So hello, and welcome to the second talk on the Buddhist teachings related to quarrel, squirrels disputes. And the idea that human beings live in conflict with each other was very well recognized by the Buddha. And not only have a lot to say about it, but it could be understood that the core teachings of the Buddha, even the whole purpose of becoming enlightened, is, has to do with creating a world where people are not driven by unethical behavior, that the core teachings of the Buddha are ethical, with an ethical goal. A person who is awakened, is defined as someone who will not harm anybody at all, including how the, in the way in which we have disagreements with people, certainly will have disagreements, but to disagree, in an argumentative way with hostility and anger and, and search assertions of power and, and demeaning other people is not the direction in which the dharma teaching dharma practice the Buddha taught. He really wants us to take responsibility for our contribution to suffering in the world. And certainly, that's not enough to diminish the suffering in the world just to look at ourselves. But without that, without a deep look at ourselves and what's going on with us, we could actually inadvertently, continue being models and perpetuators, of hostility, of hate of assertion of power of all kinds of ways that are continue the endless cycles of harm that has existed since the time of the Buddha. So his teachings on quarrels is the topic for this week. And in one of the ways, so, the primary strength of the dharma, the Buddha taught, is the capacity of this practice for us to really take a deep dive in ourselves and understand ourselves, not to ignore the world. But I like to think of it as we deep dive inside of ourselves to really see ourselves and, and free ourselves from the inside out, turn ourselves inside out, and return to the world with a heightened sensitivity and capacity, to care to love, without any hostility, without taking on any stress and that process, without any kind of conceit that gets in the way of caring for others and the world. So in one set of teachings about quarrels, disputes, the Buddha talks about six roots, that six roots of, of quarreling, and these are the six kind of problematic ways in which underneath the coral, that gives that from which we contribute to the coral to the argument to the disagreement in an unhealthy unbeneficial way. And so we want to find a way to go under the under the surface, take a go a layer down, and not kind of constantly be involved at the level of the quarrel and who said what and what's going on and what I should do and which is living a little bit in objectified world of what's the problem. But we also want to take time out to really understand what are we contributing? What gasoline are we putting into the fire? And so one of the purposes of things like meditation is the introspection to drop a layer or at least a layer into our being into our psychology to see what is the what are we contributing in terms of pressure in terms of energetics, agitation stress onto how we contribute to the coral. So the Buddha talked about six, six routes, and in fact that each when he talks about them, he pairs up there To pair so somehow they're considered may be synonyms or close synonyms are part of a family, the six pairs, and each of them we can understand to imply that as they settle, maybe they get replaced by their opposite the first root, and it uses the word root. Because a reference point is a plant, that if you cut off the plant at the surface, it, it sprouts again from the roots. And if you really want to take get rid of a weed, you have to really get down there and pull out the roots. So doesn't nothing can re re sprout. So the first of these roots is anger and resentment. And anger is in the Buddhist lexicon is maybe not the same as the English word. The coda is the word in Pali involves some people in the West want to justify certain kinds of anger, clean, white anger, or something. Justified Anger, but the anger that Buddhism is say is a problem is a poison is anger that that has within it, hostility, has within it hatred. So and resentment is also kind of a kind of a poison, that, that certainly harbor harms the person who's presenting. And so these are two routes. The first the first route is anger and resentment. And if these settle down, then what's possible is friendliness, care. We can come from a different place, we might still disagree, but to disagree in friendly ways, to see if we can't be friend friendly, because that's too high a bar to disagree with care for the welfare of everyone involved. What does it take to really engage in disagreement in a productive way? Not easy. The second route is contempt, and spite to have this attitude towards others, who are we were in disagreement with, and have contempt in spite and we know that there's a whole movements and political movements, politicians, who are demonizing the opponent, and kind of contempt in spite that it just putting gasoline on the fire in the fire of a lot of social, political and national conflicts that exist in our time. And there's no hope to resolve a conflict. If there's contempt, spite, hatred, demonization of the other. And, and so there the alternative is respect, to enter into disagreements with respect for the other, even if they don't respect us. The third route is envy, and greed. And the word for greed can also mean selfishness. So envy and selfishness, and envy, for some people is a really deep poison. That is not an issue for me. But I've talked to people. And I'm so surprised when I started talking to people learning from people from which how toxic it is for some people to live with envy. And it seems to maybe come along with a certain kind of undermining of one's own integrity or well being to just kind of be envious of others and what they have their situation or to be greedy. Selfish to want more want everything. And so some of their disputes has to do with we want what they have, and they don't want to give it to us, or we can't have it. The alternative if that settles at that level of tension within quiets down, the alternative is the healthy alternative is generosity. To want other people to be well to have things, give them some of our things. wish them well. Then the next route for disputes, quarrels is deceit and deceptiveness to. So to be trying to deceive people into getting what we want to be deceptive and what we say to lie. And this also is poison for our society poison for our interpersonal relationships. And it means that there's no trust there means that they can there's no respect for others, we're just trying to get our way without any cost at all. The alternative to that as we relax the inner tensions, forces of deceit and deception is honesty. Honesty is medicine, honesty, is
the food for health, psychological, spiritual health, then that spreads and inspires. The next one, the root of quarrels is evil and wrong view. And what exactly is meant by evil is not so clear. But a wickedness of just a pure and simple may be tendency, some people have just wanting to cause harm, without any other reason, but to cause harm in some way. And and wrong view is the wrong view that doesn't understand the nature of what is harmful and what is not harmful. So both of these evil and wrong view, and from a Buddhist point of view, involve some kind of tension, some kind of contraction, some kind of agitation within, just like all the other roots. So as we drop down in our awareness of self, below the level of the quarrel, and really in the subjective, subjective level, we start discovering these tensions, and we discover what we can relax. And if this this one relax, evil and raw Eve, in wrong view, there can be greater wisdom, and the core wisdom and Buddha's of Mr. Wisdom, that penetrating wisdom that applies to almost everything is what it what causes harm, and what causes welfare, we'll welfare and the fault fault. Last root, is attachment to the world, just being attached to this life that we're living, and can seem like, of course, we should be that way. But the alternative is to be generous to the world. And we don't have to be attached to the world to live a full, full life. In fact, I would suggest that we're, we're not at being attached to anything. But being able to give be able to be a generative from what inside out is, is really what is a kind of fantastic sense of well being and, and freedom to be attached to the world means that we are a consumer only holding on and not giving away. So the primary lesson that I'd like to pass on the Buddhist lesson is that we want to be able to sit quietly enough in some way or other find a way to be that we can step below, look below the level upon which the corals are going on to disputes the fight. So we have to see what is our contribution within what's the tension, pressure, what are the roots within us. And this list is a good checklist to see are the these present. And as we find them to really feel the physical subjective way in which the tension pressure is present for us, the agitation and then learn to relax. And maybe it's easier to relax physically, mentally, emotionally, even than it is to pull out the route itself initially, to stop being envious, but we might have access to relaxing the tension around it. So I would propose to you today if you have any of these things today, anger and envy, greed, deceit, lie tended to lie attachments of any kind contempt for other people that you read about in the news, politicians, whatever it might be. Stop, look below it subjectively. Is there any tension and if there is, see if you can relax and see what healthy alternative is possible when you're relaxed. So thank you very much and look forward to seeing being with the year get with you again tomorrow.
