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What should we do if we begin to hate someone we love?
What should we do when we begin to hate the person we love?
We have to practice mindfulness and
to know that love is transforming itself into something else.
Love is becoming hate.
And if you practice right away, you have a chance.
You know it is only beginning to become hate.
So you still have a lot of time in order to stop that course of transformation.
And you don't want your love to turn into hate.
There are many things you can do in order to prevent your love turning into hate.
And Buddha said you have to learn how to feed your love,
how to give it something to eat,
because the Buddha said nothing can survive without food.
Love needs food in order to survive.
And you can produce a thought that can feed your love,
the thought of loving kindness, the thought of compassion and forgiveness.
You can say something in order to feed your love, something nice,
that helps love to get stronger
or you can do something in order to help love to grow.
We act with our mind, thinking; with our mouth, speaking
and with our body, doing things.
And there are many things you can think, you can say, you can do
that can help your love to grow.
And if you don't feed your love, it will die.
It will die certainly.
Love can be very beautiful in the beginning.
And the lovers have to learn to feed their love.
And if you know how to feed your love like that,
love will never degenerate into hate.
So maybe that is good enough,
not allowing your love to degenerate into hate.
And how to do that?
Learn to feed your love better.
And you know,
when you are a really good practitioner, you can even turn hate back into love.
With a lot of concentration, mindfulness and insight,
you can very well turn hate back into love.
Because both love and hate are organic things.
And this is possible, even after only 3, 4 days of practice.
Because in the retreats we offer everywhere in the world.
Many couples suffer of losing love,
including father and son, mother and daughter, partner and partner.
They cannot look at each other anymore.
They cannot communicate with each other anymore.
It is not pleasant for them to look at each other anymore.
It is not possible for them to say something nice to the other person.
And yet when they come to a retreat,
they practice breathing, walking to calm down their suffering.
They practice looking into their own suffering,
and the suffering of the other person.
They learn how to speak kindly and listen deeply.
And on the fifth day, they can restore communication,
they can say something nice to each other.
They can listen to the other person with compassion.
And they transform and they turn hate back into love.
The miracle of transformation always happens in our retreats.
And even if one of the two is not in the retreat.
Because after five days of practice, you can use your portable telephone
to practice loving speech, deep listening and reconcile with the person at home.
That miracle happens in every retreat.
Thay remembers that retreat in Oldenburg, northern Germany.
Thay said, "Ladies and gentlemen,"
"this is the fifth day of our retreat and you have learned many things."
"Now you have to put them into practice in order to reconcile with the other person."
"If the other person is in the retreat, that is easier,"
"because he or she has been exposed to the teaching and they have practiced."
"But if the other person is not there, you can use your telephone"
"and practice compassionate listening and loving speech."
You say:
"Father" or "Mother" or "Darling"
"I know that in the past many years you have suffered so much."
"I was not able to help you to suffer less.
"In fact, I have made the situation more difficult for you."
"I have reacted in such a way that makes you suffer more. I am sorry."
"It is not my intention to make you suffer, darling."
"It is because I did not understand you."
"I did not see the suffering and the difficulties in you."
"It is not my intention to make you suffer."
"So I don't want to make you suffer and I need you to help me."
"You should help me to understand your suffering, your difficulties"
"so that I will not react like the way I did in the past."
"Please tell me your suffering, your difficulties."
"Please tell me what is in your heart."
"I really want to know."
"And if you don't help me, who will help me? So, please ..."
And if you say something like that, that is called loving speech.
And you open the heart of the other person.
And he will tell you, the suffering, the difficulties in his heart.
And you can practice like a Bodhisattva
and listen very carefully with all your compassion.
Even if the other person says something wrong, you don't interrupt him or her.
If you do, then you turn the session of listening into a debate. That is not good.
You tell yourself:
"I am practicing as the Bodhisattva, of compassionate listening."
"My purpose is to listen in such a way that he can suffer less."
"Therefore, I will not interrupt him."
"If he says something incorrect, I wait until a few days later."
"And I will try to offer him some information"
"so that he can correct his perception, but not now."
And that is called 'mindfulness of compassion'.
Mindfulness of compassion, breathing in and out,
helps you to protect yourself with compassion.
So that what the other person says will not spark off
irritation and anger in you.
It is wonderful.
Mindfulness of compassion protects you.
And do not let what the other person said, spark off the irritation and anger in you.
And you can listen half an hour, one hour without irritation.
And that helps the other person suffers less right away.
So that kind of practice of listening with compassion and using loving speech
can always help restore communication and bring reconciliation.
So, in that retreat, Thay said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, you have until midnight tonight in order to do it."
"Use your telephone."
And the next day, four German gentlemen came up to Thay and reported that,
with their telephone, they had been able to reconcile with their father
the night before.
And one of them said: "Dear Thay, it is so wonderful."
"Before the retreat, I did not believe I could talk to my father that way."
"I was so angry at him."
"I even thought I did not want to have anything to do with my father."
"And yet, after five days of practice, last night, breathing in and out"
"to see the suffering in my father, I called him."
"And suddenly I found myself capable of speaking kindly to him."
"Daddy, I know you have suffered a lot during the past many years."
"And I was so stubborn. I reacted in a way that makes you suffer more."
"I am sorry."
They were able to say things like that.
And the door of the heart of his father opened.
They talked for an hour or so and they reconciled.
And he said: "After the retreat I will go right back to him and visit him."
And we know that there are many others in the retreat who have done that.
But they have not come up to report.
Thank you for asking the question.
(Half bell)
(Bell)