I always think that I am right. So do you! Even when I look back and see that I have made a mistake, I think that I am right in seeing that it was a mistake. At the time of the thought, we all think that we are right.
I came across this insight during a meditation retreat many years ago. Later I found that the great Greek philosopher Socrates had also stated the same truth:
In the moment, we all think that we are right.
To me this explained the inevitability of conflict. Whatever you think, you will always find someone, usually many people, who disagree with you. If you do not agree with this, then it proves my point!
It also revealed why it is often impossible, and thus a waste of time, to try to solve a conflict by trying to persuade your opponent to agree with you. Coercion, which usually occurs when civilised argument doesn’t work, only generates more problems. The obvious truth is that no truth is obvious. We are doomed to disagree.
Example of controversy
There is an old Buddhist story that I here adapt to modern times:
Two Mahatheras were arguing over the legitimacy of Bhikkhunî ordination in the twenty-first century. The first monk said that it was uncertain whether the Bhikkhunî lineage that exists today in Taiwan and Korea is appropriate to supply the required number of 5 Bhikkhunîs for the female ordination in Theravada and, because of that uncertainty, the revival of the Bhikkhunî lineage in Theravada was impossible.
The second monk argued that there will always be some degree of uncertainty in such matters but, out of compassion for worthy female aspirants together with a laudable wish to promote the timeless Dharma in our modern world, one should give the benefit of the doubt to the compatibility of the Chinese Bhikkhunî lineage with Theravada. Then we can revive the lineage in Theravada. They both thought that they were right.
So, the first monk went to see the wise old monk and presented his side of the argument. The old monk listened carefully and nodded in agreement. “You are right,” he said.
The second monk couldn’t believe that the wise old monk had sided with his opponent. So he went to see the wise old monk himself and presented his side of the argument. The wise old monk listened attentively and nodded in agreement. “You are right,” he said.
When the first monk heard that the wise old monk had now agreed with the second monk, he just could not accept it. So they decided to go to see the wise old monk together. “You said I was right,” omplained the first monk. “Then you said that I was right,” complained the second monk. Then they complained together, “That can’t be right!”
The old monk scratched his bald head and nodded in agreement. “You are right,” he told them!
Reconciliation will never be possible when even one of the adversaries believes that they are right and the others are wrong. As my teacher Ajahn Chah often said, when there was a disagreement “One side is right but not correct. The other side is correct but not right!”
Why controversies between friends
are the hottest
It is much easier to get on with those who are very different from you, but almost impossible to live in perfect peace with those who are closest to you. The worst controversies occur between those who are almost the same as you.
A businessman was walking home across a bridge in Colombo and saw a young man standing on the edge about to jump off and kill himself.
“Don’t do it!” he screamed.
“Don’t try and stop me” the man on the edge replied.
“You sound American, just like me,” said the businessman.
“Yes, what a coincidence,” said the young man.
“I am a Christian. What are you?”
“Wow! I am a Christian too,” replied the young man becoming more friendly.
“Are you Presbyterian, Catholic, Methodist or Baptist?”
“I’m a Baptist, what about you?”
“I am a Baptist too! What a happy coincidence. Are you Southern or Northern Baptist?”
“Southern Baptist”
“Same as me! We are brothers” and the two new friends hugged.
“Are you 1928 Reform Southern Baptist?” asked the businessman.
“No, I belong to the orthodox Southern Baptists,” said the young man smiling.
“Die! You heretic!” screamed the businessman as he pushed the young man off the bridge.
It is much easier to reconcile with people who are very different from us. Why? Because they occupy different territory and are thus easier to ignore. But when your adversary is in the same Parliament, or in the same sect of the same religion, or in the same house – then there will be a fight over the same limited area.
The solution
Controversies will never cease by trying to convince others to agree with you, nor by pushing all the heretics off the bridge. Violence is not the Buddhist way. A Buddhist way of reconciliation involves the threefold strategy of:
- Restraint
- Forgiveness
- Re-ordering your priorities
Restraint
The secret to a harmonious marriage:
When you are wrong, admit it.
When you are right, shut up!
Controversies just get worse when we argue, or when we try to punish those who disagree with us. If you want reconciliation, then you must do nothing to make the matter worse. Wounds heal with time, but not when you keep scratching them.
Part of restraint is avoiding apportioning blame. Ajahn Chah used to tell me that blaming someone else is like having an itch on your bottom and then scratching your head! You just make more “itches”. Conflict is no-one’s fault. It is part of nature. When you demand that your adversary apologise first, you are taking no responsibility yourself for solving the conflict.
Instead, a Buddhist generates Metta to those who have hurt them. You open the door of your heart. Whatever they have done to you, you will not hurt them back.
They drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic! Rebel! A thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took them in
Edwin Markham
Forgiveness
Revenge is not Justice. Buddhists should let the Law of Karma settle the matter of justice. If your adversary has harmed you, then Karma will even things out for you. When you no longer have the need to take righteous revenge, you are free to forgive and move on.
Someone calls you a fool.
You think “What right have they to call me a fool!”
You consider “It is rude of them to call me a fool!”
You ponder “Who do they think they are to call me a fool!”
Then you realise that every time you remember what they said, they are calling you a fool again.
But when you let go of what they said, they can only call you a fool once.
In a conflict, many people have been badly hurt. Every time you remember it, you allow yourself to be hurt once more.
By forgiving, we are letting go of the heavy baggage of the past that so cripples our future. By realising that the past is none of our business (it is the business of Karma), then we can dedicate all our considerable energies into building a good future for ourselves and our children.
The cancers of blame, anger and revenge, no longer eat us up from within. We are free to make a positive contribution to life.How do you forgive? The first step is to realise that it is in your own interest to forgive, as I have just explained. Next, that it also benefits everyone else. Ask yourself what is the most important, settling old scores from the past, or building peace and happiness in the present?
Re-ordering priorities
The Lord Buddha famously averted a war by convincing two armies, about to fight a war over water rights, that blood was more valuable than water. So what is more important, taking revenge or being at peace? What is more valuable, proving that you are right, or reconciling? What takes priority, your own ego or the wellbeing of others?
When adversaries understand that reconciliation, and the resulting peace, harmony and prosperity, are more valuable than revenge or being right, then they can let go of the past and be friends once again. When you make a list of what is most important to you in life, when you reorder your priorities with wisdom, then taking revenge or proving that you were right should come way down the bottom. At the top would be things like peace, love, selflessness and prosperity.
Modern Buddhist example of reconciliation
In the mid to late 1970s I had personal experience of how a national government found a Buddhist way of reconciliation during a major crisis, one that threatened the very existence of their democracy.
In 1975, within the space of a few days, South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia fell to the Communists. The ‘Domino Theory’ current at that time, predicted Thailand would soon fall next. I was a young monk in Northeast Thailand during that period. The monastery in which I mostly lived was twice as close to Hanoi as it was to Bangkok. We were told to register with our embassies and evacuation plans were prepared. Most Western governments were to be surprised that Thailand didn’t fall.
Ajahn Chah was quite famous by then and many top Thai generals and senior members of the national government would travel to his monastery for advice and inspiration. I had become fluent in Thai, and some Lao, and so gained an insider’s understanding of the seriousness of the situation. The military and the government were not so concerned with the Red armies outside of their borders as they were with the Communist activists and sympathizers within their own nation.
Many brilliant Thai university students had fled to the jungles in Northeast Thailand to support an internal, Thai, Communist guerrilla force. Their weaponry was supplied from beyond Thailand’s borders as was their training. But the villages in the ‘pink’ parts of the region gladly supplied their food and other requirements. They had local support. They were on ominous threat.
The Thai military and government found the solution in the three-part Buddhist strategy for reconciliation.
Restraint
The military did not attack the Communist bases, though every soldier knew where they were. When I was living the life of a wandering monk in 1979/80, seeking out the mountains and jungles to meditate in solitude, I would run into the army patrols and they would give me advice. They would point to one mountain and tell me not to go there, that was where the Communists were. Then they would point to another mountain and tell me that was a good place to meditate, there were no Communists there. I had to heed their advice. That year the Communists had caught some wandering monks meditating in the jungle and killed them. After torturing them, I was told.
Forgiveness
Throughout this dangerous period, there was an unconditional amnesty in place. Whenever one of the Communist insurgents wanted to abandon his cause, he could simply give up his weapon and return to his village or university. He would probably experience surveillance, but no punishments were imposed. I reached one village in Kow Wong district a few months after the Communists had ambushed and killed a large jeep full of Thai soldiers outside of their village. The young men of the village were mostly sympathetic with the Communist soldiers, but not actively fighting. They told me they were threatened and harassed, but allowed to go free.
Re-ordering priorities
During these years, I saw new roads being built and old roads being paved in the region. Villagers could now take their produce to town to sell. The King of Thailand in particular personally supervised, and paid for, the construction of many hundreds of small reservoirs with connected irrigation schemes, allowing the poor farmers of the Northeast to grow a second crop of rice each year. Electricity reached the remotest of hamlets and with it came a school and a clinic. The poorest region in Thailand was being cared for by the government in Bangkok, and the villagers were becoming relatively prosperous.
A Thai government soldier on patrol in the jungle told me once:
“We don’t need to shoot the Communists. They are fellow Thais. When I meet them coming down from the mountains or going to village for supplies, and we all know who they are, I just show them my new wrist watch, or let them listen to a Thai song on my new radio – then they give up being a Communist”.
That was his experience, and that of his fellow soldiers.
The Thai Communists began their insurgency so angry with their government that they were ready to give their young lives. But restraint on the part of the government helped to prevent their anger being made worse. Forgiveness, through an amnesty, gave them a safe and honourable way out. Re-ordering the priorities, by fast-tracking rural development, made the poor villagers prosperous. The villagers saw no need to support the Communists any more: they were content with the government they already had. And the Communists themselves began to doubt what they were doing, living with such hardships in the jungle-covered mountains.
One by one they gave up their guns and returned to their family, their village or university. By the early 1980s, there were hardly any insurgents left, so then the generals of the jungle army, the leaders of the Communists, also gave themselves up. What happened to those leaders of the insurgency? Could the same unconditional offer of amnesty be applied to them? Not quite.
They were not punished, nor exiled. Instead, they were offered important positions of responsibility in the Thai government service, in recognition of their leadership qualities, capacity for hard work, and concern for their people! What a brilliant gesture. Why waste the resource of such courageous and committed young men?
This is a true story as I heard it from the soldiers and villagers of Northeast Thailand at the time. It is what I saw with my own eyes. Sadly, it has hardly been reported elsewhere.
In 2003, two of those former Communist leaders were serving their country as ministers in the Thai National Government.
Conclusion
Conflicts of all levels create so much suffering in our world. We have to reconcile. The alternative is too horrible. Buddhist teachings have many wise strategies to bring about reconciliation. I have only mentioned a few here. I have also demonstrated that these strategies are pragmatic by describing at length how a Buddhist Government stopped an insurgency and reconciled with the rebels. It has been done. It can be done. It must be done. |
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