The Four Locks and Keys + Metta Meditation: Part Four- Disregard for the Wicked
By cultivating an attitude of friendliness toward the happy,
compassion toward the unhappy,
delight toward those who are virtuous,
and disregard to those who are wicked,
the mind remains calm and the obstacles to self-knowledge are lessened.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:33
(taken from several translations)
The Sanskrit words paired in this verse are:
Maitri (friendship) + Sukha (happiness)
Karuna (compassion) + Dukkha (suffering)
Mudita (joy) + Punya (virtue)
Upeksa (equanimity) + Apunya (lacking virtue)
Here we are at the last of the four locks and keys. In the previous three Letters, I’ve shared some reflections on these verses from the Yoga Sutras and how recently I have started to explore them in tandem with Buddhist metta meditation.*
This fourth lock and key feels particularly poignant right now. Trauma and stress have a way of revealing long-standing strains that might have gone unnoticed or been more easily swept under the rug when things were status quo. The world is echoing the cost of what a lack of virtue does to the planet and in our relationships with each other.
On a personal note, since my niece Adelaide’s passing, everything feels different and the hard things feel compounded. I often feel like the odd combination of a baby giraffe trying out new legs and an inert blob of kid’s slime (but less sparkly).
The places where I have been getting in my own way are being unearthed. Life feels very tangibly short. I have grown tired of my own patterns of clinging and aversion.**
Each of the teachings in the Sutras we’ve been looking at presents a Lock- a circumstance, state, or energy we encounter in life along with a Key- a conscious way to engage with them. The Bhagavad Gita (more on this below) talks about how inaction is impossible. Even ignoring is an action- a way that we engage and use our energy. You might have also noticed, that attempting to ignore, stuff, or hide something actually takes more energy and action than if we face it. It is in this vein and with this desire to unearth, see, have compassion for, and heal these places within myself and my relationships with others that I have come to write these Letters in the hope it helps you too.
I was originally introduced to the teachings of the four locks and keys as a practice toward others. Ex. When you encounter someone who is wicked, disregard them. In exploring further, though, the text seems to say when you encounter wickedness/non-virtue in the world (or within yourself!), the way to use your energy is to disregard it or show it equanimity.
Equanimity comes from the Latin for “with an even mind.” It asks us to meet pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experiences with mental balance, not indifference: to care deeply and feel emotions without becoming overwhelmed, reactive, or trapped in apathy. In Sanskrit, upeksa is what keeps love from turning into attachment and compassion from turning into pity. This fourth lock and key asks us to be present in the face of what bothers us most; not to numb out or avoid it.
When approaching the “wicked” or “non-virtuous” in others and ourselves (ahem!), we can take a step back to see our lens. In Letter 2, I wrote about cleaning the mirror, and in Letter 1 quoted Anaïs Nin’s reminder that we see things as we are. We can apply both of those here. Before we decide who or what is “wicked,” we get to ask what is coloring the way we see.
My Mom is a forever student who has shared quotes, teachings, articles, and (in recent times) memes with us nearly every day. She is a counselor and researcher who has collected a massive library of resources on a diverse range of struggles and healing encountered throughout life as a human being.
There are two teachings she shared with me years ago that I’d love to pass along. One is from a lecture from a professor where he used a glass of water to illustrate his point. Standing on its own is a glass of water. Something comes along and bumps it and the water spills out. There was an external circumstance that caused the water to spill, but it was water that came out, not fruit punch or champagne. The water symbolizes what is already in us. When life knocks us, our response comes from what we have inside of us. We are responsible for what comes out whether the water is clear or murky. We might think that we are managing our anger or depression or whatever it is, but without approaching, healing, asking for support, and meeting these aspects of ourselves (you can use the four locks and keys for cues), they still exist as whatever is in the glass.
The other resource my Mom gave me was this Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quote:
“The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
I find this particularly humbling. It takes away that self-righteous blaming tendency to think that wicked is an us/them thing and from being something out there and brings it much closer to home.
Here is a good place to share a note on the word “wicked,” from the Sanskrit words above. Punya means merit or virtue, the quality of good action. Apunya is simply a-punya: not merit, or lacking virtue. Many translations land on “wicked,” but the word itself points to a lack, not a verdict on someone’s worth. We can see clearly that something is lacking in a person or a situation without deciding that they are beyond compassion.
If we take the idea of equanimity toward the wicked into a loving-kindness practice, it asks us to engage with the non-virtuous within others and ourselves; to recognize it, to hold it in our hands and hearts and turn it around to understand what it’s about. When we do this something happens; we start to understand where it came from. In other words, we have the opportunity to practice extending compassion toward the unhappy.
Before this starts sounding too simplistic and very spiritual-bypassy, I would like to say a word about the emotion of anger. Often when we take a look and see wounds caused by non-virtuous actions, we feel anger (and often rightfully so). Anger (maybe especially for women- how convenient) is frequently discouraged, frowned upon, and can feel uncomfortable because we aren’t always shown the ways to practice with and direct it skillfully.
Due to that, I’d like to offer a reframe for anger that I learned when I was studying some of the background of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the 5 Elements. In TCM, anger is described as the energy that moves energy and changes things. It is the energy that pushes the buds through the Earth in Spring. There are many circumstances (and people) in the world that need change and provoke anger, and how we approach this anger is important. If anger is energy that wants to move to transform something to something else, I think of frustration as energy that has nowhere to go.
When we witness injustice and feel anger we can let it eat us alive in frustration, or we can look for effective ways to take that energy forward toward change. We can literally BE the change we wish to see.*** When we feel anger and let it stew without addressing it, we might blame the circumstances for our reactions and end up with our anger expressing itself in a way that doesn't further us down the path we'd like to be on or create. If we go back to the root word, "equanimity" isn’t asking us to ignore or be kind, be a doormat, or to people please. It is asking us to recognize and do the deeper work of discernment (viveka in Sanskrit). In the practice of noticing, we might find that our anger is actually showing us that we feel something needs to change and it is prompting us to take action.
Over the years of practicing and teaching Yoga, I have come across many opinions of what Yoga is and is not. Sometimes people think of Yoga as something flexible and peaceful people do- not for them with their complicated relationships with their hamstrings and anger.
One of the most important and foundational texts of Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, happens on a battlefield and this may come as a surprise, but God is encouraging his devotee, Arjuna to fight. He is not saying, “Sit and meditate peacefully with your resilient and supple muscles.” He is saying, “It is your duty to fight this injustice.”
This puts a different spin on Yoga, doesn’t it?
So how do we apply this in life toward others who drive us nuts or knock our water glass, or do awful things in the world?
Instead of using our precious energy endlessly stewing, we choose to see them as they are, and we recognize that like us there are most likely circumstances, and even wickedness done to them, that have also made them the way they are. In that we have compassion, but in taking responsibility for our own anger and pain and the way it expresses, we recognize that they also have that option.
Maybe they haven’t been blessed to be introduced to the tools we have. We can feel compassion toward the murky waters they have inside, BUT we can stop giving them our energy, our mental space, our precious life force, and our money. We stop spending our days and minutes simply being angry and instead put our energy toward the actions that need to be taken in order to create change.
The teaching and directions the four locks and keys offer help us to use our energy in ways full of loving-kindness, discernment and aligned action because it is one thing to be mentally inspired by ancient wisdom and quite another to take on the responsibility to live it out and bring it forward. We also are reminded to double-down on applying them toward ourselves.
In making a practice of showing friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the unhappy, celebration of the virtuous, and equanimity toward the non-virtuous, in ourselves and in others, we pave the path toward creating the inner and outer worlds we want to live in.
In Letter 1, a song reminded me of the value of memorizing scripture so that you have it when you need it. My hope is that these four locks and keys are something you carry around, apply often, and that you start with yourself.
* See Letter 1 if you haven’t already read it! Metta is a loving-kindness meditation which asks you to cultivate a feeling of loving-kindness and then turn it toward:
- Yourself
- Someone you love the most
- Someone neutral, an acquaintance
- Someone who challenges you (in this Sutra, a non-virtuous or wicked person)
- The whole world
**Letter on the 5 Kleshas coming soon
***“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” A quote often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi
