When I first read Śāntideva, his practice of redirecting good karma (pariṇāmanā, often translated “merit transfer”) struck me as somewhat curious. As I tend to a naturalistic view of karma, I wasn’t sure how habits could realistically move from one person to another. Dale Wright’s article on naturalized karma speaks of redirection mainly to criticize it.
I gained a newfound respect for the practice, though, when I attended a vipassanā meditation retreat in S.N. Goenka’s tradition, in 2005. Many people I know swear by Goenka’s overall technique; it frankly didn’t do a lot for me. What made a huge difference, though, was at the very end of the retreat, when Goenka urged us to a practice very much like traditional pariṇāmanā. Wish everyone well, he said on his videotape. Think of people you know and wish them the best.
Fine, that’s the easy part. But then he said: wish your enemies well. Think of your enemies, and devote wishes to their being happy. So I thought: who is my greatest enemy? As a lifelong leftie, in 2005, it didn’t take me long to identify George W. Bush. And so, as part of the practice, I tried sincerely to wish that man well.
The experience was more than unsettling. I cried in the process. But it helped me grow a lot. I had spent a long time feeling such poisonous hatred for that man, which did terrible things to me and my own well-being – in a way that Śāntideva warns us about. It’s a terribly unnerving, but highly rewarding, thing to wish your enemies well. Since your enemies are only human it makes philosophical sense to do so, really, if your main aim is consequentialist – that is, to produce the best results for yourself or for humanity. The trick is that it requires you to give up retribution as a goal, and even for a consequentialist, that’s not easy.
UPDATE (29 June 2009): According to my blog stats, this post is getting almost as many hits today alone as it got in the previous three weeks it was online! I’m also seeing that people have been referred here from their Livejournal friends pages, but I can’t find any reference to the post on those pages. So I’m guessing someone referred to it from a friends-locked LJ post…? One way or another, I’m delighted to have you all here, I hope you’ve enjoyed the post, and I’d be happy to hear your comments below (and would also be happy to have you stick around and check out my other posts). I’m also a little curious about who linked to me and what they said!
Of course its not easy wishing someone well that you feel hatred towards. I am a firm believer in karma and I keep catching myself from cursing a different persons name with bad karma (especially when said person is doing well) because, its not the right thing to do, for yourself or your own karma. We must remember, as you said, that all men are just that, men, no matter how ignorant and vile they become. Was GW a good man? I firmly believe not. Is GW a man? Yes.
If we can learn to wish well even those men who do us the most wrong, we can learn to wish well even those day to day people who do things like cut us off or steal our lunch from the company fridge. If every person could effectively do this, would it end the evil of the would? probably not. But will would lead to a greater harmony which could possibly stop alot of the “bad feelings” circulating around the world today. But then again, paint me an idealist. :)
-Cory
Yes – I might be the most cynical idealist you’ll ever meet, but I’d say I’m an idealist in this sense too. I can’t imagine a world where everyone actually did try to make themselves better in this kind of way – but we can at least do it ourselves, and that’s the most important step.
Thank you for posting about your experiences here.
I suppose I’m in the tiny minority of people who think that both Barack Obama and George W. Bush are fundamentally decent people. I wrote a bit here about the Bush side of things.
This put me in a difficult situation once, when I attended a lengthy, delightful Theravadan retreat that was capped off with a lengthy “dharma talk” that included, of all things, a discussion of how evil George W. Bush is.
I wish more Buddhists and liberals would follow your example, because it seems like it would be good for their integrity.
I find myself longing to hear even more from you on this subject. Why did you cry? What did you learn about yourself and about George W. Bush as you did this exercise? Did it make you re-think any of your conclusions about Bush?
I think it would be fair to say that I oppose Obama’s policies as thoroughly as you opposed Bush’s. In my case, it’s hard to identify with either gentleman’s policies, since I am a libertarian and neither administration accurately reflects my desires for U.S. policy, either domestically or abroad.
I often feel that a great deal of damage is done by “hating” the other side, and liberals really went off the deep, cancerous end with Bush for the past eight years. There must be many people in need of the healing you have undertaken yourself.
Buddhists and Quakers seem like excellent candidates to lead by example, in this regard.
I agree that hatred of any kind is a bad thing. I think there were many right-wingers who went off the deep end against Clinton; I don’t think this has happened yet with Obama, and it would be wonderful if it never does. I really didn’t understand Clinton-hatred until after September 11. It puzzled me: Clinton’s not much more left-wing than Bush Sr; why did people hate him so?
But I came to understand it, because I was feeling the same hate they felt. When W came to power, I opposed nearly everything he did, but I didn’t hate him. That came after September 11, when the country I lived in seemed so united in support of him, though his policies seemed to me even worse than they had been before; more so after Abu Ghraib, when scandalous conduct seemed to be greeted with an indifferent shrug. Now I felt what the Clinton haters had felt: nobody is listening. The fact that he had disgraced the Oval Office and then perjured himself about it – right-wingers, understandably in some ways, expected that this would lead to a swift impeachment, but it turned out not that many people cared, because Clinton was a competent manager. That’s where the hatred came in in both cases. We expect the world will run according to our perception of justice – the bad will be punished swiftly. When it isn’t, that’s when hatred sets in.
The crying came because the hatred feels so self-righteous. You become so caught up in a notion of justice that you believe you’re right no matter how violent you’ve become. To remind yourself of your enemy’s basic humanity in such a direct and emotional way – that can come as a big shock.
I do not believe, in the way that your post claims, that Bush is or was a good or decent man. (Incidentally, I also don’t believe that Clinton is a decent man, though I think he made a decent president.) But, as Cory noted above, Bush is still a man, and that counts for something important. I do think my opinions of Bush changed afterwards in a fundamental way. I reminded myself that, even if I do think Bush evil, I don’t think him nearly as evil as Osama bin Laden – and yet I’ve never hated bin Laden in this way. I simply saw him as a force that needs to be controlled – people and governments should find him and bring a stop to his awful deeds, and that’s it. I didn’t feel the need to spit bile every time his name was mentioned. If my negative feelings for Bush are stronger than my negative feelings for bin Laden, something is wrong with me.
Wow, an intriguing post and comments thus far. I also have harsher feelings (perhaps ‘judgments’ is a better word) toward GW than Bin Laden in a sense. I don’t care much for the word ‘evil’ but while I see Bin Laden as more ignorant and hateful, I see it as somewhat more excusable given his upbringing. I guess I hold Westerners to a higher standard (unfairly in most cases of course).
For both though I begin to look at the causes and conditions for the greed, hatred, and delusion and the grip of animosity loosens.
I don’t really see bin Laden as more excusable – in Bush’s case I can at least see how there could be some defensible rationale for his actions. But yes, absolutely: as Śāntideva says: “whether having seen an enemy or a friend doing unjust acts, one should think ‘it has such and such causes,’ and become happy.”