Learning to devalue yourself and value others equally.
The three types of emotional reactions
Whenever we encounter any phenomenon, we judge it as either positive, negative, or neutral. Buddhist psychology recognizes three types of reactions to our judgments.
If we encounter something we judge to be pleasant or positive, we tend to want more of it, grasp at it, and form attachment. When we react to people this way, we try to form relationships with them as friends or lovers.
If we encounter something we judge to be unpleasant or negative, we tend to want less of it, push it away, and form aversion. When we encounter people like this, we try to avoid them as enemies.
If we encounter something we judge to be neutral or uninteresting, we tend to ignore it as unimportant, often failing to even acknowledge its existence. When we encounter people in this way, we fail to acknowledge them, perceive them as strangers, and remain unconcerned about their happiness or well-being.
None of these natural reactions are skillful, and each of them leads to suffering in their own way.
An honest appraisal of the people we encounter
Broadly categorized, the people we encounter are enemies, strangers, friends, and lovers.
Imagine an honest and accurate numeric representation of the value people place on others and themselves, perhaps a scale from 0-10.
Enemies are people with values less than zero. Negative values are for people who are objects of derision or hatred. We value them so little that we believe our lives would improve if our enemies did not exist.
Strangers are people with zero value. They have no emotional importance at all. Whether they live or die, we are indifferent.
Friends have a value greater than zero but less than ten, with a value of ten usually reserved only for oneself.
Lovers have a higher value than friends, but less than the value reserved for oneself, as evidenced by the fact that most people will put their desires over everyone else’s, including their lover’s desires.
Lovers may obtain a value greater than ten; sometimes, this is a greatly exaggerated value for those who get placed on a pedestal and worshiped like Gods.
Looking out for number one
Without any reasons to think otherwise, we are naturally inclined to value ourselves above all others. We obsess over our needs and consider them the most important, far more important than anyone else’s concerns.
All of our pursuits involve trying to maximize our own pleasure and happiness, sometimes even at the expense of others.
For truly narcissistic people, the value they place on their own desires is many times the value they place on anyone else. Whereas most people are somewhere between -1 and +1, narcissists value themselves at a 10, by far the most important being on the planet.
Buddhist teachings are to reverse this entirely. Value personal desires at a zero and others’ needs and wants at a one. By seeking to negate the desires of the egoic self and equalize the values of other beings, practitioners find joy and a deeper sense of fulfillment.
How we devalue our enemies
We value enemies at less than zero because we are angry with them. We have resentments for perceived prior misdeeds, find them unattractive, and wish to harm them in some way.
Sometimes these misdeeds are genuinely terrible things others have done when they acted on their own desires in opposition to ours. However, sometimes these misdeeds are minor or perhaps even just the result of someone failing to meet our selfish desires or expectations.
Those people who are demanding and unrealistic with an overblown sense of entitlement make enemies of nearly everyone they meet.
Why we ignore strangers
While it’s wise to be cautious when dealing with people we don’t know, that doesn’t make it wise and prudent to place no value on them. Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, everyone has value, and we live in an interconnected society where everyone depends on everyone else.
We don’t value strangers generally because any concern for strangers would seemingly diminish the concern we have for our friends, lovers, and ourselves. Selfish people are unwilling to pay taxes to support social safety nets because the resources needed to support strangers is money they could have spent on themselves.
At any given time, there are dozens or more armed conflicts happening somewhere in the world. In each of these conflicts, two opposing narratives of hate and retribution are engaged in a death struggle where sufferings are heaped onto their enemies.
Did you know there are over 100 armed conflicts occurring right now in various places around the world? If we are not a party to the drama, we tend to tune it out and remain indifferent to the sufferings of these strangers.
How we value our friends
We generally place a positive value on people who have been kind to us, agreed with our opinions, provided us support, or pleased us in some way.
There is usually some emotional transaction that’s inclined us to want to spend more time with these people. Depending on how much they have been kind, our valuation of them will rise and fall in direct proportion.
If someone appeals to us as a lover, this opens up special avenues for pleasure that can increase their value even more. In fact, this value can become greatly exaggerated as we see our lovers as special, perhaps even more important than ourselves.
These friendly interactions tend to be transactional. We aren’t naturally inclined to like these people. If they were strangers, our value is typically zero.
Our natural tendencies are all unskillful
The descriptions above are the natural state of anyone with an untrained mind who has not been exposed to any spiritual or religious training to instruct them differently.
Valuing people in this way leads to an unbalanced mind full of disturbing aversions and attachments, leading to great suffering, which is why the Buddha taught equanimity.
Buddhism instructs us to look at these tendencies and natural reactions, evaluate the suffering they create, and apply our wisdom to make wiser choices that reduce our sufferings and those of other people.
The Buddha taught that we should cultivate equanimity, regard ourselves as having no value, and treat all others with equally high regard, the opposite of our natural inclinations.
Equanimity refers to a balanced and impartial attitude toward all sentient beings, free from attachment, aversion, or indifference.
Developing Equanimity
Equanimity starts with recognizing that all sentient beings, without exception, are fundamentally equal in their desire for happiness and avoidance of suffering. This includes friends, enemies, and strangers, as well as all living beings in various realms of existence.
Lamrim’s teachings emphasize the need to overcome attachment to friends and loved ones and aversion toward enemies or those we perceive as harmful. Attachment and aversion are obstacles to genuine equanimity.
Equanimity is cultivated by developing an impartial attitude toward all beings, treating them with equal consideration and care. This means not showing favoritism or bias based on personal preferences.
It’s very difficult to achieve in practice.
Equanimity and Family Life
Achieving equanimity is a difficult challenge, and for monks who abstain from sex and do not have a spouse or family, it’s easier to attain—though some have told me otherwise.
If you have a spouse and children, true equanimity is elusive, and perhaps not completely desirable. A practitioner has a greater duty to a spouse and offspring than they do to strangers, so reacting and treating family in the same way is neither realistic nor desirable.
Strong emotional ties bind a family unit. Spousal love is mixed with attachment in ways that cause suffering but also maintain critical familial ties. The emotional ties to family are sources of suffering and joy.
Do the benefits of family outweigh the price of suffering and sadness?
I believe so. If I didn’t, I would leave my family and live as a monk as the Buddha did.
Perhaps this merely reveals that I have not achieved full enlightenment.
So be it.
Reducing Attachment and Aversion
While I freely admit I will likely never completely achieve equanimity, I do strive to reduce attachments and eliminate aversions to the degree my life circumstances allow.
There is no valid reason to maintain enemies. The attachments are more likely to remain, particularly toward family.
It’s not easy to forgive all your enemies and learn to value them, but it’s certainly a less stressful way to live.
In order to equalize others, Lamrim’s teachings highlight the interconnectedness of all beings within the cycle of samsara. Recognizing that we have all been each other’s friends, enemies, and strangers in countless lifetimes fosters a sense of kinship and compassion.
Equanimity is not indifference; it is informed by wisdom. Practitioners use wisdom to discern the transient and unsatisfactory nature of samsaric existence, which leads to a natural sense of detachment. Contemplating the impermanence of relationships and the changing nature of life helps reduce attachment and aversion.
Practicing Loving-Kindness
Equanimity is often developed in conjunction with the practice of loving-kindness (Metta). This means extending well-wishes and goodwill to all beings equally, regardless of their relationship to us.
Try meditating on feelings of love and goodwill toward your enemies. It’s one of the most challenging, yet most rewarding acts of purification you can embark upon.
Equanimity is accompanied by compassion, the wish for all beings to be free from suffering. This compassionate attitude is the foundation of equanimity and motivates practitioners to work for the welfare of all.
Do you feel compassion for your enemies?
Maintaining Equanimity in Daily Life
The practice of equanimity is not limited to meditation; it is integrated into daily life. Practitioners strive to respond to all beings with equanimity, whether in their thoughts, words, or actions.
Do you approach strangers with the joy and delight you feel for your friends? Try it, and you will find many of those strangers will reciprocate your kindness.
Developing equanimity contributes to inner peace and harmony, as well as fostering harmonious relationships with others. It is seen as a means of reducing conflicts and promoting a more compassionate and just society.
Meditation on Equanimity
You will struggle with equanimity if you continue to form strong preferences for or against certain people and ignore the needs of others.
The people you are attached to will cause you pain when you are parted from them, or they fail to meet your demands.
The people you are adverse to will cause you pain as you continue to react negatively to them.
The people you ignore reflect a lack of compassion, and a missed opportunity for joy, and ultimately will slow your progress on the path to liberation.
Contemplation
Consider what you read in this post and focus on the following first-person narrative:
I am foolish to form attachments to those who I find attractive, feel aversion to those I find unattractive, or feel indifference toward those who are neither. Someone who is attractive to me may be unattractive to another. Someone who is unattractive to me may be the object of attachment to another. Someone to whom I feel indifference may be attractive or unattractive to another. There is no certainty. The appearance of attractive, unattractive, or indifferent are my own mistaken impressions, and they make my mind unbalanced and unpeaceful and destroy my happiness.
I must stop these unbalanced minds and develop and sustain a mind of equanimity.
Object of Meditation
The feeling of determination to develop and sustain a mind of equanimity is the object of the meditation.
You should hold this determination in your mind for as long as possible.
When you are out of the meditation session, you should cultivate the practice of viewing others as equally important and react to them accordingly.
