Love and Hatred - SAKKA'S QUESTION (SAKKAPAÑHA SUTTA) BY MAHASI SAYADAW

Sakka continued to ask,

"Lord, what is the cause of envy and meanness? What must we remove to be free from them?"

The Buddha answered, "O King of devas! Envy and meanness are caused by the objects of love and hatred. If there were no such objects there would be no envy and meanness."

As the Buddha pointed out, the way to end suffering is to remove its cause, and the cause of mankind's unhappiness is love and hatred. It is like the treatment of a disease by a competent physician who seeks its cause and eliminates it.

The objects of love are the living and non-living things that please us, such as men, women, sights, sounds, etc., and the objects of hatred are those things that displease us. We envy someone we dislike who owns valuable objects. Ill-will plagues us when we do not want others to have the objects to which we are attached. So envy and meanness have their roots in hated and cherished persons and objects. It is usually someone we hate who is the object of our envy. However, if the person who excels us happens to be our loved one, it is a cause not for envy but for joy. A boy who outshines his parents does not arouse envy in them—on the contrary they will pride themselves on his superior qualities.

The man who is mean wants to deny others the kind of wealth that he has, the use of his possessions and the opportunity to associate with his friends. So jealous men and women frown on their spouses when they have close relationships with members of the opposite sex or even engage in friendly conversation. In short, macchariya is the inclination to be excessively possessive, and to oppose any close contact between other people and the things one cherishes, and so it is rooted in love and hatred.

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