“Hatred Is Never Appeased by Hatred”: Meaning (Dhammapada 5)

By Tim Yu · Updated 2026-06-08

In Dhammapada 5, the Buddha states a plain law of the heart: hatred can never be ended by more hatred — only by its opposite. Returning anger for anger keeps the cycle turning; only non-hatred — patience, goodwill, the willingness to let a grievance go — can actually bring enmity to rest. Here is the verse, where it comes from, and how to practise it.

“Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.” — The Buddha, Dhammapada 5 (trans. Acharya Buddharakkhita)

What it means

The verse turns on a simple observation: retaliation feeds the thing it means to defeat. When we answer an injury with an injury, we hand the other person a fresh reason to strike back — and we give ourselves one too. Each round feels justified, and so the fire is never put out; it is fed.

“By non-hatred alone” points to the only real exit. Non-hatred (Pali avera) is not weakness or mere passivity — it is the active choice not to add the next link to the chain: to absorb the blow without returning it, to wish the other person well even while protecting yourself. That is what finally lets enmity die down, because nothing is left to keep it alive.

And “a law eternal” (sanantano dhammo) means this is not a pious wish but an ancient, perennial truth — the way things actually work, in every age. It is descriptive before it is moral: hatred simply does not have the power to end hatred.

Where it comes from

The line is verse 5 of the Dhammapada, in its opening chapter, the Yamakavagga or “Chapter of Pairs” — so called because its verses come in contrasting twos. It belongs to the Pali Canon, the earliest body of Buddhist scripture, and is among the best-attested of all the Buddha’s recorded sayings.

Translations vary in their wording. Where Buddharakkhita writes “non-hatred,” others render the same Pali as “love” — for example, “hatreds never cease through hatred in this world; through love alone they cease.” The sense is the same: only the heart’s opposite quality can do what more hatred never can.

How to practise it

The verse is easy to admire and hard to live, so the Buddhist tradition treats it as training, not a slogan:

• Catch the urge to retaliate in the moment — the flash of “they can’t get away with that.” That flash is the first link in the chain.
• Decline to add the next link. You can still act firmly and set boundaries; non-hatred is about not feeding the enmity, not about being a doormat.
• Cultivate the opposite directly. Loving-kindness (mettā) meditation is the classic method for growing goodwill strong enough to meet ill-will — even toward someone who has wronged you.

For the fuller teaching on working with this emotion, see Buddhism and anger.

A verse it pairs with: “Overcome the angry by non-anger” (Dhammapada 223), which gives the same principle as practical instruction. Browse the rest in our Buddhist quotes collection.