What should a Buddhist do when insulted or emotionally hurt by someone?

Question

Is retaliation of any sort (verbal or physical) expected to cause bad karma. Should a Buddhist thank his persecutor for relieving him of the bad Karma that he may have garnered in the past through the suffering that the insult or harm provoked? Is endurance the way to gain the way out of rebirth?

Answer 1

I have been thinking of this more and more, and find the answer is not to retaliate at all, nor to kill with kindness, as Christians often teach. It's exactly what you said, though one need not verbally thank the person :) . Just be calm and go about your business and reflect upon how the event fits in with your past and what you learned from it...then grow.

Answer 2

As Buddhists, we have normal feelings. I am sure you experienced deep hurt. It may not be easy to quickly forgive. I would not try to force an emotion. Instead, I would accept the true feelings I have and meditate on them. I would consider them through the eyes of the Buddha. I would let them be what they are for as long as I need. Then I would release them and in so doing receive good karma where once there was only bad.

Answer 3

If he is truly Buddhist, then he is awakened and spontaneous right action will result.Typically he will use forceful actions that do not involve violence.The awakened ones have also learned that the attacker basically attacks himself,I don't know if I've ever met a true Buddhist who succumbed to insult.

Answer 4

I think the Buddhist thing to do is to at least try to communicate with the person. Bad actions are, according to Buddhist teaching, created by ignorance and we're all to some extent ignorant. But, we need not be naive about this. In fact, one might say that Buddhism is all about getting past all forms of ignorance and naivete is another form of ignorance. There are lots of nasty people out there who really DO want to hurt you and don't really want their ignorance dispelled. It's sad but true. Then again, there are lots of well meaning people who hurt out of ignorance or misguided anger. Also, you might have done something to the other person to make them feel like they somehow need to insult you. Then again, you might not have.

So, I think a good Buddhist should try to be aware, to the best of his or her ability, of what's going on in the situation and then try to communicate in a constructive way, like asking something like, "hey, how come you're insulting me like that?" or "You know, when you say that, I find it insulting. Is it your intention to insult me?" and then talk about it. If you can work things out, great. If not, you may have to disengage from the person.

It's also okay to aknowledge if the insult angers you. Anger is an emotion and emotions are part of the truth of our experience. While a good Buddhist should avoid inappropriate expressions of emotion, like insulting someone or worse, if we ignore our emotions, we're creating ignorance in ourselves. One good way to handle the anger at the insult would be to examine it during meditation. Sit with it and observe yourself being angry. Anger is real, but it's also only a state of mind and, like all things, it's impermanent. You WILL feel something other than anger again.

At some point, you may want to try to see things from the other person's point of view (regardless of whether or not their perspective is well founded) and try to understand why they insulted you. That doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with them insulting you. You may come to a conclusion like that the person is jealous of you. But, once you think you can see it from their point of view, I think the final stage is to try to have compassion for their suffering. If someone's angry at you, it means they're suffering inside. That doesn't mean, of course, that you necessarily think that they were right and you were wrong or anything of that sort. But, regardless of why they were suffering, we all suffer and we all feel anger. We're all at least tempted to insult people we're angry at. Compassion can be really hard to have, which is why I think we have to do that after we've gone through everything else. But, I think it's worth having.

Answer 5

Yes.

To retaliate is exactly what buddhism isn't about.
I don't think that there is any specific thing that you are supposed to do except to dismiss it and stay strong.

Try to stay away from bad people who enjoy hurting others, that's another option.

Answer 6

Endurance? I think it's essential.

What should one do. Aplogize for the persector's suffering. People persecute because they are in pain themselves.

Answer 7

i think that even when he is insulted he wont FEEL insulted,because since he is enlightened,he has the control of his mind so that nothing that comes comes from the outside affects his happiness or nirvana

Answer 8

you have no concept of what Buddhism is about - when the Chinese invaded Tibet and killed many priests in public the Dalai Lama didn't voice an opinion or any side of outrage and in fact stayed completely calm while his religions monasteries where being ransacked, burned, and their monks slaughtered, many people didn't realize that his reaction was written about in the old testament in the story of god letting Satan attempt to turn all humans against god. as long as there was one human that didn't take that path of emotional reaction, then god had won. the Dalai Lama represents that one.

Answer 9

Accept it.