การมีอคติกับใครสักคนมักมาจากการเคยหมางใจกันในอดีตชาติโดยไม่ได้ขออโหสิกรรม อกุศลจะปลูกอาฆาตและคอยตอกย้ำผ่านเสียงภายในให้เกิดอคติ ทางแก้คือการกล่าวขอให้อภัยกันโดยมีฝ่ายกุศลเป็นสักขีพยานBias toward a particular person usually traces back to a past falling-out in a previous life that was never formally forgiven. The unwholesome plants a grudge and keeps needling it through an inner voice that manufactures the bias. The remedy is to speak words of forgiveness, with the wholesome standing as witness.
Someone asked on behalf of a member: they hold a bias against a certain person — how can this be resolved?
To feel biased against one particular person, there must be a relationship — a falling-out at some point, whether in this life or another. When that falling-out happened and forgiveness was never formally requested, nature becomes both the instigator and the keeper of the grudge. Once it has caused the trouble, it stores the grievance and plants resentment that won't let go — heavy or light, the hurt and anger remain lodged within.
When the opportunity arises, this stored unwholesome force comes back to settle the score — like a friend who comes to feel hurt on our behalf, speaking ill of that person again and again, pressing on the old wound, deepening the bruise, deepening the pain, through an inner voice that feels, to the person experiencing it, just like their own thought arising spontaneously. If enough time passes without meeting, the pain may fade from memory — but the moment they meet again, that force resurfaces, producing bias: nothing that person does seems right anymore, and attention gets forced onto their behavior specifically, criticizing this and that — even when others do the very same thing without drawing any complaint.
This force holding the grudge within is the true "" (jao gam nai wen); the person we feel biased against is merely the "karmic counterparty." The creditor lives inside our own mind, steering us toward bias over this behavior or that. Even the sound of that person's voice can feel like a knife twisting inward, because it strikes the old wound — whatever they propose gets opposed reflexively. We assume it's our own thinking, but it is in fact the unwholesome's thoughts and feelings possessing the mind, surfacing as if they were our own.
This karmic creditor will never forgive on its own. Forgiveness requires that we ourselves speak the words of forgiveness. When we voice forgiveness for that lifetime or that incident of conflict, appears as witness to the request. Once the wholesome has registered it as witness, is established between the two parties — from then on, whenever that person comes to mind, the wholesome offers loving-kindness instead. The karmic creditor can no longer come to settle scores, because the wholesome has confirmed that both sides have forgiven one another.
Asking forgiveness of one another is therefore essential. Once a falling-out has occurred, both sides must ask forgiveness of each other — bear in mind that leaving it unresolved becomes a demerit that follows us, giving the karmic creditor an opening to act again. Asking for and granting forgiveness closes that opening, so the karmic creditor no longer has any channel through which to steer us toward bias.