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en:lib:authors:bodhi:bps-essay_13 [2019/05/09 14:34] – date sript footer removed Johannen:lib:authors:bodhi:bps-essay_13 [2019/10/30 14:11] (current) – navi and box Johann
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 +<div navi>[[en:index|{{en:img:home_en.png|Index page}}]] >> [[en:lib:index|Library]] >> [[en:lib:authors:index|Authors]] >> [[en:lib:authors:index#?|{{en:img:question_16.gif|Some info about the generouse author}}]]</div>
  
 +<div right round box 25%>**Preperation of htmls into ATI.eu currently in progress.** Please visit the corresponding page at [[http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/index_en.html|ZzE]]. If inspired to get involved in this merits here, one may feel invited to join best here: [[http://sangham.net/index.php/topic,8657.0.html|[ATI.eu] ATI/ZzE Content-style]]</div>
 +
 +====== The Problem of Conflict ======
 +<span hide>The Problem of Conflict</span>
 +
 +Summary: 
 +
 +
 +<div #h_meta>
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 +
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 +<div #h_doctitle>The Problem of Conflict</div>
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 +<div #h_docby>by</div>
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 +<div #h_docauthor>Bhikkhu Bodhi</div>
 +
 +<div #h_copyright>[[#f_termsofuse|{{en:img:d2.png?16x18}}]][[#f_termsofuse| 1998-2018]]</div>
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 +<div #h_altformat></div>
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 +</div>
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 +<div #h_homage>
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 +<div #homagetext>[[en:homage|-  Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa  -]]</div>
 +
 +<div navigation></div>
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 +</div>
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 +<span #h_content></span>
 +
 +It is one of the bitterest ironies of human life that although virtually all human beings cherish a desire to live in peace, we continually find ourselves embroiled in conflict, pitted against others in relationships marred by tension, distrust or open hostility. This irony is particularly poignant because it is immediately evident to us that cordial, harmonious relations with others are a necessary condition for our own genuine happiness. Not only do such relations allow us to pursue undisturbed the goals we consider essential to our personal fulfillment, but they bring us the deeper joy of meaningful communion with our fellow human beings. Contentious living, in contrast, is always intrinsically painful, involving a hardening of our subjective armor, a tightening of the knots of anger and hate. Indeed, whatever the outcome of conflict may be — whether victory or defeat — the result itself is ultimately detrimental for both victor and victim alike.
 +
 +Nevertheless, although harmonious living promises such rich blessings while discordant relations entail so much harm and misery, for the most part our lives — and the lives of those around us — are entangled in a raveled net of quarrels and disputes. Conflict may simmer within as silent suspicion and resentment or it may explode into violent rage and devastation. It may implicate us at the level of personal relationships, or as members of an ethnic group, a political party, a social class or a nation. But in one or another of its many manifestations, the presence of conflict in our lives seems inescapable. Peace and harmony hover in the distance as beautiful dreams for a summer's night or noble ideals to which we pledge formal allegiance. But when reality knocks and dreams are dispelled, we find ourselves drawn, usually against our better judgment, into an arena where the pleasures that we seek exact as their price the hard cash of struggle and contention.
 +
 +The teachings of the Buddha, while framed around the goal of individual deliverance from suffering, are also expounded for the purpose of instructing us in how we can live in harmony with others. Such harmony is desirable not only as a source of satisfaction in itself, but also because it is a prerequisite for treading the path to the higher freedom. The final peace of enlightenment can arise only in a mind that is at peace with others, and the mind can only be at peace with others when we are actively committed to a course of training that enables us to extricate the roots of conflict that lie buried deep within our hearts.
 +
 +Once, in ancient India, Sakka the ruler of the gods came to the Buddha and asked: "By what bonds are people bound whereby, though they wish to live in peace, without hate and hostility, they yet live in conflict, with hate and hostility." The Master replied: "It is the bonds of envy and avarice that so bind people that, though they wish to live in peace, they live in conflict, with hate and hostility." If we trace external conflicts back to their source, we will find that they originate not in wealth, position or possessions, but in the mind itself. They spring up because we envy others for the qualities they possess which we desire for ourselves, and because we are driven by an unquenchable avarice to extend the boundaries of what we can label "mine."
 +
 +Envy and avarice in turn are grounded in two more fundamental psychological conditions. Envy arises because we identify things as "I," because we perpetually seek to establish a personal identity for ourselves internally and to project that identity outward for others to recognize and accept. Avarice arises because we appropriate: we attempt to carve out a territory for ourselves and to furnish that territory with possessions that will titillate our greed and sense of self-importance.
 +
 +Conflict being thus rooted in envy and avarice, it follows that the path to non-conflict must be a course of relinquishment, of removing the constrictive thoughts and desires that pivot around the notions of "I" and "mine," the drives to identify and to possess. This course reaches consummation with the full maturity of wisdom, with insight into the empty, egoless nature of all phenomena; for it is this insight which exposes the hollowness of the notions of "I" and "mine" that underlie envy and avarice. However, although the final liberation from clinging may lie far away, the path leading to it is a gradual one, growing out of simpler, more basic steps that lie very close to our feet.
 +
 +Two such necessary steps are changes in attitude with the power to transmute envy and avarice. One is altruistic joy //(mudita),// the ability to view the success of others with the same gladness we experience at our own success. The other is generosity //(caga),// the readiness to give and to relinquish. The former is the specific antidote for envy, the latter the antidote for avarice. What is common to both is a lifting of the sense of identity from its narrow fixation on the self, and a broadening of it to encompass others who share our desire to be happy and free from suffering.
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 +As private individuals we cannot hope to resolve by our will the larger patterns of conflict that engulf the societies and nations to which we belong. We live in a world that thrives on conflict, and in which the forces that nurture conflict are pervasive; obstinate and terribly powerful. But as followers of the Enlightened One what we can do and must do is to testify by our conduct to the supremacy of peace: to avoid words and actions that engender animosity, to heal divisions, to demonstrate the value of harmony and concord. The model we must emulate is that provided by the Master in his description of the true disciple: "He is one who unites the divided, who promotes friendships, enjoys concord, rejoices in concord, delights in concord, and who speaks words that promote concord."
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 +<span #h_content_end></span>
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 +<div #f_footer>
 +
 +<div showmore>
 +<div #f_colophon>
 +<div #f_publisherColophon>**Publisher's note**
 +
 +The [[http://www.bps.lk|Buddhist Publication Society]] is an approved charity dedicated to making known the Teaching of the Buddha, which has a vital message for people of all creeds.
 +
 +Founded in 1958, the BPS has published a wide variety of books and booklets covering a great range of topics. Its publications include accurate annotated translations of the Buddha's discourses, standard reference works, as well as original contemporary expositions of Buddhist thought and practice. These works present Buddhism as it truly is — a dynamic force which has influenced receptive minds for the past 2500 years and is still as relevant today as it was when it first arose.
 +
 +Buddhist Publication Society\\
 +P.O. Box 61\\
 +54, Sangharaja Mawatha\\
 +Kandy, Sri Lanka
 +</div>
 +
 +<div #f_newcopyrightsymbol>[[#top| ]]</div>
 +<div #f_provenance>**Provenance:**
 +<div #f_sourceCopy>The source of this work is the gift within Access to Insight "Offline Edition 2012.09.10.14", last replication 12. March 2013, generously given by John Bullitt and mentioned as: ©1989 Buddhist Publication Society.</div>
 +
 +<div #f_sourceCopy_translation></div>
 +
 +<div #f_sourceEdition></div>
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 +<div #f_sourceTitle>BPS Newsletter cover essay no. 13 (Summer-Fall 1989).</div>
 +
 +<div #f_atiCopy>This Zugang zur Einsicht edition is [[en:dhamma-dana|{{en:img:d2.png?14}}]]2013 (ATI 1998-2013).</div>
 +
 +<div f_zzecopy>Translations, rebublishing, editing and additions are in the sphere of responsibility of //Zugang zur Einsicht//.</div>
 +
 +</div>
 +
 +<div #f_termsofuse>**Scope of this Dhamma-Gift:** You are invited to not only use this Dhamma-Gift here for yourself but also to share it, and your merits with it, again as a Dhamma gift and to copy, reformat, reprint, republish and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: (1) you only make such copies, etc. available //free of charge// and, in the case of reprinting, only in quantities of no more than 50 copies; (2) you clearly indicate that any derivatives of this work (including translations) are derived from this source document; and (3) you include the full text of this "Scope of this Dhamma-Gift" in any copies or derivatives of this work. Anything beyond this is not given here. For additional information about this license, see the [[en:faq#copyright|FAQ]].</div>
 +
 +<div #f_citation>**How to cite this document** (one suggested style): "The Problem of Conflict", by  Bhikkhu Bodhi. //Access to Insight//, 17 June 2010, [[http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_13.html|http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_13.html]] . Retrieved on 10 September 2012 (Offline Edition 2012.09.10.14), republished by //Zugang zur Einsicht// on  
 +[[http://www.zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_13_en.html|http://www.zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_13_en.html]] retreived on:
 +"date"</div>
 +
 +<div #f_alt-formats>****</div>
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 +</div>
 +</div>
 +
 +----
 +
 +<div #f_toenail>[[en:help|Help]] | [[en:faq#whatis|About]] | [[en:faq#contact|Contact]] | [[en:dhamma-dana|Scope of the Dhamma gift]] | [[en:cowork|Collaboration]]\\ Anumodana puñña kusala!</div>