Ill Will
Byāpāda
The push away from unpleasant experiences.
What Is Ill Will?
Ill will is the flip side of sensual desire. Where desire pulls toward the pleasant, ill will pushes away from the unpleasant.
It shows up as:
- Anger and irritation
- Resentment and grudges
- Aversion to discomfort
- Resistance to what is
- Hatred (in its extreme form)
Like desire, the problem isn't the feeling itself. It's the story that makes it sticky.
The Same Formula
Ill Will = Sensation + Story
- Sensation — Heat, tightness, contraction, energy in the body
- Story — "This shouldn't be happening. They're wrong. I can't stand this."
Strip away the story, and what remains? Just sensation. Just energy.
How to Look
Exercise: Meeting Aversion
When you notice irritation, anger, or resistance:
- Pause. Don't act on it yet.
- Find the sensation — where in your body? What does it actually feel like?
- Notice the story — what is thought saying?
- Can you feel the raw sensation without the narrative?
- What happens to the "ill will" when you just feel the feeling?
You're not trying to become a doormat or pretend everything is fine. You're seeing through the mechanism that turns sensation into suffering.
Not Spiritual Bypassing
Important: This isn't about suppressing anger or pretending you're not upset. That's just more aversion — aversion to aversion.
Some things genuinely call for action. Injustice, harm, wrongdoing — these may require response. But you can respond from clarity rather than from the grip of ill will.
The question is: Are you acting from seeing clearly, or from the compulsion of the story?
After Stream Entry
Like sensual desire, this fetter is worked on after seeing through self-view.
Before stream entry, there's a "self" who is trying to overcome anger — which creates more tension. After stream entry, you can look at ill will clearly because you're not identified with the one who is angry.
Fully breaking this fetter (along with sensual desire) leads to the stage called Non-Returner (Anāgāmī).
Ready to Look?
The Fetters app guides you through examining ill will directly — not to suppress it, but to see how it works.
Download the App