Bitches and Hate

¡Hola! Everybody...
Remember when the color black (if not the race) was the it color? I know people who still wear black in spring and summer! Ewwwww...

So: how come no one sent me the memo telling me being a bitch is not out of style?!! I mean, c’mon, it might have been cool for a hot minute to channel devastatingly cruel childhood development issues as a personality disorder, but since when did being a biotch or a nasty old fart become the new black?

I’m just askin’! LOL

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-=[ Hatred ]=-

Hatred has never conquered hatred. Hatred merely leads to revenge, and revenge leads to more hate. Hence, a cycle of suffering is set in motion that can go on and on. We only need to look at the world around us to see the sad evidence of this truth.

Hatred is an extreme form of anger. The teachings of the path I follow take anger very seriously, because anger causes so much suffering. I see hate as being rooted in fear. Fear being a powerful core emotion.

Even when anger is not acted out and seems controlled, a person who is inwardly angry can instantly change the atmosphere of a room she enters. There is an invisible, but palpable chill and anyone nearby becomes more guarded and less spontaneous. This happens without conscious effort. It seems to be a response at a very deep (cellular?) level to the quality of energy that anger gives out. You see this happen often in relationships…

When anger is acted out and results in violence, the damage is obvious. Some years ago, I read the words by the Cambodian monk, Maha Ghosananda, who observed “When this defilement of anger really gets strong, it has no sense of good or evil, right or wrong, of husbands, wives, children. It can even drink human blood.” This was a tragic comment upon a bloody civil war that had torn Cambodia apart and killed almost everyone he knew.

What is often not understood about anger is the harm it does to oneself. The first person hurt is always the one who is angry. An angry mind is a suffering mind. An angry mind is agitated and tight, constricted and narrow in its thinking. Judgment and perspective vanish. All good sense disappears. One feels restless and driven. Nothing is satisfying, everything is tense.

What happens during anger is that the sense of self becomes very large, and so the sense of the other. A major reason anger is so very painful is that it instantly creates a sharp distinction between self and other. An imaginary line is drawn that cannot be passed. For example, if I make the statement, “any friend of those assholes, is not a friend of mine,” I am drawing a line.

There is also an intoxicating effect to anger. There is a strong feeling of self-righteousness. Thoughts rooted in justification take over: “She abused me!” “Look at what he did to me!” This is combined with feelings of defiance and rectitude: “I am right!” However, underlying the intoxication of anger is the pain of a mind so narrowly constricted that it closes itself off from human connection.

The results of anger can be devastating. Anger is like a poison in the mind. It generates an unhealthy cycle of cause and effect. Every thought, word, or act has an angry after-effect. Like throwing a pebble into a pond, an act or thought sets into motion a series of ripple effects irradiating out in every direction. We are stuck with what we have done, and with the effects that w have caused.

I believe that the majority of harmful patterns of behavior are rooted in unconscious anger/ hatred. People will gossip about others, spread false accusations about others as a way of maintaining this angry state of mind. Existing in an environment of fear (lack of faith), hate, and anger, they lash out at others and create cliques in order to maintain their bloated egos. I guess the answer is not to respond in anger, but to generate love instead. However, one can choose to love from afar. We can choose to minimize our contact with harmful and negative influences.

And so it is with our decisions about whom we choose to surround us. I think what makes decisions skillful or not has a lot to do with intent. If one has an angry or hateful intent, then, like the ripples in the pond, you suffer the consequences. However, if the intent is based on compassion and an attempt to find serenity in life, then we can live knowing that we’re walking our path to the best of our ability.

Love,

Eddie