Who is the Enemy?

20 June 2024 Daily Meditation

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Buddhism focuses on the three unwholesome roots of evil, also known as the three poisons: greed, ill will, and delusion. In place of the struggle between good and evil, Buddhism emphasizes ignorance and enlightenment. The basic problem is one of self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?~David Loy

I remember the first time I came face to face with the enemy inside. It was many years ago when the second Star Wars movie came out, and I was having a discussion with a program person about it. He called to my attention a conversation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and I’m paraphrasing here, but it went something to the effect of Darth Vader saying to Luke: “Go ahead Luke, get angry, because when you get angry, I win!” This resonated down to my toes. I was spending so much time fighting and being angry at the world, and I was constantly in a state of Loss, and railing at the world about it.

I didn’t know that the enemy was ME. I was tricked by the dualistic world into thinking the enemy was outside me and I kept fighting the outside and I could never find the solution. Once I understood the fight was inside me, the lightbulb came on. Here was a fight I could work on — I could learn to understand this enemy and find some new solutions.

Understanding that I have good, bad, negative, positive, confusion, clearness, love, hate — that all this is a part of the whole of me — this is like a great light shining on the darkness of my life. When I separate all this into the good guys and the bad guys, I am filled with guilt if I fall from the path I am on and I do not know how to go on.

When I get that this is a path towards enlightenment, then my daily walk is a simple one towards understanding. My mindfulness, my prayer, my life are all my practice. I learn to be gentle in this walk and to model that gentleness and simplicity for others.

If I can be compassionate towards myself in my walk, perhaps I can be less judgmental and harsh towards others, and vice versa.

My path to recovery from addiction has perhaps been my greatest tool in this discovery. Because stopping using drugs and alcohol as a crutch to get through each individual pain of living was such a hurdle, I had to employ learning a whole new way of living. I had to learn to take direction. It wasn’t pleasant. I probably would never have done it if it wasn’t to save my life.

But along the way, I discovered that the tools I needed in order to start wanting to live, also gave me the tools to start caring for others, start living in service of others. In that process I began caring for myself as well. I also saw that compassion for others, regardless of any separation I might imagine in my mind, yielded much more benefit than the benefit of the separation and isolation.

I found out that the separation was only some delusion for protection. But protection from what?

Breathing in, I see that I am connected to everything. Breathing out, I feel that this is good.

Breathing in, I feel this connection, and it is good. Breathing out, I feel compassion.

Breathing in, I sense compassion. Breathing out, I send love to those I am connected to.

Breathing in, I feel connection. Breathing out, I wish an end to suffering for all those I am connected to.

Breathing in, I feel a world of peace. Breathing out, I send peace to all the world.

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