More Ideas On Conflict

Samagamma Sutta describes the roots of conflict in a kind of resentment. The Buddha remarks:

There are, Ānanda, these six roots of disputes. What six? Here, Ānanda, a bhikkhu is angry and resentful. Such a bhikkhu dwells disrespectful and undeferential towards the Teacher, towards the Dhamma, and towards the Sangha, and he does not fulfil the training. A bhikkhu who dwells disrespectful and undeferential towards the Teacher, towards the Dhamma, and towards the Sangha, and who does not fulfil the training, creates a dispute in the Sangha, which would be for the harm and unhappiness of many, for the loss, harm, and suffering of gods and humans (Nanamoli & Bodhi 1995: 854).

But if I look deeper into this, I ask the question, what is the real source of ‘resentment’ and where does it come from exactly? Resentment seems to involve a kind of ‘re-evaluation’ of something that has already passed in some way. I look at the traffic that is slow, and suddenly my mind reels back: there is something that this situation could be that it’s not, and I compare what could be with what is happening now. I notice that when this thing happens, there arises the illusion of consciousness. I think that something about the situation itself is deliberately doing something I don’t want it to do.  I start to endow the situation with a consciousness or a deliberate purpose, which it often does not have at all. That’s when I start to develop a strong desire to repel the deliberate perpetrator or cause of my suffering, and thus a strong sense of self. This happens so quickly as to seem imperceptible, but it seems that it creates a whole vicious cycle of blaming the teacher; then blaming the teachings for ‘obstinately refusing’ to give me what I want; then turning away from the development of meditative practice and training (again, out of a possible resentment toward the pain that emerges from the practice, which is magnified by this illusion of a conscious design); then creating disputes with others, and finally, impacting others outside of one’s social circle through resentful emotions or attitudes.

When I look closely at this cycle, what is the root of it? If I am not mistaken, the root of it is a kind of projection of conscious purpose on the events in my life which don’t warrant such a needless projection. What this is a projection of, however, is the grasping self. If it were not for the self that grasps what it wants or rejects what it dislikes, would there be any persecutor or conscious demon? In fact, there would only be the present conditions that are arising spontaneously out of previous conditions. If I were to think in this way and drop my ideas about there being a conscious purpose to what’s happening to me, things might be a whole lot more manageable, and I would be clear about what I am seeing, not fixated on the notion of a punisher and punished.

What happens, though, if we find that people around us carry the view that there are separate selves who do things on purpose to upset other selves? I believe that the answer is to examine closely the nature of those selves and to ask if they, too, are not conditioned constructs. Quite often what people see in ‘me’ is a construct in their minds, based on different perceptions which don’t add up to a big picture of what’s happening to influence the perceiver and perceived. Without this bigger, wider picture, there are just a lot of assumptions and guesses, with accompanying beliefs that the other is trying to trick us or we should not trust such an other. But what’s the alternative? I think it’s to know that there is never a final ‘conscious’ designer of anything we experience. Even if someone is really trying to trick us, that ‘tricking’ behavior is also conditioned by the person’s previous experiences or traumas, especially around their own inability to adopt a trusting position in the world. The root of all this conscious tricking and such is really a self that is grasping, whether for glory or reputation, or revenge or love. And all of these grasping attitudes perpetuate suffering. Do we need to think this way?

How can I design a specific practice that would test out my theory about the origins of resentment? Well, something for me to think about.

Reference

Nanamoli & Bodhi. 1995. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: a translation of the Majjima Nikaya . Boston: Shambhala