What, if any, difference do you see between disliking a person and ill-will?

I see dislike as the aversion to feeling of resentment, irritation, annoyance. However, I'm not sure disliking triggers that occur involving another person necessarily means that one would act in ill-will or wish ill-will towards that person. Maybe I'm not seeing this very clearly, but there are some people I come into contact with in various arenas that I would rather not have to be around and whose presence I don't really enjoy.... I'm not sure it'd be entirely accurate to say I wish them misfortune or unhappiness, though (True, they may be able to tell if I get irritated. It can also be noted here that one can't control how others react or can't always decipher how feelings "transfer"). If generally aware enough of feelings of irritation arising with regards to others to curb unkind action/speech, is that still considered ill-will? The main clarification I'm hoping to get out of this is... what is it to be kind & liking of everyone.. how far does that spectrum go/what does it entail?

(edited for clarity)

My current take (and I can't say that I have no ill will anymore, so I might not understand it fully) is that 'ill will' includes 'rather not being around' and 'presence not really enjoying' - those would just be subtle forms of 'ill will'. What do you gain from 'rather not being around' and 'presence not really enjoying'? Is it worth having those feelings of ill will sticking around? Aim high.

i do aim to eliminate the irritation feelings. so to take another angle, i'm not sure if feelings are pre-requisites for preferring not to associate with people. for example, if given the choice to hang out with or not hang out with someone who was... say, consistently manipulative or dishonest or similar characteristics.. why would one choose to be around that person and why would that be ill-will to rather not be around that person?

Hmm good point. I would say, as far as Actual Freedom as I currently understand it is concerned, there could be a preference to not associate with someone both with and without ill will. One would be affective and one not. What's the nature of the difference? Not entirely certain, but see if it is accompanied with a bodily feeling that has a location or 'me'-ness attached to it. If it is, then it is ill will. If not, then either it isn't being discerned clearly, or it is a non-affective preference. I'm also not sure if one can have non-affective preferences without being AF.

Dislike & Ill-Will
1/12/12 11:42 PM
Steph S


1/13/12 12:03 AM Steph S as a reply to Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem.
Why try to fit your feelings within conceptual inboxes, when what you want to secure is essentially, "when I am here, I'd prefer they they are not (in existence in my space)". This lets you deal with the root, versus shoots. What you are describing is basically attempting to possess a space as your own, sterilized of those you do not like and/or will into non-existence (in that area, your turf), fluffed presumably with those you tolerate, accept, welcome, covet or just saturated with pure you and its views.

By directly looking at what you want, you may consider your humanity, urges, and designated challenges (e.g., "i do aim to eliminate the irritation feelings").

i'm not sure this is an issue of imagined spatial dynamics, of here or not here. a cruelly acting person will not necessarily stop acting cruel in varying surroundings or around varying people. there is a knowing that people are not obligated to bear cruelty. my main reason for continuing a practice towards peace/stuff of that nature is to investigate what it is to be kind, which is why i continue to question what that entails.

Ok, what is the cause of liking ill-will and willing dislike?

Are these asserted and/or sustained condition necessary for your survival or "your" survival?

I don't think liking ill-will is accurate. If anything, there is a dislike of ill-will (if this is the case, then I think I understand why willing dislike was an added description in your reply. If we're getting into talking roots here, then this is not just dislike of people, but dislike of the fact that there is disliking anything at all. aka. aversion.). I have noticed you recommend investigation of self-loathing to people quite a few times, so it's possible self-loathing is a form of aversion you have looked at closely enough, to be knowledgeable to report about. Is self-loathing what you intended to bring up as a partial cause with regards to my questions in this post? I say partial cause because I don't know that self-loathing is one of the base sources of suffering, possibly an off-shoot of a base source.

My current guess based on practice so far is that these conditions are not necessary for survival. However, having not entirely eliminated these conditions and not having talked with anyone who entirely eliminated them... I don't know for certain the answer to that.

Something cool that a friend linked me to recently was research about vulnerability and worthiness. Dr. Brene Brown did a TED talk about her research into vulnerability. She has so far found that one of the major common factors between people who report a deep sense of belonging, connection & love is a sense of worthiness - deeply knowing they are worthy of these things. I realize her studies are based on affect, but I do find it interesting that a key thing I have often been advised by AF friends is that I must deeply know that I deserve (am worthy) to be free of suffering/happy. The reason I bring worthiness into the discussion now is to see if there are any personal conclusions to be drawn between aversion, self-loathing & worthiness.

Here's the TED talk in case anyone is interested in watching:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

I use the word self-loathing, because it is a clear word for aversion when the objects of aversion are coming from one's self (and the objects are conflated with self itself). There is often aversion to this word self-loathing, but it simply means a dislike of oneself or to be angry with oneself. The thinking of self-loathing is a source for self-harm, and, often, other-harm.

And, yes, to your point, it is something I personally saw in meditation last January (a year ago), about six months after I saw clearly the monolithic control tower of sense-of-inherent-self in meditation. And I was able to take that awareness of aversion and that awareness of self and work on their mutablility until both could not be held (and this relieved a lot of willed tension and caused a lot of sudden health, energy, enjoyments). When people deny an aspect of themselves that is evidently being presented by (and originating from) them, that denial is self-loathing. The denied aspect cannot be dissolved, because it is anchored by the sustained dislike (self's mutability (anatta) cannot be seen and used (as anicca)); the self also is taken as a fixed object (atta) rejected until it can somehow accord its ideas of perfection - so there co-exist with self-aversion a person who is also maintaining arrogance/narcissism/self-aggrandisment when they have temporarily purged the acts in themselves they hate - suddenly, that same hated self is aggrandized for its purge. What makes self-aversion and self-aggrandizement is the same affectivity arising through unwillingness to consider mutability of all "things", including oneself. So a person suffers the sickness of the stress of having an inherent-sense of fixed self (self-loathing-to-narcissistic mood swings), but is also somehow averse to the medicine (mutability). The affective grasping to not-wanting (dislike, aversion) automatically keeps wanting (like, desire) in the hand. Like and dislike, it is often said, are the same idea, expressed in two different ways (dis/like).

So, to be clear, to erode "dislike" does not mean that "like" backfills. They are two sides of the same coin. You mentioned a cruel person in an earlier post here. You do not need to like such a person/act when you no longer dislike this person. Lacking the dis/like is the placidity found in what was previously an affective storm.

Ill-will is inherent in dislike, though I appreciate that you are noting the distinction in words. What I mean by the inherent ill-will in dislike is dislike and ill-will are both deliberate and willed affective choices (emotionally, a person is actively maintaining a belief against some object (the actor of something you dislike is no longer significantly different from the act you dislike, there is just the paramount affective objectification of yourself as dislike-actor and the disliked: disliking is the maintained object). This dislike wants something (which may be a someone) out of existence - the existence of your space. You dislike the thing and you think your dislike would be alleviated if this thing were removed from your space (effectively, you are willing this person out of existence, your existence).

What happens when there is no like or dislike, but awareness of mutability?

I think this can be a very hard thing to consider when there is still a lot of affective fear for oneself, which fear originates in having a fixed sense of self.

Does any of that make sense? You have seen my posts for quite some time and worked with me during a peak aversion-to-cruelty (and other manifestations of misery) in 2010, so if there is anything I can make clear here that is useful to you, I'd like to.

Edits: spelling, syntax, grammar

As you noted, these form in a base (Steph: I don't know that self-loathing is one of the base sources of suffering, possibly an off-shoot of a base source. ). The base being a fixed sense of anything, including self. This fixity and lack of wide perspective (meaning: the presence of a narrow, self-centering perspective) is a base (and [contributes to] a buddhist seal). It is quite natural that the centering occurs around that over which I have apparent agency. In a matter of time, an infant learns the matter over which they have control and that matter-under-control becomes agency [agency's mutable nature is understood even by an infant, in that infants do not directly control the breast and the arrival of milk, but they understand quickly that they can control that which controls the breast and the milk (or not) and so on into childhood and adulthood. So affect can become power through manipulating other's agency. Such a manipulating agency has the rightful sense that their agency is expansive - this is power, until other regain their agency, autonomy, become enlightened in their agency and autonomy and 'sight' (pervasive understanding.)]. Some infants perceive more agency than others, and this agency continues, so that a relatively wealthy child-to-adult may sense their agency as going much further than their bodies for that which can be effected through purchase power. This can make it very hard for such an adult to leave a harmful job or family, because a person has come to associate actual agency with those mutable conditions [and perhaps even fear mutability-out-of-their-control, which ultimate expression is death]. [health and illness and other conditions can have the same effect on affect as relative wealth/power]. But I digress, referentially thinking about recent years among a particular community.

I sent this video around to some friends-family in 12/2010 as I was entering a dense meditation practice. Yes: affective friendly-kind regard is essential to diffusing affective aversion/self-loathing unless one understands affectivity in a sort of blitz moment of full realization and can annul both expressions of affectivity in the same moment. Such a blitz has not been my experience at present, however, it occurs to me when I read people's accounts of major brain stem stimulation at AF/stages of insight.

edits: grammar and in brackets
edit: some posts removed because they were relatively long-winded and more needless than those of my posts that remain

So, re-iterating perhaps a more practical focus:

What happens to your engagement to the entity effecting ill-will if you welcome your dis/like for the entity (effecting deplorable/cruel action)?

Are you trying to neuter your humanity or know it?

To cut through all of the reasoning (what it entails*), you touch on the meat of it, in my opinion. I personally find metta is a consequence, though its expression is not predictable nor reasoned.

Edit: *and a few posts were removed because their effect was especially long-winded (to me, the author!)

Sweet. Lots of good input to think about here. Started formulating a reply, but would rather sincerely reflect a day or so.

Great - I look forward to it.

I'll add that what I've found is that immersion in anatta-anicca is quite relevant. Kindness, good-will - these have no one look (and can look downright hostile), but exert through seeing mutability. Responding as well as possible to an injured wild goose, to an injured large animal, to an injured predator animal, any variety of affective presentation in a person - is unique;respect for based on study of/attention to that entity (as it is and its ongoing mutability) is relevant precursor to whatever 'kind' action is undertaken, if any. My opinion.

attention to others' mutability. nice one. something i have put into practice before (and still do) and find very useful. attachment to one's own mindstates, etc. with the added attachment to what is thought to be others' mindstates, etc. is a doubly missed opportunity - trying to shoot multiple moving targets. to deeply realize impermanence in oneself & have compassion regardless makes it far easier to have compassion with others, in consideration of their impermanence.

yes. multiple moving targets! It is a lot easier when one's own mental faculty develops new habits that avoid generating its own targets.

I came home last week very delighted by a workout session with a horse that has been on-and-off sick. During our hour, this flight animal showed some of his irritation and fear, then he settled in and clearly had joy (willingness to do the work, stay focused on our togetherness, pleasure in the after-work: rubs). We ran together and then did standard lunging: by the end, the smart fellow was happy to do everything on voice and lead-line feel and hand gestures, no rope tossing or lunge-crop. When going out to pasture we had a real friendly moment that he usually seems to reserve for his daily buddies, the barn manager and staff.

So I came home and just wanted to share that event with my roommates (one of whom I have been a monogamous partner to for several years). It was just not something anyone wanted to hear; other accounts-of-their-day wanted to be told. So, I realized that I was still standing around in a pasture (while actually in a living room) clinging to the pleasure of an engagement that had past hours ago and that I was being unwilling to have another such moment with friends in a new "moment". So, there was an ability to stop the clinging and enjoy essentially the same thing all over ago: a pleasurable engagement.

As to ill-will and flight animals (in a buddhist vein, for a moment): there is a Jakarta tale of the Banyan deer. The story tells of the Banyan deer (a herd boss and earlier incarnation of the awakened one) who was asked by a pregnant doe for shelter until her foal was born because she had been selected randomly to be the next slaughteree (the deer were said to have been herded in the king's park from whence they could be taken one-by-one to be slaughtered and to feed the royal family). The Banyan deer agreed to give her shelter so that she could birth. The Banyan deer could not choose another deer to be slaughtered in her stead so he submitted himself. The king remarked that this herd-boss (who had immunity from slaughter) had offered himself up, and in seeing this had the realization of his likeness and his suffering with the likeness of animals and their suffering: basically will to live and fear to suffer. So the king began new rules...

On one hand the Banyan deer (said to have been an earlier incarnation of an awakened one) was showing great good-will, offering himself to be sacrificed in the doe's stead. On the other hand, what if the story took place the day before and the Banyan deer continued to graze nonchalantly as a young one was taken and led to slaughter. It is easy to imagine the discomfort and fear of a flight animal being taken from its herd. It is easy to imagine the panic of feeling a knife at the throat as slaughter is commenced.

So on one day had the Banyan deer good will (standing in for the pregnant doe) and on the preceding day was the Banyan deer ill-willed (allowing yet another deer be taken to its death)? Or was the Banyan deer exhibiting wisdom of each moment and its possibilities and its mutable participants?

Hi Steph,


Here is a 53m talk on feelings as considered via a buddhist framework. His ending point is on wisdom (apt application of feelings and understanding the components of feelings and dispelling their reification).

I enjoyed it.

In my own life, I have found a fairly good practice for when I begin to think that I dislike someone. Before I get into that, I would like to share what works for me to avoid that altogether.

Every time I meet someone new I can't help but love them. Until someone shows me that he or she isn't a wholesome person, I treat them like I would wish to be treated. This usually creates a friendly and loving environment right off the bat.

When I come across someone or someone that I know (or maybe even don't know) gives me reason to believe that I should not keep him or her in my life I start asking myself questions. I begin to think of reasons why I feel aversion to the person. This forces you to put yourself in the other persons shoes. Think about the reason you feel ill-will or dislike (they aren't the same but they aren't different). Maybe the person did something to hurt you, did something that you don't approve of to someone else or acted out of selfishness. Whatever the reason may be ponder for a while on why he or she may have acted that way. Really think about it. If it's someone you don't know then maybe they are just having a bad day and took out their anger on you for whatever reason. If it's someone you do know, first ask yourself the same questions as you would a stranger but go further. Is the reason you dislike someone caused by an annoyance such as a personality trait or habit? Did they do something specifically to hurt you? Is this action out of the ordinary?

Get to the root of your dislike. Using clarity to figure out why I feel an aversion to someone makes something click in my head. I realize not only why I am feeling dislike but I also learn the reason for the other person's behavior. The reason is always the same. The person is suffering in some way. A lot of people cling to things and get upset when they are without, desire things that are unattainable and get angry over things that they cannot control.

The world isn't perfect and people are going to do things that may cause you to feel an initial feeling of dislike. The only person that dislike harms, though, is yourself. Wasting time thinking about why you don't like someone wastes precious time that could be used to do something positive. It also creates an unwholesome moment. A current unwholesome moment creates another unwholesome moment and before you know it you're angry upset and confused and most likely don't even remember why.

When this feeling comes up in myself l contemplate on the subject quite a bit. I usually try to solve the problem by approaching the person in an nonthreatening manner. I start by letting them know that I feel that they are suffering and ask if they need someone to talk to. That's a much bigger deal than most people think it is. Giving an open ear can not only give the other person a healthy outlet to release whatever may be going on inside but also gives you the power of knowledge. This also helps me recognize any fault that I may have and gives me an opportunity to apologize which usually makes the person feel better if it had anything to do with me to begin with whether I knew it or not. When you know why the other person is doing harmful things, you know for the future that the same thing may happen and you are better prepared to handle it.

Sometimes people don't want to talk, though, or perceive your motives the wrong way. If that's the case, just let it be. What helps me with that is meditating on the person and the situation. Every night while I fall asleep I wish for the happiness of all sentient beings. When someone has hurt me, I take out a specific time to meditate on that. I make sure that I have the situation straight in my own head. I put all possible biased opinions aside so there is no fog to cloud the true meaning of the energy I am about to send out into the universe. I go back over everything in my head. As I come to the instances that brought up my feelings of hurt or dislike I think about how much that person must have been suffering to do the things that upset me. I can't stand the thought of others suffering. I have always been very empathetic so it came fairly natural to me but I definitely had to work on it before I really and truly realized that no one should suffer- not even people that I disliked. Loving kindness and understanding are very large parts of Buddhism that must be developed fully within one's mind and heart before moving on in the Buddha's path is a possibility.

So that's what helps me when I get that feeling. You don't necessarily have to purposely wish ill-will upon someone to cause harm. Realize that you asked this question for a reason. You must be an amazing person to even ponder that in the first place. There are a lot of people out there that don't care. Or that thrive on wishing harm upon others. Just by reading your question, I've learned that there are other people out there that struggle with some of the same things that I do and that's comforting in itself. So, I would lije to thaj you as well for reminding me of this practice and it's importance in my growth. Hope I helped a little. I wish you the best! Much love and peace

I'm curious why you want to know the difference between ill-will and aversion? I've always considered them different. Can't you tell the difference? Or are you trying to line your experiences up to another source which may be vague or have translation errors (and so you'd like to be sure you understand the source better)? Or put emotions into a simple number of categories (I think this is what Katy is saying).

I agree with searching for the "why"

of course I mean this in the kindest way possible

Oliver

Hi Elle. Thanks for the note.

Yep. The reason I first posted this thread was because dislike/ill-will was coming up strongly after having been mellow for some time.. and I wanted to use it as a chance to dive deep down to the root cause stuff. Before getting down to the real rooty stuff, I saw that a projection/blame game was still happening. So I started breaking that down and, as you mention above, saw that it was from being ignorant of others' suffering.. and further still...viewing my own suffering as somehow more important than theirs (something I had looked at before, but was willing to consider the implications of more sincerely this time around)... thinking my suffering was more important basically translated to taking suffering personally rather than as something inherent that happens to everyone regardless, until a person gets to the point when suffering is eliminated. And so, keep on trucking, looking very clearly and thoroughly at things... reduce, reduce, reduce. Kindness is what is inherent when less stuff is in the way.




Good reminder, Oliver. Thanks. Ill-will can come about when there is aversion. As far as putting things in categories, yeah there was some of that happening. A ways back Jill commented to me about not treating any type of suffering differently and instead to view it as one giant sensation soup (paraphrasing). Goes a bit with what I replied to Elle above. Viewing things differently means that there is a perception that some types of suffering are more important or special apart from others. Not true. There are different qualities and feelings depending upon the way suffering manifests in any given instance... but suffering is suffering and all springs from the root passion stuff. When it all gets treated the same, things start to even out a bit, and it reduces on its own. The root passion stuff acts in the same basic way too and are dependent upon eachother.

Steph