The Resolution of Conflict by Ajahn Munindo

7/29/2019 The Resolution of Conflict by Ajahn Munindo

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The Resolution of Conflict by Ajahn Munindo

- Ajahn Munindo

We are all familiar with the experience of conflict. At the moment the world scene is in

such an intensely conflicting state that it is dominant in people's minds. If we cannotcome to terms with this then it is difficult to come to terms with being a human being.The Buddhist approach to conflict is not one of simply trying to exterminate it. Conflict is

not seen as wrong in itself, part of being human involves experiencing difficulty,frustration and disappointment. It's how to work with it, how to find a realistic

relationship with it. How can we experience life without being crushed by it? We do notwant to compromise the potential of a human existence which, from the Buddhist

perspective, is for unconditioned compassion and wisdom. To realise this potential is thepoint of being a human being, and to the degree that we do not have a right relationshipwith conflict, then to that degree we compromise our potential of compassion andwisdom.

In Buddhism the teaching of the Four NobleTruths sets forth a pattern for relating to life. I

will present this pattern briefly and thenexamine how we can make it practical in our

daily lives. The First Noble Truth is therecognition of conflict itself, or suffering. The

Second is recognising what causes thissuffering, what obstructs our ability toeffectively work with it. The Third is therealisation of the ending of suffering, or it'sresolution. Finally the Fourth Noble Truth iscalled the Way, or the manifestation of this

resolution in the world.

We all experience conflict - everyone has this

in their lives - but somewhere along the line ingrowing up, we develop, from what Buddhistswould call the seeds of ignorance, very subtleways of not acknowledging life, not receivingthe bits that we don't like. What happens isthat we get alienated from life - Christianswould call it sin, or alienation from the Divine,the Godhead. What happens is that the things

we like and the things we dislike set upconflict in our minds and we start picking and

choosing. We get all sorts of frustration as a result and the more this increases, the morewe make an effort to just not feel it. This happens in everyday life from the time we are

born, and the sad thing is, that if we are not very careful we can lose touch with thecapacity to say "this hurts."

So the First Noble Truth is remembering our capacity for receiving conflict and suffering.Basically it's knowing that it is the case. People talk about the sense of inadequacy theyfeel when they hear all the horrendous things in the news. They just start to becomeresistant to it and not feel it anymore. So the first point in practice is learning how to feel

again, because if we cannot receive our suffering then we cannot begin to work with it.

By recapturing our capacity for feeling life, we can then investigate the Second Noble

Truth, the cause of conflict. This means investigating the dynamic of picking andchoosing - "I like this, I don't like that." The emphasis that we give to our preferences


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creates this strong sense of ME, with all my wants and desires. There is anenormous amount of energy in desire, and to break out of the patterns ofstruggling with life, we have to understand this wrong relationship with wanting.

The Third Noble Truth, is that once we bring the light of awareness to bear onthe process of conflict in the moment, then we start to release out of it. And if the

practice goes the whole way we release out of it completely, which in Buddhist languageis called enlightenment, liberation, which is our goal. To be clear that there is such a goal

is very important, because when we have a clear appreciation of this possibility, energycan arise within us to do something about it.

The Fourth Noble Truth, the Eightfold Path, is living in a way that honours this insightthat release from suffering is possible. The Buddha himself said "I teach suffering and theending of suffering." So anything which effectively brings us to a recognition andacceptance of conflict - not being crushed by it, not being lost in it - but being clearly

receptive, and then releasing out of it, that would be called Buddhism.

The theory I've outlined so far is 50% of the story; the practice is the other 50%. This is

like having two legs to go forward on. So how can we put this into practice? There is somuch conflict around, both internally and externally, and most of us have tried all sortsof means to get away from it. Some of these means are less valid than others, some area bit dangerous, some are not daring enough. But eventually we find out that merelyavoiding conflict does not work. We come back and realise for ourselves that "I don'twant to suffer," "I do not want to spend all my life running away from conflict, having toalways go and see someone else to solve my problems, or being told what to do by thenewspapers and television." We just want to get free. Is it possible to live life without it

being an ordeal? We reach the point where this question takes priority.

The Four Roads Of Success

In practical terms we as Buddhists sometimes reflect on the teaching of the "Four Roads

of Success" (iddhipada). These are chanda, viriya, citta andvimamsa, which I like totranslate as; enthusiasm or interest, energy, integration or stability, and discernment.

Enthusiasm

The first, enthusiasm, means reconnecting with that which we are personally mostinterested in. If we don't know what we are interested in, then we don't have anyenergy. We had a retreat in the monastery recently, and on the first night I went around

asking people individually the following; Imagine you are on your deathbed, knowing thatyour life is coming to a close, and someone that you really care about comes to you and

asks; "Please tell me what is really important, what matters most to you in life?" I askedthis because I wanted to help them connect with what is important, because this is where

our energy lies.

People often never stop to consider this, but this is where the religious path begins. Whatreally matters, not superficially, but in a deep way? When we were young life promised tobe an enormous amount of fun. Running along on a hill or a beach, getting into flowers,throwing our food around, and having cuddles - all kinds of wonderful possibilities! Ofcourse as we grow up we want to be free and independent, but the great lesson in life is

that for every increase in freedom there is also an increase in responsibility. Somehowwith the dawning of this sense of responsibility there is a decrease in the sense of

aliveness, vitality and enthusiasm. Often it's because we are thinking about what we are

supposed to be doing rather than feeling what we are supposed to be doing. So in thecultivation of awareness, this is one of the first places that we start, asking in a feeling


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way; "what am I interested in, what matters most?" In this process people tendto work initially through layers of superficial values, until they come to thedeeper ones.

We learn not only to ask the right questions, but to ask in the right way. If weask arrogantly "what can I do to be happy?" from the perspective of "my

happiness," then we won't get the right answers. We have to ask carefully,without being selfish or demanding. Instead of "how can I get what I want?",

we start to ask questions like "What accords with increased honesty, increasedwholeness? What accords with the welfare of everybody?" This is actually very creative,as no doctrine can connect us with this enthusiasm, and it's not something we can betaught. We are asking these kinds of questions because we are interested for ourselves.So recognising and activating enthusiasm and interest is the first Road to Success.

Energy

The second is energy, which flows on from the first, because when we know what we areinterested in, we are also at one with our own energy. The energy that is in the heart, or

the energy of consciousness itself, is what we are tapping into. All of us can look back inour lives to times when we have been really enthusiastic about something and thennotice how much energy there was for that. Maybe we were enthusiastic about getting a

job, or perhaps it was when we first met somebody who we thought we'd like to spendthe rest of our life with. Falling in love is an incredible symptom of enthusiasm, and thereis an enormous energy there. But if this energy is not tamed, then once it is accessed itcan do a great amount of damage.

So we go beyond the shallow desires for self-gratification by asking the right questions.

In doing so we start to discover something that feels deep, although we may have noclear concept for it. Feeling our way into these right questions, we tap into our own

energy. In learning how to do this, we start letting go of the false energies. We develop

what I call a "false energy detector." This means noticing whatever habits we may havewhich are not sustainable, or are dishonest. A most coarse example would be indulgencein alcohol or drugs, but other sources of false energy could be feeding off praise, success,reputation and pleasure, or feeding off someone else's energy in a relationship. Whetherwe are completely enlightened or totally unenlightened, we all experience praise and

blame, gain and loss, pleasure and suffering and honour and insignificance. But if we arereally locked into any one aspect of life then I consider that false energy. You can see

people that develop some skill and get a little success; they lock in and identify with itand great enthusiasm can come. It could be military success, artistic or professional

success, or success in relationships. But if we grasp and attach, then we turn what ispotentially good wholesome energy into false energy. So we need to recognise what isgood, sustainable energy, and how to tap into it and receive it inwardly. We then feel the

joy that comes from getting off the addictions, even the subtle ones, that keep ushooked. Rather than judging and condemning ourselves for all our false energies - sayingwe shouldn't be drinking, or we shouldn't be uptight, we discover that it all depends onhow we relate to our energy and enthusiasm, and how we receive it.

Stability

These various qualities have to be balanced, because we can very easily go off into toomuch enthusiasm and interest, and not know how to integrate them. Like getting carriedaway by causes, for instance, which can be very deceiving. We may be feeling rather dulland lifeless, and then find a cause, like saving the whales, or even a religious cause. Butexcessive enthusiasm which is expressed in an immature and imbalanced way can

actually create division in the world, and cause suffering. This leads to the Third Road ofSuccess which is tranquillity or stability. Learning how to be still which is the practice of


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integrating energy so it accords with wholeness. This means simply doing what we aredoing, and this is a discipline that we can bring into our everyday lives. Washing thedishes - can we just wash the dishes? When it comes to integration, it's a matter of nolonger picking and choosing or giving preference to any subject, no matter how inspiringor important it appears to be. We understand that if we can't let go and simply be still,

then we are running the risk of being obsessed.

This point is sometimes misunderstood by people who may have been hurt as a result of

getting caught up in false energy. They hear about the Buddhist teaching which talksabout tranquillity and stability and like the sound of it. They learn a basic meditationtechnique, like concentrating on the end of their nose and breathe in and out, trying notto think about anything, and settle the matter there and then. They may experience awonderful sense of well-being and stillness by focusing the mind in this way, but it's veryimportant to understand the way this works, otherwise this can become become anothersource of addiction. In other words, engaging in tranquillity practices is not something weare doing as a judgement of the world, or a judgement of sensuality, or of activity or

thinking. The capacity for discernment and thinking is a wonderful ability that we have.We may be concerned that we think too much and want to stop it - and then through

meditation practice wilfully focus and just wipe it out. But using willpower in that way canmake us very dull and stupid.

My teacher in Thailand Ajahn Chah once said that chickens sit on their eggs for a longtime, but they are still very stupid. Sometimes his monks would complain that therewasn't enough time to sit and meditate, but he would reflect back the need to be able tomeditate while one is working. So this is a word of caution about tranquillity meditation.

It's proper function is to teach us how to rebalance too much energy or enthusiasm aboutanything in life. Learning how to make ourselves whole. Breath meditation is good for

this, and it has been employed by many of the world's religious traditions. We find it inBuddhism and Christianity, in Pranayama Yoga, and as chi in Taoism, chi meaning

breath. And the word spirit comes from spiritus which also means breath.

Breath meditation is very important, but one of the things that has been discovered byWesterners who have been practising this for the last couple of decades, is that justpicking up an Asian manual on meditation is not enough. If our approach is a wilful one,then we may get impressive results, but it may not be balanced. So in referring to breathmeditation, there are for most Westerners many obstructions that are held in the breath-

body, and if we engage in traditional meditation techniques without properly preparingourselves, we can actually exacerbate a state of imbalance. Again, it has got to be done

as a feeling investigation. As with any spiritual practice, we are doing it with mindfulness.If we are concentrating on breathing, the tip of the nose, abdomen or elsewhere, thenit's a matter of feeling our way into it. If we are concentrating the mind in this way it canbring us to a state of balance and ease. Then our enthusiasm and energy is enhanced by

being able to come to this place of stillness.

Discernment

The Fourth Road of Success is discernment. If you don't have this, then you may accessenormous energy and interest, but get into such a state of stillness that you have tunnel

vision, and lose perspective. Developing a broad perspective means being agile and fluidand able to change one's outlook on things. With discernment we do not just engage inthings in a limited way, but have the agility of mind to take the opposite perspective, andthen see the effect. Someone was telling me that he used to get upset driving over to themonastery, as the road is very winding. This went on for quite a while before he startedpaying attention to his condition, and realised that he was not under any obligation to

suffer. So he experimented with changing his perspective, and found that winding roadscan be quite nice!


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I have had a similar experience to this, as I never used to like travelling in aeroplanes. Itwasn't so much the flying, but I have long legs and I used to find it embarrassing when Ihad to climb over people to go to the toilet. People look at you when you are wearing arobe, and I would always huddle up in the corner and hope that I didn't get noticed.There was also the immigration department and the customs. They would want to know

everything that was in my bag and so on. And I used to get excruciating headaches at

the airport, because people can be so emotionally dramatic at such places! Well Isuffered for several years until I recognised that it was foolish - how can I go around as aBuddhist monk talking about the non-obligation to suffer, and then hate airports? Afterthis consideration I was able to change my perspective: I'm going to love and enjoyairports and plane flights. We have to approach the predicament of conflict in the sameway. If we are willing to change our perspective, then instead of operating under thepresumption that we are obliged to suffer, or must remain victims, we dare to assume acompletely different perspective. Now whenever I get a chance to fly, everything is muchbetter.

Cultivation of Awareness

So there are these Four Roads of Success. If we are reallyinterested in resolving the fundamental conflict andsuffering in life, then we must realise that it takes all four.If we get stuck with only one or two of them, then we areliable to miss the point of our good effort. We mustcontemplate all four and then work with them in abalanced way in our daily life. This daily life practice,

whether it is in or outside a monastery, really concernshow we perceive and receive life. As I have mentioned,

the Buddhist teachings are telling us that the awarenessby which we receive life can be cultivated. If our

awareness is contracted, then our ability to receive things

is also limited. It's like receiving guests into a housewhere all of the rooms but one, are untidy. If we have alot of guests, then we are going to feel very cramped! Theexperience for many of us is that we don't have a lot ofspace to receive life into. There is so much that needs tobe dealt with. The world is actually more of an internalaffair, rather than merely an external one, so wherever

we are it's learning how to work with awareness itself sowe can open it up and receive guests into every room in the house. Open the windows,

breathe easily and let the air flow through, and enjoy receiving guests - even the onesyou don't like. Be determined to be a good host. Even if totally objectionable relativescome to visit, you know your duty as a host is to receive them, offer them hospitality and

hope they do not stay too long! And usually they don't - what makes them stay too longis if you engage with them. If they are particularly nasty they love a conflict, so if you getinto conflict with them they will stay longer.

This is how it is with a lot of the stuff that comes to visit us - if we engage in a mode ofconflict it will hang around. What we are interested in is how to engage without getting

into conflict, which is to freely receive our feelings with mindfulness. For instance, sayyou are a householder and you have to do a budget. You don't like doing it, but the fact

is you have to. What is important is, can you do it and not suffer? Can we budget theyear, or fill out our tax forms and not suffer? Can we sit in the same office with the sameobjectionable characters and not suffer? If we can accept that there is a possibility thatwe can meet life with all of it's agreeable and disagreeable aspects and not suffer, then

that inclination of faith will help us to get in touch with what we call the Middle Way. Oneextreme would be to pretend we don't feel what we feel, and the other, to get completely


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lost in our feelings. But being in touch with the Middle Way means being right there forthe feeling.

Daily Life Practice

This practice of mindfulness in daily life is done within the context of the moral disciplineof the Five Precepts. This establishes us in training the wild passions that we experience.

If we do not exercise any restraint and just do whatever we feel, then it upsets everyoneelse. And if other people are not restraining themselves, then it upsets me. So thetraining is a humanisation of the wild passions, not a rejection or judgement of them. Ifwe start to meet situations accurately, by applying mindfulness in the moment, then westart to discover that there is an intuition within us, a level of intelligence that getshigher and higher, not in terms of accumulated information, but accumulated sensitivityand capacity for discernment. This gets higher to the degree that we are more open, andmore free from picking and choosing. Then we can discern how to proceed.

So long as there is a world, we can never get rid of conflict. But it is our relationship to itthat is important. Now there are some types of gross conflicts in a worldly situation which

compromise any sense of decency, and of course, we want to be effective in changingthese. Like exploitation on a national scale, or individually, as in child abuse. We want todeal with these things directly. But on another level, to expand our appreciation ofconflict and accommodate it, is a very constructive way of getting energy. For instance,being able to hold in consciousness an absolutely impossible dilemma. Like a relationshipthat has got to the point where you just don't know if you should go on or not. Or in amonastic situation where a monk or a nun has got to the point where they feel it is justnot working. Now that could be the point where they break through into a new reality

where something really starts to happen. Like a chicken breaking out of an egg - thatchicken must be really uptight in there just before it comes out, hot and clammy and fed

up and really irritated. Then pecking through the shell and coming out, it must be veryscary going to a new and larger reality. But fear does not necessarily mean that

something is going wrong. Fear in this sort of conflict can be very creative. To have thefeeling awareness in the mind and body to hold both aspects of a dilemma; "Should I orshould I not do anything? - I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO".

This is where our addiction to the certainty of knowing has to be looked at. When we are

still attached to being right, we have a minimal capacity for holding conflict. So much ofour education is about being right - we get all the points for saying "I know". Whoever

taught us the virtue of saying "I don't know?" There is so much within ourselves andoutwardly that we don't know, that it is important to be able to hold that state of not

knowing. A consequence of right spiritual training is the ability to open up to the mysteryof life and hold it, not just conceptually or in abstract, but actually feeling it, letting itshake us, letting it make us wobble. If you stay there until the wobbling settles, then you

know you have a greater capacity for holding uncertainty. You know for yourself, notbecause someone has told you, but because you have realised it.

Mindfulness, the most important point in

this practice, means being able to receiveconflict freely. This is the bottom line in all

spiritual practice; to be able to receive life,which is conflict, without collapsing aroundit. Our habitual response when we feelconflict is to say "I don't want it," and thenour energy goes up into the head and wepsychologise and philosophise about how

we can get away from it. We really want toknow and be right, but if our relationship to


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the desire to be right is obsessive, then there is an equal, opposite counter-force of thefear of being wrong. It's horrendous to live within the shadow of that fear.

Awareness practice is being able to hold conflict in a feeling way, so that it gives the

potential for new insight and understanding. Something new can never come out of a lowenergy state, so it can be a great blessing to know how to properly receive an utterly

impossible situation. If we have been gentled somewhat, if we know how to receive life inhumility, then we can let all the energies course through us - grief, sorrow,

misunderstandings - not knowing if they will come to an end, but not sinking into apathetic resignation that we are going to be a victim for the rest of our lives. Receivinglife in this way, something new can come out of it. This is where new things come from -out of conflict.

Good Friends

Walking on the spiritual path, we are drawninto the company of those people withwhom we have affinities. Such association

may grow to become a great source ofmutual support and nourishment. Inpractice, this occurs through acts ofgenerosity, kindness, forgiveness andacceptance, which create more trust andopenness, and deepen our sensitivity toeach other. We honour this sensitivity bynot transferring our own ideals, demands

and negativity onto our friends, or fixing

them as certain characters in our personalworld. By releasing them from theselimiting perceptions, we allow them to be

just who they are.

Therefore our friendship is not based ondesire, it's based on giving, a giving thatmore and more does not depend on how

the other is appearing, emotionally,physically or in any other way. It is not

tending to affirm or reinforce the sense of"me" as separate, needy and unfulfilled,

and thus encourages freedom from theself-definition. In its deepest aspect, such arelationship holds the potential for themystery of sacred communion; the lettinggo of self in the company of another.

This human possibility invites us to be increasingly courageous in how much love we are

willing to give, and how much of ourselves we are willing to let go of. And if ourreflections on life and death are accurate, we will also find ourselves asking; "why hold

back?"

The Resolution of Conflict by Ajahn Munindo

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