Why We Should Treat Enemies and Loved Ones Equally

Consider our present cycle of life and death. Even if a human lifespan were to last a hundred years, a single day in the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings is equivalent to fifty human years, and a single day in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven equals a hundred human years. Therefore, through the eyes of beings in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, is not the life of a human on Earth but a single dawn to dusk—a mere fleeting day?

Viewed against the boundless expanse of space and time, our endless cycles of birth and death reveal each individual lifespan to be incredibly brief—merely a passing instant, as fleeting as a struck spark or a flash of lightning.

Within this ceaseless cycle of reincarnation, from dawn to dusk, we are essentially dreaming. In our dreams, there are benefactors and enemies. In reality, these friends and foes are merely manifestations of our own minds, conjured by our karma and the delusions of our ignorant minds. Within the dream, we may feel overwhelming love for our benefactors and intense hatred for our enemies—loving them so dearly we wish them life, and hating them so fiercely we wish them dead. Yet, once you awaken from the dream, are these so-called benefactors and enemies not entirely equal? This is practicing impartial contemplation.

From the perspective of the Buddha Dharma, why do we speak of "treating enemies and loved ones equally"? Ultimately, they are equal because it is all a dream. Once you awaken from the dream, there are no more adversaries or foes, nor are there any benefactors.

Treating grace and enmity as equal is like awakening from a dream, leaving no room for feelings of sorrow, joy, grief, or anger. We ordinary, unenlightened beings become overjoyed when encountering favorable circumstances and profoundly saddened when faced with adversity. All of these reactions are merely our emotional attachments.

From the standpoint of the inherently pure self-nature, none of these emotional attachments—joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness—actually exist.

This realization stems from knowing that our world is not everlasting but impermanent. Amidst this impermanence, we seek an eternal, truly enduring Buddha-nature. This is the pursuit of "non-arising"—a state of neither arising nor ceasing, which is the eternal and tranquil Nirvana.