Having enemies... is it really that bad?

[Positive Change]

Why I ask such a seemingly silly question? Well... humour me and allow me to explain.

Who are our enemies and why are they see us as their "enemy". I use the word "enemy" in parenthesis because I wanted to illustrate that an "enemy" may not necessarily be that the person is evil and wants to harm us. Sometimes an "enemy" is just someone we do not see eye to eye with us and for that we avoid that person.

My Teacher told me once, in half jest, that he probably has more enemies than the Mafia! I was a little taken aback and proceeded to ask why? My Teacher than explained that we make enemies when the person refuses to take the truth and hides and projects us as the "enemy" and thus stays away. My teacher than merely said, I only tell people the truth and because of that, I probably have more enemies than the mafia!

How many times have we tried to tell a friend the errs of their ways when it was thrown back in our faces and we became an "enemy"?

In a way, my Teacher was right... in the simplest form, when we refuse to carry out instructions/assignments from our Teacher we have made him the "enemy" and as such we alienate ourselves away because of fear of coming out of our comfort zones. How often have we shun people because we did not like the way they talked to us even though they told us the truth about us. In fact we would run from those people and deem them the "enemy" because we did not like to hear the truth about us.

In the most simplistic sentence, a profound teaching on self reflection and casting light on our perceptions and deceptions of our very thought processes.

[Tenzin K]

We created an enemy due to telling the truth or our action that is for the benefit of others. By right people should like and appreciate us instead.

Why its turn out the other way round? We have shown the person the ugly side of them which is also the real them that they are unable to accept it.

Nothing to feel bad about because we are compassionate and by letting them seeing the truth of themselves is the way for them to change and move forward. Of course we may use skillful means to deliver our message but it will eventually come to a point that they still have to face their true faces and only through their own realization that able to help them.

Buddhist teaching is for us to find ourselves and improve our good quality until we reach a state of enlightened mind.

[Carpenter]

In this degeneration age, good things has became more difficult to accept, just like medicine, it is good for us, but look at it, it is so bitter and difficult to drink. Same to good advices as well.

When someone did something, they like to hear you praise, agree with them, align with them, so that they feel good and proud. But when someone pointed out where there are still space for improvement, they will not be happy, because they felt lose face / you are better than him/her, does this sound like jealousy?

[dondrup]

Any person that we dislike almost always becomes our enemy.  This happens when we had generated inappropriate attention and focused continuously on the faults of our enemies.  The label enemy is imprinted so deeply into our mind that we can only recognize that person as our enemy!  In other words, if we don’t let go of our grudges or wrong perceptions of our enemies, they will remain so.

In the Lamrim, it says that friends can become enemies and enemies can become friends.   We may be best friends in the previous life.  But in this life, we had become the worst enemies!  Similarly, in the previous life, we could be the worst enemies.  But now we have become the best friends! These labels – friend and enemy are not permanent.  Hence, we should accept all beings equally and let go of our incorrect projections of others.

[vajratruth]

This is really not such a silly question PC. We usually associate the word 'enemy' with something not pleasurable and therefore we tend to dismiss the thought right out of our minds without looking at what the enemy can teach us about ourselves spiritually.

Essentially, the 'enemy' is the embodiment of everything we find disagreeable. The 'enemy' is the personification of our own bias, prejudice, our fears, the opposite of our willful opinions, the crack in our self righteousness and the thorn in our comfort balloon.  Having the enemy gives us the opportunity to ask what it is that made the person our enemy. It is a chance not to focus on the enemy's actions but our reaction towards the enemy's actions.

For example, if the enemy slandered us and we feel deeply aggrieved, it is an opportunity to examine if we are very attached to a certain kind of reputation that we would prefer to have. When we closely examine it, the reason I am aggrieved is not really the enemy's slander...there are after all, empty words, but my own hurt feelings as a result of being denied my strong attachment to having a good reputation. And we become unhappy because we always associate happiness with our attachments. Fundamentally it is our attachments. A 'Friend' is our attachment to Happiness and things we Like and an 'Enemy' is our attachment to Anger.

Although it is a lot easier said than done, an enemy is the beginning of the training to combat the Eight Worldly concerns. And if we are serious about our own spiritual growth, then the enemy becomes not the object of our practice but the trigger to remind ourselves of that practice.

As we all know, the true enemy is a mind that shouts: I want, I like this and don't like this, this ticks me off whilst this other thing makes me happy, I want more, why can't I have more and so on.

[Manjushri]

Why someone would like or dislike us does not depend on the other person, it is because of us. Sometimes you really cannot help it, like if a person is jealous with what you have as mentioned, but sometimes it may be because we offended the other person by something we said or did, and we didn't realise. In all cases, yes, maybe you did no wrong, and just be who you are sincerely like what PC said about his teacher who only tells the truth, but there are still people who doesn't fancy you.. Don't think you can do much about it. Just don't retaliate, don't harbour anger back towards your "enemy".. the best you can do is just to be sincere with them, and continue on doing your own thing. I find the 8 verses of thought transformation helps with this. There's always two sides to something... in the end, they'll all come around if they feel your sincerity. Otherwise, leave it as be.

[sonamdhargey]

Truth hurts. Due to our ego we cannot accept people telling us the truth our faults yet we are so quick to tell them and retaliate by jumping back at them telling that they are wrong instead. Who is the enemy? Is it that person or our ego? As long as we cannot lower our pride and check ourself out before getting angry will we see that person as an enemy and the sad thing is, our ego is our enemy.

[Positive Change]

This is really not such a silly question PC. We usually associate the word 'enemy' with something not pleasurable and therefore we tend to dismiss the thought right out of our minds without looking at what the enemy can teach us about ourselves spiritually.

Essentially, the 'enemy' is the embodiment of everything we find disagreeable. The 'enemy' is the personification of our own bias, prejudice, our fears, the opposite of our willful opinions, the crack in our self righteousness and the thorn in our comfort balloon.  Having the enemy gives us the opportunity to ask what it is that made the person our enemy. It is a chance not to focus on the enemy's actions but our reaction towards the enemy's actions.

For example, if the enemy slandered us and we feel deeply aggrieved, it is an opportunity to examine if we are very attached to a certain kind of reputation that we would prefer to have. When we closely examine it, the reason I am aggrieved is not really the enemy's slander...there are after all, empty words, but my own hurt feelings as a result of being denied my strong attachment to having a good reputation. And we become unhappy because we always associate happiness with our attachments. Fundamentally it is our attachments. A 'Friend' is our attachment to Happiness and things we Like and an 'Enemy' is our attachment to Anger.

Although it is a lot easier said than done, an enemy is the beginning of the training to combat the Eight Worldly concerns. And if we are serious about our own spiritual growth, then the enemy becomes not the object of our practice but the trigger to remind ourselves of that practice.

As we all know, the true enemy is a mind that shouts: I want, I like this and don't like this, this ticks me off whilst this other thing makes me happy, I want more, why can't I have more and so on.

How true Vajratruth... It is but our very own perceptions that make us see the negatives in everything. Perhaps having "enemies" are a good think... hence my question of is it really bad.

There is always a silver lining in everything and perhaps the enemy in the mind is the only true enemy we need to watch out for. Other tangible "enemies" are merely a reflection of out own projections! It truly is profound in its simplest forms!

[RedLantern]

I haven't seen anyone who don't have at least one enemy.Having enemies is a natural part of life.It's good sometimes,you don't want everyone you know to be your enemy and you don't want to go out finding enemies.If the only people you know are good friends then what are you going to do when you have to be mean?It's like how some parents spoil and baby their children and they grow up  not knowing how to stand up for themselves.Enemies are there ,even with the nicest of people.Having enemies prepare us for the real world and make us stronger.

[kurava]

Before we develop affectionate love for others, we are to contemplate how we categorize people into enemy, friend and stranger.

Someone who was my best of friend in the morning  became my enemy later in the day because he/she did not say the things I wanted to hear. A stranger whom I couldn't care less became my friend because he caught the pick-pocket that tried to steal my wallet. How interchangeable are the  labels of these 3 categories !

For high Masters whose intentions are always towards benefiting others, such transient labeling will certainly not bother them. If the "enemies" are fortunate to realize the ultimate intention the Gurus have for them, they will overnight become the best students of these compassionate Gurus.

[KhedrubGyatso]

If we see or label a person as an enemy it is an unskilful action which will lead to relationship problem with each other and may result in hostilities.
It is most important to pause awhile to re examine the way we label others into friends, enemies and strangers almost intuitively. Buddha said there is no such thing as an angry man, a evil guy , an enemy who is bad forever. Furthermore, we should see them as afflicted by delusions which result in them acting in a negative. When those delusions are absent or not exerting their influence, enemies can become friends. If this is not a correct view, then there will be no possibility for a bad person to become good.
When someone hits us, we do not complain against or blame  the hand because the hand is controlled by the person. SImilarly we should not find fault with an angry person because it is his delusions which are the  real culprit influencing his action. There is hence no basis for us to react negatively to those who had hurt us as  our enemies . We should see them as sick people, suffering badly and do not kno whow to control their anger, selfishness. etc . We should have compassion for them and help them with patient acceptance of their condition. If we think  people who harm us are naturally bad without any good qualtiies, then we will react to harm them back and ultimately ourselves. Having wrong view of  people and their condition is the real baddie, not enemies.

[Benny]

Thank you Positive Change for "triggering" Vajratruth to explain and share on this topic . Vajratruth your name really suits you ! Lol ! I really appreciate the way you explained the term "enemy" from a dharmic point of view , it made a lot of sense.

This paragraph made me think : "Although it is a lot easier said than done, an enemy is the beginning of the training to combat the Eight Worldly concerns. And if we are serious about our own spiritual growth, then the enemy becomes not the object of our practice but the trigger to remind ourselves of that practice."

I always thought that the "enemy" was the object of our practice ! And that was really a big turn off , I can't imagine my self looking forward to meeting and dealing with my enemies on a daily basis , lol ! But with the way you explained it made me understand and accept that we can't always be running away or avoiding this fact of life and that the solution had always been within our grasp , that we transform ourselves from within rather than try to change our "enemies" .

The key word is "trigger" , trigger us to realise the enemy within ourselves. I have yet to start on combating my eight worldly concerns seriously as I had always been busy blaming my "enemies" that piss me off ! With what u have shared here , I will mindfully remind myself of these triggers. Vajratruth , are you a dharma teacher ? If not well this should be your "trigger" to become one ! Lol , You are good !

[pgdharma]

Friends can become enemies when opinions differ or when our expectations are not  met.  When we do something for someone and  expect some  response or gratitude and it was not given to us,  then we  dislike  that person. That dislike is created  from our own mind due to ego when we perceived the object in a negative manner.

If we  practice the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation and the Eight Worldly Concerns than we will not  have any enemies. It is through these practices that we can train our minds to look at things in a different perception, so that when we have less  enemies, we will have less  sufferings.

[Aurore]

In this sense, this enemy should be considered one's best friend! Best friend are the ones who tells you the truth about yourself. Otherwise, all the friends we have are fake friends who wants to maintain a good relationship for some benefits or have some hidden agenda. How can we be faultless and perfect? Impossible.

Hence, we should keep an open mind, realise that we have faults, be grateful when someone is so kind to point out our mistakes. Do you think it's easy to do so? Many times, people dread telling people off cos nobody want to see others negative reaction from it. It can get quite ugly and pleasant. It is very tiring.

At the end of the day the real enemy is really ourselves.

[Carpenter]

In this sense, this enemy should be considered one's best friend! Best friend are the ones who tells you the truth about yourself. Otherwise, all the friends we have are fake friends who wants to maintain a good relationship for some benefits or have some hidden agenda. How can we be faultless and perfect? Impossible.

Hence, we should keep an open mind, realise that we have faults, be grateful when someone is so kind to point out our mistakes. Do you think it's easy to do so? Many times, people dread telling people off cos nobody want to see others negative reaction from it. It can get quite ugly and pleasant. It is very tiring.

At the end of the day the real enemy is really ourselves.

I kind of agreeing on this, real enemy is really ourselves. but in view of this, how many people can realize this, many people has develop a habit of pointing fingers when problems happen, when their ugly truth is pointed out, the blame is always on others, how many people can accept this and said : yes, it is my fault.

whatever outer enemy will only be enemy when we look at them as an enemy, but without realizing that who is the real enemy here.

In fact, we have to find out our inner enemy, our real enemy and defeat them, because these real enemy are the one that really brings us down.