พระอาจารย์ขยายความคำสอนเรื่องการเลิกดูหมิ่นในการเจริญเมตตาพรหมวิหาร อธิบายว่าดูหมิ่นเกิดจากอกุศลเข้าสิงจิตปลุกปั่นความขัดเคือง ทางแก้คือน้อมเอาเมตตาธรรมให้ตั้งขึ้นในใจ ซึ่งมีคุณสมบัติพิเศษในการขจัดความขัดเคืองให้หมดไปThe teacher elaborates on a teaching about giving up contempt as part of cultivating loving-kindness, explaining that contempt arises when unwholesomeness possesses the mind and stirs up irritation. The remedy is to draw loving-kindness into the heart, which has the special quality of dissolving that irritation entirely.
Someone asked the teacher to elaborate on a teaching from an elder teacher about cultivating (metta brahmavihara), which said to give up contempt toward anyone, anywhere — if contempt is given up, one becomes a good person again, and sometimes we hold contempt without even realizing it.
What Is Contempt, and Why Is Giving It Up So Important
The teacher explained, following the original teaching, that contempt means speaking however one pleases — harsh, unpleasant words, scolding others out of raw emotion, showing no mutual respect, using a hard tone, shouting or threatening in various ways — all of this counts as contempt. He compared it to how a fire that eventually destroys a great mansion often starts in a small hut or shack nearby; likewise, resentment usually begins over something small before growing into something much larger. A ruler's downfall or a revolution often traces back to those in power holding those beneath them in contempt until resentment accumulates — all born from contempt, from failing to hold genuine goodwill toward one another.
How Contempt Arises
The teacher explained that contempt is the opposite of loving-kindness, arising when unwholesomeness possesses the mind. Once unwholesomeness takes the seat of the heart, it shapes coarse thoughts and feelings aimed at creating division, using irritation or displeasure as its lever. When we accept the irritation that has intruded, unwholesomeness guides us to look down on others, pointing only to their faults, criticizing and belittling — and the more we accept it, the more it stirs up further irritation, like rubbing the heart raw with coarse sandpaper: the more it rubs, the more it burns. Once we accept that wrong view, wrong concentration establishes itself, drawing in the energy of demerit along with misfortune, forming a completed pattern of demerit that waits to release its results along the timeline of life, both now and in the future.
The Remedy: Drawing Loving-Kindness Into the Heart
He explained that the remedy is to draw loving-kindness deliberately into the heart, likening it to a mother's heart, full of love and goodwill toward her infant child — bringing that quality of mind to overlay one's own heart each time loving-kindness is cultivated. Loving-kindness has the special quality of being able to dissolve irritation (paṭigha) completely; it is the tool for resolving aversion, anger, and coldheartedness. Unlike , which arises automatically together with wholesome states, loving-kindness requires deliberate intention to appear as a bright, clear sphere brimming with goodwill. Once established, it radiates a wave of goodwill that draws in good things and dissolves irritation until it vanishes. He noted that loving-kindness comes in many degrees of quality, depending on the sincerity, honesty, and of heart behind it. The intention of this teaching is that we should not cooperate with unwholesomeness's wrong guidance through displeasure, so that loving-kindness can arise in our hearts more readily.