It is one of the bitterest ironies of human life that although almost all human beings cherish a desire to live in peace, we continually find ourselves caught 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. Quarrels and disputes, in contrast, are always intrinsically painful. They lead to a hardening of our subjective armor; they tighten the knots of anger and hate; they erupt in violence and destruction. Indeed, whatever the outcome of conflict may be — whether victory or defeat — the result itself is ultimately harmful for both victor and victim alike.
Nevertheless, although harmonious living promises such rich blessings while conflict entails so much harm and misery, our lives — and the lives of those around us — are usually entangled in a raveled net of conflicts and disputes. Conflict may simmer within as silent suspicion and resentment or it may explode into violent rage and devastation. It may involve 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 or as noble ideals which we admire from a distance. But when reality knocks and dreams are dispelled, we find ourselves drawn, often against our better judgment, into an arena where the pleasures that we seek exact as their price the hard cash of struggle and contention.
While the Buddha made liberation from suffering the ultimate goal of his teaching, he also sought to teach people how to live in harmony. 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 remove the roots of conflict buried deep within our hearts.
Once, in
ancient
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.
Since conflict is 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, selfless nature of all things; for it is this insight which exposes the hollowness of the notions of “I" and “mine" that underlie envy and avarice. However, although we may now be far from realizing the final liberation from clinging, 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 that they lift the sense of identity up from its narrow fixation on the self, and expand it so that it encompasses others who share our desire to be happy and free from suffering.
As private individuals we cannot hope to resolve by our private 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 Buddha what we can do and must do is to testify by our attitudes and conduct to the supremacy of peace. We must avoid words and actions that engender animosity; we must always act in ways that will help to heal divisions and demonstrate the value of harmony and concord. The model we must emulate is that provided by the Buddha’s description of the true disciple as “one who unites the divided, who promotes friendships, enjoys concord, rejoices in concord, delights in concord, and who speaks words that promote concord."
(Adapted from the
Buddhist Publication Society Newsletter No. 13, 1989)
