A Monk’s Hatred

Have you ever truly hated someone?

Today, I want to share a story about seven painful years of my life, a time when I came to hate someone so much that even the sound of her breathing and footsteps bothered me.

In this story, you are going to see a rather ugly and petty side of a monk. You may even find yourself thinking, “What kind of Buddhist practitioner acts like that?”

I am sharing this story anyway because perhaps, someday, you too may find yourself unable to stand someone. And if that happens, I hope you will not blame yourself as harshly as I did, or spend years drowning in your own hatred.

This happened about fifteen years ago. And the person I hated so deeply was none other than a fellow monk I practiced and lived with.

From the beginning, we were very different people.

I was the kind of person who believed in action more than words. I liked things clean and organized, and I had fairly strict ideas about manners and proper behavior. She, on the other hand, was more drawn to thinking things through and talking with people than to cleaning the temple or doing chores together. She loved communicating with people and preferred to relate to everyone openly and as equals, without much concern for hierarchy or formality.

It did not take long for my ideas about how a monk should live to clash with her freer way of thinking. What began as small differences gradually grew into larger conflicts.

For the first few years, we argued here and there but somehow managed to get by. But by the time we had lived together for about four years, the resentment inside me had grown almost beyond my control.

'This all begins with me. Unless I change my own fixed ideas, I will never be free from this cycle of hatred.'

I told myself this over and over again.

Whenever anger or resentment arose, I entrusted it to my true nature. Again and again, I let it go.

And yet, instead of disappearing, the anger and hatred buried somewhere deep inside me seemed to grow like a snowball. Eventually, things became so bad that we stopped speaking to each other. We did not even exchange greetings.

Then one day, something happened.

I was resting peacefully in my room when I heard her footsteps as she walked past my door. Then I heard her let out a quiet sigh.

That was all.

Footsteps and a sigh.

But the moment I heard those tiny sounds, it was as though a volcano of hatred erupted inside me. I was shocked by my own reaction.

The mind that had been perfectly peaceful just moments before was suddenly engulfed in flames. The pain I felt in that moment was so intense that I can count on one hand the times in my life I have suffered that deeply.

Unable to bear it, I ran straight to the Dharma hall and sat down to meditate.

I have no idea how many hours passed.

Sitting there, I kept asking my true nature the same questions again and again:

'I already know that the real source of this suffering has nothing to do with her.

I already know that this pain comes from my own ego constantly insisting, “I’m right!”

So if I already know the answer, why have I been unable to free myself from this for so long? For nearly seven years, I have tried to let go of this again and again. What is it in my ego that is still causing me so much pain?'

Tears kept falling as I sat there, overwhelmed by frustration and despair.

And then, suddenly, I saw it.

I had been carrying around all kinds of rules about how people were supposed to be.

'A person should behave this way.'

'A Buddhist practitioner should be able to let go of hatred like this.'

'After all these years of practice, how can I still not deal with a mind like this?'

I had been using those standards to judge her, criticize her, and at times even look down on her. And I had been using exactly the same standards to judge myself.

I suffered once by judging her.

Then I suffered all over again by judging myself.

All that time, I had been trying to let go of my pain and resentment toward her, without ever recognizing the fixed ideas within me that were creating that suffering.

The moment I truly saw this, something inside me gave way.

It felt as though a mountain built over seven years, a mountain of hatred, judgment, disappointment, and self-blame, collapsed all at once.

At some point, my tears stopped.

And in their place, I felt something like a cool breeze quietly moving through my mind.

When I entered the Dharma hall, the world I lived in was a world engulfed in the flames of hatred. When I walked out, that same world felt filled with a peaceful breeze.

Nothing outside had changed.

She was still the same person.

I was still the same person.

Only one thing had changed: the mind through which I was seeing the world.

The world created by those fixed ideas had become a world filled with conflict and hatred, self-blame and disappointment.

And only then did I understand:

The one who had created that world was me. And the one who could step out of it was me, too.

Oh, I almost forgot the most beautiful part of this story.

That fellow monk I once hated so deeply?

She eventually became one of my closest friends,

and one of my greatest mentors.

And she still is today.

Your Reflection

What kind of world are you living in right now?

If there is someone you hate, someone who is causing you pain, try, just for a moment, to turn your attention away from that person and look within.

The suffering that seems as though it can only end if they change may have begun with something you are holding tightly in your own mind. So take another look at the world you are seeing right now.

What kind of mind is creating that world?