Last week Ajahn @kovilo was assaulted in downtown Seattle, in this open and honest sharing he relates his experience, using suttas like MN145 (Puṇṇovāda Sutta) and AN4.85. Thanks Ajahn! 
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Thank you so much, Danny, for sharing this video.
There’s no one spot where I can say, yeah, start there and listen for 10 minutes. It’s the whole thing.
Ajahn Kovilo (whom I’ve never listened to previously) brings in and weaves together his own personal experience, his take on privilege, and priming the mind-heart for a generous, non-hateful posture even in the aftermath of physical violence.
It feels like just the beginning of a conversation that would be really helpful now in dhamma circles.
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I do the 10 minute Majjhima Nikaya at the moment with them and I really enjoy their approach after reading the Sutta myself.
This talk was very inspiring and uplifting, thanks for sharing @Danny.
Everyday we have to reflect where we are and how we respond to things. I realise for myself that having been able to forgive yesterday doesn’t make it easier to be able to forgive tomorrow. It’s constant work to live the Dhamma and talks like this are the right food for the mind, knowing that one is on the right path. 
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Very uplifting talk. Thanks for posting.
My son is married to a woman from Rwanda whose father was killed with machetes in the Rwandan genocide, along with other family members, and whose sister was sexually assaulted.
Speaking with her and other surviving family members, there is no trace of ill will or a need for vengeance but rather embodied forgiveness, kindness, and equanimity.
It’s deeply moving and inspiring to see these qualities present in people who lived through such horrors.
They embody the virtues spoken about here.
They’re not Buddhist.
They deeply inspire my Dhamma practice.
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We watched this last night and he gave a wonderful talk.
I really recommend it.
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I would like to be involved in that conversation, can we start on this thread?
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How? How do they do that? This mind is still twitching days after being yelled at.
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That was an inspiring talk. Sorry that happened to you, Ajahn. Be well
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Hi Scott,
I’ll IM you and share some reflections on this.
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What a great video talk. Thank you, Ajahn Kovilo! So many things that were said are super relevant for me, as I’ve been setting intentions and conditioning my mind to have a heart of non-hate and compassion towards certain people who are causing harm and chaos worldwide right now.
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Id be happy with upekkha alone in that scenario. Trying to develop positive feelings to those entrenched in causing harm may “backfire”.
“A disciple of the noble ones considers this: ‘I am not the only one who is the owner of actions, heir to actions, born of actions, related through actions, and have actions as my arbitrator; who—whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.
To the extent that there is the coming & going, passing away & rearising of beings, all beings are the owners of actions, heir to actions, born of actions, related through actions, and have actions as their arbitrator. Whatever they do, for good or for evil, to that will they fall heir.’
When he/she often reflects on this, the (factors of the) path take birth. He/she sticks with that path, develops it, cultivates it. As he/she sticks with that path, develops it, & cultivates it, the fetters are abandoned, the obsessions destroyed.” Aṅguttara Nikāya 5.57
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This story upset me so much. Ajahn Kovilo is the kindest, gentlest person, and he is full-heartedly devoted to Dhamma. It breaks my heart that a stranger would harm him. Ajahn Kovilo’s equanimity in the face of this terrifying attack is simply amazing.
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There’s a difference between cultivating non-hate and cultivating “positive feelings”. If you watch the video, you’ll be able to see that Ajahn Kovilo had conditioned his mind in the way of the first verses of the Dhammapada:
Intention shapes experiences;
intention is first, they’re made by intention.
If with corrupt intent
you speak or act,
suffering follows you,
like a wheel, the ox’s foot.
Intention shapes experiences;
intention is first, they’re made by intention.
If with pure intent
you speak or act,
happiness follows you
like a shadow that never leaves.
“They abused me, they hit me!
They beat me, they robbed me!”
For those who bear such a grudge,
hatred is never laid to rest.
“They abused me, they hit me!
They beat me, they robbed me!”
For those who bear no such grudge,
hatred is laid to rest.
For never is hatred
laid to rest by hate,
it’s laid to rest by love:
this is an ancient teaching.
When others do not understand,
let us, who do understand this,
restrain ourselves in this regard;
for that is how conflicts are laid to rest.
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I think it’s important to point out that being able to not feel strong emotions after being assaulted is the result of someone whose mind has been trained by cultivating it. There is another possibility: Some people seem to have an innate resilience which helps them deal with dreadful conditions and events. I greatly admire both groups of people.
However, I feel it’s important to note that for ‘normal’ people this is not so easy. By no means should unwanted emotions be suppressed (because e.g. you think you shouldn’t have them). This can cause trauma, despair and shame in the victim. Emotions need to be felt (but not acted out as in the case of hate). Then - in a process - it’s possible to look at these emotions and work with them.
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upekkhā is certainly the foremost reaction. But I think compassion is helpful too. Hurt people hurt people. When I wish for people to overcome their hurt and their suffering, I am also wishing for them to stop hurting others.
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Compassion is wonderful. I think its just not always skillful for every meditator to use in every scenario.
Often that’s the case. We also live in world where some “normal” individuals just delight in hurting others.
My comment above that you responded to was in the context of an off topic diversion, sorry for any misunderstanding. It followed a post about a member developing positive feeling like compassion to leaders causing global harm. I was trying to point out thats a very advanced practice. Its great the member can achieve that. Its unlikely to be beneficial for many. The classic narrative is an idealistic meditator flexing their metta and karuna practice by using Hitler as the “unlovely person” and getting emotionally challenged with understandably negative feelings leaking out. Then judging themselves badly or giving up the practice.
In the suttas did the Buddha ever prescribe metta and karuna in the specific context of a violent physical abuser (not verbal abuse) living in ones community? As in Ajahnn Kovilo’s experience.
Or did Buddha teach equanimity and avoiding hatred?
Thats an important reflection. We can incline our minds for non-violence and non-hatred.
There are also other possible reasons for an absence of negative emotions after being attacked we might need to consider:
- victims can blank out and go numb
- its too upsetting to recollect the attack so theres avoidance without a general blanking out
3 they are highly idealistic and cant accept feeling anger and enmity so might paradoxically be super nice. Looking like a saint might be an act.
4.. the attacker is known to them and has power so the victim has to pretend it never happened
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MN 21, the famous Simile of the Saw comes to mind:
Even if low-down bandits were to sever you limb from limb with a two-handed saw, anyone who had a malevolent thought on that account would not be following my instructions. If that happens, you should train like this: ‘Our minds will not degenerate. We will blurt out no bad words. We will remain full of sympathy, with a heart of love and no secret hate. We will meditate spreading a heart of love to that person. And with them as a basis, we will meditate spreading a heart full of love to everyone in the world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.’ That’s how you should train.
If you frequently reflect on this advice on the simile of the saw, do you see any criticism, large or small, that you could not endure?”
“No, sir.”
“So, mendicants, you should frequently reflect on this advice on the simile of the saw. This will be for your lasting welfare and happiness.”
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Good talk, thank you for sharing. Inverting PTSD into “post traumatic growth” is brilliant. The reflections on privilege were great too—I’d never thought of the word in the way he used it because it’s become so politicized.
I agree. My thoughts went to the terrible kamma Venerable Kovilo’s assaulter created by attacking him—something along the lines of AN 5.162:
How should you get rid of resentment for a person whose behavior by way of body and speech is impure, and who doesn’t get an openness and clarity of heart from time to time? Suppose a person was traveling along a road, and they were sick, suffering, gravely ill. And it was a long way to a village, whether ahead or behind. And they didn’t have any suitable food or medicine, or a competent carer, or someone to bring them within a village. Another person traveling along the road might see them, and think of them with nothing but sympathy, kindness, and sympathy: ‘Oh, may this person get suitable food or medicine, or a competent carer, or someone to bring them within a village. Why is that? So that they don’t come to ruin right here.’ In the same way, at that time you should ignore that person’s impure behavior by way of speech and body, and the fact that they don’t get an openness and clarity of heart from time to time, and think of them with nothing but compassion, kindness, and sympathy: ‘Oh, may this person give up bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and develop good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind. Why is that? So that, when their body breaks up, after death, they’re not reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell.’ That’s how to get rid of resentment for that person.
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I’m often out walking after dark, and I remind myself that keeping one point and extending compassion is the action that puts me in touch with everyone and everything around me.
Out walking, that’s more Koichi Tohei’s “one point” than Gautama’s “one-pointedness of mind”, but in the extension of compassion and the relinquishment of volition I believe they are the same thing.
Horner translated the first of the states of equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses as “the plane of infinite ether” (MN 111, PTS p 79), and the heart’s release through the extension of the mind of compassion has as its excellence that plane. I like “ether”, because that’s the connection I feel, through the air in the breath:
Plato considered that the stars, chiefly formed of fire, move through the ether, a particularly pure form of air.
(Popular Astronomy vol. 24 364 [1916])
My thoughts on walking blind (figuratively) on the streets.
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