Secret histories

The meditative tradition encourages us to view our enemies as "precious teachers" because without them we would never learn tolerance and patience. Here's a way of thinking about our enemies that is very skillful and consoling too:

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each person's life sorrow and suffering eneough to disarm all hostility.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We just don't know. We just don't know what they've been through. And if we had the same genetic make up as our enemy and the same upbringing, would we not behave as he or she does? It's really helpful to ponder this.