Revere your enemies

As Buddhists who set our standards by the Teachings of the Buddha, we must do our best to eliminate hate from our lives, from our actions, from our hearts. It is difficult to practice the advice of the Buddha to treat even the bitterest of enemies as our parents. But we must try.  Nowadays we hear a lot about “forgive evil” and “love your enemy”; but only the Buddha could have made such a statement as, “Revere your enemies as you revere your parents.”  You should understand that in Buddhism there is no such thing as “forgiveness.” To forgive implies that you are right and the other person is wrong. So to say that you will “forgive” somebody is a tremendous insult to that person. And you are not assuming any responsibility for what has happened to you.

No matter what a person has done, you should respect him like a Buddha. This is the very essence of Buddhism. The Buddha’s cousin Devadattaa harassed the Buddha throughout his life. And finally Devadatta was put through a living hell. He was put through this as an expedient to protect other people from his wiles. But How was the Buddha supposed to treat Devadatta, his own cousin but his greatest of enemies? He rewarded him with Supreme Enlightenment.  In Buddhism, we say that the entire universe is filled with the brilliance of evil and goodness. You may not understand this at first. One gentle deed lights up the entire universe which I think you’ll find acceptable even if you don’t understand it. But can you understand and accept that an evil act done by sentient beings in hell also lights up the entire universe?

Usually we think of the Buddha as the gentlest of the gentle, and devils as wicked. We conceive the Buddha and devils as different as day and night, as different as heaven and earth. But actually the devils and the Buddha are of the same body, they are one, and they differ only in name. They are all Buddha.  A person may do something utterly horrible, but that person’s basic nature, his original face remains the same. And So it is with someone who has become enlightened―his fundamental nature remains the same. Every sentient being is of the same Buddha nature, the same body. We are all just different manifestations of the same thing.  Devadatta was evil, and wicked, and scheming. But because his basic nature was exactly the same as the Buddhas, the Buddha repaid Devadatta’s wicked deeds with future enlightenment. He did this so that Devadatta would lead sentient beings rather than harm them. It is this type of response that is basic to Buddhist thought.

General Dharma Lecture, 29th Day of the 5th Lunar Month, 1982, Haein-sa