut those people out of your life,

If you feel like they're generating a lot of negative mindset,

Is that the right thing to do or is it,

From a Buddhist perspective,

If you can cut them out,

Would that be a Buddhist thing to do?

Yes.

I mean,

I don't know if it's your parents,

Maybe,

Not so simple.

But look,

If relationships are toxic and if it's,

From your view,

It's basically coming a lot from the other person,

Then it's not beneficial.

It's not going to help them.

It's definitely not helping them because they're contributing negatives and making karma for themselves in the future,

Which is not pleasant for them.

And it's detrimental to you.

So in that circumstance,

You're better off to not maintain that relationship because it doesn't contribute to anyone's benefit.

It's not going to help them be well and happy.

It's certainly not going to help you be well and happy.

So generally in Buddhism,

If that is the scenario and there's no prospect that the relationship would somehow improve,

That would be the case.

So I think we have the example of one of our members.

It was kind of estranged from their family because they'd had a lot of problems for many years.

But when she learned about Buddhism,

She kind of reviewed it and she decided that whilst probably she didn't think to just really go right back into a family life with everybody,

But she wanted to heal a lot of the damage.

So she set up something where knowing what she was doing and already knowing the problems that she could encounter and that she was going to be prepared for that and have minds of loving kindness and patience and so on.

So she arranged to meet one of her sisters and start to catch up with them,

Have a cup of coffee every now and again.

And in a way,

It's like she was gradually able to start to make that relationship workable again.

There were still a lot of reasons for the problems to be arising,

But she was able to deal with them,

Let them go,

And gradually they renewed their relationship and it became a lot easier.

Because from her side,

She was deliberately trying to heal the relationship.

One of the two people had a very wholesome agenda.

And that meant that instead of it being like a battle,

It was like a process where one was allowing the other one to.

.

.

It was allowing the relationship to happen without damaging each other.

And then eventually they invited the second sister to come and they started all meeting again.

So they sort of re-engineered the dynamics within that group of the family in a way that they could move forward,

Even with the history that they had.

And even,

She said,

I still didn't really like them.

They still annoyed me,

But it didn't matter.

I had something that I wanted to do that was more important,

Which was to generate harmony with my family.

And she did it.

And I don't know,

I haven't spoken to her,

But at the time she was very grateful that she'd been able to find a way to heal.

Maybe not everything,

But enough that they could move forward as a family and start to re-communicate.

So that's an example.

There's another one which we've used.

So say,

For example,

Particularly in ourselves,

If there's a habit that we notice that there's a negative behavior that we have or a way of reacting to particular people or a particular person or in a relationship,

There's one option that can contribute,

Can improve that,

Is to be very deliberate,

To sit down and to consider what your behavior is and then to analyze the disadvantages of that type of behavior from your side,

Not as a self-criticism,

But as a way of being able to overcome that,

To look at all the ways that that type of behavior is not beneficial.

How does that harm the other person?

How does that harm yourself?

And so it's like considering the disadvantages.

It's like you're trying to educate your mind about that behavior because a habit is sort of like there's no sort of critical process we have.

We just accept our own mental habits and our own behavioral habits.

So it's trying to educate ourselves about our own habits that are no good.

So say two minutes of considering the disadvantages.

Then you do like a minute of something you like,

So something nice.

So you just stop and you go and do something for a minute or two minutes of something that's pleasant.

Then you come back and you sit down and you do two minutes of visualizing how you should behave.

What is the way you would like to behave in that situation?

What would it look like if you were behaving on a wholesome mind,

If you were contributing love into that relationship instead of whatever it is that you were contributing?

And it's like teaching your mind another option apart from the one that you've been using.

It's like training your mind why to not use this one and then what you should be doing.

And you do it every day.

So there's two minutes of recognizing the disadvantages.

Then you go and do something nice for a couple of minutes.

Then you come back,

Two minutes of visualizing how you should behave.

And then generally we do two minutes of loving kindness.

The reason is because loving kindness is the right foundation for healthy relationships.

So if we in our mind recognize that all the different relationships we have,

If we have a foundation of loving kindness,

Then there's a good chance that relationship will do better because of what we're contributing to it deliberately.

So I think the point is that these are deliberate,

Specific practices that we can do,

Which empower us and build skills so that we're not at the mercy of our habitual unwholesome minds.

We're reflecting,

We're investigating,

We're training ourselves in other types of behavior,

Which is like building more tools,

Building more skills,

Building better attitudes.

Instead of having the attitude where we're commenting on the negatives that we see around us in other people,

Maybe we have an attitude where we're looking for the positives in others.

It's about disassembling the architecture of how the unwholesome minds work and putting in new framework which support the wholesome mental states.

So it's not particularly hard.

It's just we never did it.

We never took these sorts of things and examined them and analyzed them and came up with strategies of how to do better.

So just the last thing is we'll go around and get a comment.

So Vinci,

You got any comments or things that you'd like to contribute?

Yes,

It's igniting my exercise to practice more diligently and to generate the loving-kindness mindset much more to overcome the angry mind.

Or not overcome,

To replace.

Yeah.

Good.

Thank you.

What's wrong?

It's been very relevant and very applicable to my life at the moment and going forward as well.

That's good.

Connie?

We have to be very deliberate in building good relationship with people.

So other than the conventional things that we can't do,

Like META is one of the things that can help with relationship building.

Mark?

Thank you for today's class.

Thank you.

As Simon said,

We need to understand the seriousness of the hindrances and I need to make a commitment and practice the META,

The loving-kindness.

Because I was thinking it's an antidote to all the hindrances.

That's correct?

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Simon,

You got any final comments?

Yeah,

What you said before is we have a lot of negative habit energy.

So you can just go about changing each one of those things that we habitually give rise to negative mindsets.

And your partner is a really good way of doing that because they're there all the time.

Yeah,

That's very good.

You can use that.

You can use some of the things that you do to improve your relationship.

If you're able to do it in lots of ways with one person,

Then you've built a whole set of things that you can apply in many circumstances with many different people.

Absolutely.

All right.

Terrific.

Thank you.

It's lovely to see you.

And I wish you every success in abandoning the hindrance of ill will.

This concludes Part 2 of How to Give Up Ill Will.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.