What If You Prayed for Your Enemy?

There is a part of me that loves to hold on to a grudge.

I look around me and see that I’m not alone in this. We have become very good at sorting ourselves into opposing camps, reinforcing one another’s convictions and collecting evidence of how terrible the people on the other side are.

In this environment, ancient spiritual mandates to pray for one’s enemies become radical acts of peacemaking.

To pray for an adversary, or to extend genuine goodwill toward someone whose views we find objectionable, is not an act of capitulation. It does not require us to abandon justice, ignore wrongdoing, or compromise our core ethics. It asks us to draw a line within ourselves: to refuse to let our opposition to another person become hatred of that person.

Anger and contempt can bind us to the very hostility we want to overcome. They narrow our vision until the other person becomes a caricature, an embodiment of everything we oppose rather than a complicated human being whose life we cannot fully know.

Spiritual traditions across history, from Christian commands to love one’s enemies to Buddhist practices of extending lovingkindness toward difficult people, have developed practices for interrupting this tendency. They ask us to do something that does not necessarily come naturally: to look at someone we dislike, perhaps intensely, and deliberately wish that person well.

I don’t particularly want to do this when I’m angry or outraged.

A good grudge has its satisfactions. It lets me rehearse my case. It reminds me why I am right. It allows me to return, as often as I like, to the evidence against the other person. Wishing that person peace can feel almost like giving something away.

But perhaps that discomfort is precisely what makes the practice useful.

When we intentionally hold an opponent in a space of goodwill, we refuse to dehumanize them. We acknowledge that they, too, possess a complex human story. We don’t know everything that has made them who they are. We don’t know what we look like from where they stand.

None of this means they are right.

It means they are human.

Recognizing another person’s humanity does not automatically change that person. It doesn’t immediately heal the injustice in the world. What it can change is the way we participate in the world we are creating. Hatred is reciprocal. Contempt invites contempt. Retaliation invites retaliation. Introducing something different into that loop—even something as private and seemingly inconsequential as a prayer—interrupts the pattern.

I usually talk with you only about what can be proven. Occasionally I speculate as to what might be possible. Today I ask you to consider doing something that requires a bit of faith. I offer the following as examples. Use either as it feels comfortable to you, modify them to fit your beliefs, or dig into your own traditions of prayer, spiritual practice, and mindfulness.

It is also perfectly fine to move on without participating. If that is what you choose, I’ll talk to you next week.

Extending Lovingkindness Meditation

Based on traditional Buddhist practice

Audio player: Extending Lovingkindness — guided meditation (3:46)

Find a comfortable position. Allow your body to settle and your breathing to be natural. There is nothing you need to force or accomplish.

Begin by bringing gentle attention to yourself.

Silently repeat:

May I be safe from inner and outer harm.
May I be healthy in body and mind.
May I meet difficulty with patience and courage.
May I be peaceful and at ease.

Now bring to mind someone who has cared for you or supported you. Offer that person the same goodwill:

May you be safe.
May you be healthy in body and mind.
May you meet life’s difficulties with strength.
May you be peaceful and at ease.

Next, bring to mind a neutral person. Someone you neither strongly like nor dislike. Remember that this person, too, experiences hopes, fears, joy, disappointment, and pain.

Just as I wish to be safe and happy, may you be safe and happy.
May you be free from unnecessary suffering.
May you find peace and ease.

Only then, if it feels appropriate, bring to mind someone with whom you are having difficulty. Do not excuse harmful behavior. Do not force yourself to feel affection. Begin simply with a willingness to release hostility.

May you be free from the causes of suffering.
May you be guided by wisdom.
May you be safe from causing and experiencing unnecessary harm.
May you find peace.
May you be free from hatred, fear, and resentment.

Finally, expand your awareness beyond particular individuals:

May all beings be safe.
May all beings be free from suffering.
May all beings find peace, security, and belonging.
May all beings be treated with care and respect.

Rest quietly for a few breaths. Let go of the phrases and notice the body, the breath, and the space around you.

Then carry one small intention of kindness into the rest of your day.

The following prayer is more direct. It asks us not only to wish our adversaries well, but to examine our own participation in the division between us.

A Prayer for Healing Division

Audio player: A Prayer for Healing Division (1:45)

Pause, quiet your mind, and bring your awareness to the shared breath that sustains all living things.

Then speak or think:

I feel the heavy weight of living in a fractured world. I acknowledge the times I have allowed anger or fear to cloud my vision, and the moments when I have reduced other human beings to mere adversaries.

I summon the courage to examine my own heart. I release the comforting illusion of my own absolute certainty. I release the bitterness inside me, and in its place I choose to cultivate curiosity. I replace fear of the other with openness to understanding.

Today, I lift up in thought, meditation, and prayer those whom I consider opponents, critics, or enemies. I consciously send goodwill to those who have offended me, misunderstood me, or actively oppose the values I hold dear.

I pray for their well-being and their peace of mind. I remember that I do not fully know their stories, just as they do not fully know mine. I remember that the divine spark resides within them just as it does within me, and their humanity is not separate from my own.

I choose, where I can, to become an instrument of reconciliation. I find the strength to stand firmly for justice without weaponizing my words, and to resist wrongdoing without surrendering compassion.

May peace grow where there is now division, and may love endure.

The people you prayed for don’t know you did it. They haven’t changed their mind. Neither have you. Tomorrow you may still oppose what they believe, challenge what they say, or resist what they do.

But for a few minutes, you stopped rehearsing the case against them. You stopped reducing them to what you despise about them. You wished something good for a person you find difficult. For those few minutes, you refused to hate them.

It is a very small step toward peace.

But it is a step.