There is Hatred, It’s True
But Nature Will Take Care of That
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A Memory.
1975. Fifth grade. Some boys and I are clowning around before first bell, when someone mentions the class bully, Michael Fitta.
“Oh, I could take him any day of the week,” I joke. I’ve never been in a fight in my life.
Just then, Michael enters the classroom. His stringy blond hair falls to his shoulders.
“Hey, Michael,” says one of the boys, obviously not a friend. “He says he can take you any day of the week.”
Michael points his bony white finger directly at me. “I’ll see you at recess,” he says. His cold, even-tempered delivery—no boasting, no shouting—gives me the chills. He flops down at his desk and ignores me for the rest of the morning.
By recess my nerves are shot. I hope he’s forgotten his threat, but I doubt it. I walk out the door into the sunshine. There he is, standing in the grass waiting for me. A half-dozen students linger in a wide semi-circle. This is happening.
I’m not sure why I walk over to him. Maybe I’m hoping he’ll want to talk things over. Or maybe I feel it would be cowardly to run. Most likely, it’s just an instinctual understanding that there’s no denying fate. The moment I reach him, he punches me in the eye, hard, then walks away.
My friend Nick Rebello takes my arm and leads me back into the empty classroom. I’m blubbering. Thank goodness for a friend like Nick. He says nothing about my crying, sobs that continue to wrack my body. He sits me down, studies my bruised cheekbone, asks if I’m okay. He offers some supportive comments about being sucker-punched by the scariest bully in the school. Nobody goes up against Michael Fita; his family are all criminals.
I’m ashamed that I didn’t fight back, but I take Nick’s comforting words to heart.
Nick Rebello was one of the good ones. I don’t know why we didn’t stay friends beyond fifth grade. A boy of talent, he later became an artist, a drummer, a teacher, and a father. Seven years ago, I saw his obituary in the paper; kidney failure. He was 53.
The Truth
It is often only after we have heard something many times that suddenly our minds are ripe, and somehow the teaching takes on a much deeper meaning. Food For the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah
The other day I had an upsetting argument with my wife. The usual; Don’t use that tone... Don’t tell me how to... You always...
Later in the day, we were driving through a neighborhood outside New Bedford—it was the weekend, and we were trying to salvage the day by taking a Sunday drive along the South Coast—and after seeing about a half-dozen Trump campaign signs and one or two for Harris (southeastern Massachusetts is not as liberal as Boston or the Berkshires), I saw one that read, Hate Has No Place Here.
And, possibly because I was already in a vulnerable and therefore receiving state of mind, a realization about humanity hit me in a way it never had before:
Hate does have a place here.
Sure, I’ve heard that good and evil co-exist, that suffering builds character, that everybody hurts sometimes, but I’ve also heard that Jesus saves, love conquers all, and the Buddha teaches the way to the end of suffering. I think maybe these mixed messages had short-circuited my ability to see the plain and obvious truth. War and violence, hatred and anger, racism, cruelty; they’re just as much a part of the human experience as love, compassion, and good will. Why, there is evidence of organized warfare going back ten-thousand years.
Hatred isn’t going anywhere.
The revelation wasn’t an ugly or disappointing one, nor was it hopeful or uplifting. It was just a sudden assimilation of a fact; that hatred does indeed have a place here. It was a release actually, a letting go of the expectation that the world can be a better place than it is. Maybe it can, maybe it can’t, but that expectation, that belief—that hatred should not exist—was keeping me vulnerable and resistant to the fact of bad behavior, anger, violence, fighting.
Hatred exists. That’s the deal. I have to accept that, not resist it. I don’t have to like it, but I have to accept it. Realizing this gave me a strange sense of relief. If hatred is innate to the human experience, then I don’t have to feel responsible for putting an end to it, I don’t have to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, as I think so many peace-loving people do. I can try to live peacefully myself, but I can let go of trying to understand why others don’t. I can give up righteous anger, moral outrage.
What a relief to know I’m not responsible for eradicating evil from the world! What a relief to know that when it seems as if violence is growing without limit, the reality is, it’s just an existing perspective that’s been feeling unseen lately, that needs to show its face. Our turn, hatred is saying. Look at us!
I didn’t realize I held so much resistance in my heart to the negative, the angry, the contentious. For someone who practices mindfulness and meditation, that was a surprise. I think this was the key realization for me; that I can let go of judging the worst that society has to offer and just see it as what is.
The energy that goes into hating the hate in this world, hating the injustice, the intolerance, the cruelty and war and unkindness; I could put some of that energy to better use, that’s for sure!
Along with this new level of acceptance, this new relationship with the existence of hatred and violence, came the realization that the narcissistic bully currently running for the office of president of the United States may very well win. And believe it or not, there was even some equanimity around that. The history of society includes a cycle of benevolent leaders and destructive despots. This is where I’m thankful for the fact that all things are impermanent. No dictator can wreak his chaos on a country’s citizens forever. If democracy falters, I’ll do what I can to protect myself and my loved ones. I’ll fight where I can, march, vote; heaven forbid, I’ll shelter those being racially targeted. I’m not saying I’m giving up on the good. Only that I’m surrendering my attachment to the belief that the good belongs here and the bad does not; that the good is natural and the bad is an anomaly that must be abolished (maybe my Christian upbringing contributed to that fantasy). That simplistic belief is unrealistic, and if there’s one thing I’m interested in, it’s Reality.
Balance
I want to perceive the true nature of reality, even if it hurts.
And the truth is this. You get punched in the eye sometimes, and sometimes you get nurtured with love and kindness. You misunderstand your closest friends, they lash out at you, you lash out at them. Hopefully you make up and continue to grow your friendship. Sometimes you actually lose a friend, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Someone’s going to act hatefully, and maybe that hatred gets publicly sanctioned for a time.
But, there is a saving grace: Nature’s desire for balance. “The parted water reunites behind our hand,” wrote Emerson in “Compensation,” meaning that whatever we do in this life, even if ill-intended, if it knocks things askew, Nature is waiting to stabilize the wobble. Sometimes that leveling takes time, or is part of a larger, less noticeable whole, but it’s there just the same (as evidenced by the kindness of a ten-year old boy, by an imperfect but loving couple taking a country drive, by a strong and compassionate female presidential candidate). Nature knows best, and she has little concern over our petty hatreds, our misery and power-hunger and illusions of superiority, our wars and disputes. She just waits patiently, then slips in and straightens up the room. Then she steps back and says, “Try again.”
Nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds. Parker J. Palmer. A Hidden Wholeness
Books Mentioned
Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson Parker J. Palmer. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life
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This is a brave post, Don. I don't mean just politically, but also humanly. It's not giving up on what could be, it's truly showing up to what is. That takes guts. Thanks for leading the way.
It’s oddly comforting to accept that we don’t have to fight every battle or fix everything—that we can focus on living peacefully without carrying the weight of the world!