I begin with a story about a young American student of self defence – Aikido, living in Japan. His name was Terry Dobson and one day he was on the crowded Japanese train going home. He tells of the event in his own words.

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The train clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. The car was comparatively empty—a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows. At one station the doors opened, and suddenly the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into our car. He wore laborer's clothing, and he was big, drunk, and dirty. Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that she was unharmed. Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. The laborer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood up.

I was young then, some 20 years ago, and in pretty good shape. I'd been putting in a solid eight hours of aikido training nearly every day for the past three years. I like to throw and grapple. I thought I was tough. Trouble was, my martial skill was untested in actual combat. As students of aikido, we were not allowed to fight. "Aikido," my teacher had said again and again, "is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it." I listened to his words. I tried hard. I even went so far as to cross the street to avoid the pinball punks who lounged around the train stations. My forbearance exalted me. I felt both tough and holy. In my heart, however, I wanted an absolutely legitimate opportunity whereby I might save the innocent by destroying the guilty.

This is it! I thought to myself, getting to my feet. People are in danger and if I don't do something fast, they will probably get hurt. Seeing me stand up, the drunk recognized a chance to focus his rage. "Aha!" He roared. "A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!" I held on lightly to the commuter strap overhead and gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I planned to take this turkey apart, but he had to make the first move. I wanted him mad, so I pursed my lips and blew him an insolent kiss. “All right!" he hollered. "You're gonna get a lesson." He gathered himself for a rush at me. A split second before he could move, someone shouted, "Hey!" It was earsplitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it-as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something, and he suddenly stumbled upon it.

" Hey!" I wheeled to my left; the drunk spun to his right. We both stared down at a little old Japanese man. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me, but beamed delightedly at the laborer, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share. C'mere," the old man said in an easy vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. "Come here and talk with me." He waved his hand lightly. The big man followed, as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and roared above the clacking wheels. "Why the hell should I talk to you?" The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbow moved so much as a millimeter, I'd drop him in his socks.

The old man continued to beam at the laborer. "What'cha been drinkin'?" he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest. "I been drinkin' sake," the laborer bellowed back, "and it's none of your business!" Flecks of spittle spattered the old man. "Ok, that's wonderful," the old man said, "absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night, me and my wife (she's 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree had done better than I expected, though especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It's gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening—even when it rains!" He looked up at the laborer, eyes twinkling.

As he struggled to follow the old man's conversation, the drunk's face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. "Yeah," he said. "I love persimmons too” His voice trailed off. "Yes," said the old man, smiling, “And I'm sure you have a wonderful wife." "No," replied the laborer. "My wife died." Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. "I don't got no wife, I don't got no home, I don't got no job. I'm so ashamed of myself." Tears rolled down his cheeks; a spasm of despair rippled through his body.

Now it was my turn. Standing there in well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-thisworld- safe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier than he was. Then the train arrived at my stop. As the doors opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. "My, my," he said, "this is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it." I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man's lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy, matted hair. As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench. What I had wanted to do with muscle had been accomplished with kind words. I had just seen aikido tried in combat, and the essence of it was love. I would have to practice the art with an entirely different spirit. It would be a long time before I could speak about the resolution of conflict.

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I want to speak today about life’s conflicts as many people come to me with the belief that in spiritual life there should be no judgment, no negation or conflict and that all the time you must be kind and loving, full of compassion and mercy. You think this is true? Do you imagine it is possible to have no anger and no conflict; and that a spiritual person only feels love all the time and never fights with anyone?

Jesus got angry you know. All the great spiritual teachers had conflicts. Jesus was supposedly loving and kind, but in the end he was betrayed and murdered. Buddha had conflict in his life. One of his own disciples wanted to kill him and also he had to deal with feudal (kingdom) disputes. Once, when his own tribe was going to fight with another tribe, Buddha mediated by sitting between them until they made peace. However, the warring tribe later returned and Buddha had no influence on them no matter what he said. Many people were killed and his whole tribe was destroyed. So, don’t think there is a life without conflict. Yes, all the great spiritual teachers had conflict in their lives. Human beings cannot escape conflict. We are living in conflict. Living with conflict, struggle, quarrels and so on. Remember, even if you are a spiritual person, kind and compassionate, you cannot escape conflict. Some individuals expect that if you love everyone and are kind and merciful you will not have conflict. This is a delusion. Some people think that by loving everybody they can transform them but Buddha couldn’t do it, Jesus couldn’t do it and I don’t think you can do it either. You see, conflict is part of human life and always there will be some conflict.

Many think they can use meditation and spirituality as a means of escaping. It feels nice; no more conflict, just ‘be here’, but very often they just don’t want to face life and they try to get away from it into quiet and feelings of peace. This is not the way. You have to get into life, face these things, and live the life. How to do it? Needless to say, there are many ways and many conflict/resolution programmes like Non Violent Communication (N.V.C.) Reading will help, studying will help and learning for yourself how to deal with conflict. You can’t escape conflict but sadly there is too much hatred, violence and pointless destruction in the world. Far too much. Still, you must learn to deal with it. For example, this story about Terry Dobson, yes, if a man comes to attack you and you are skilled in aikido, you can put him in his place; this is one way, but you don’t convert the person. The other way, by loving, listening and respecting, it is possible to transform the person. Can you do this? Jesus said ‘love your enemies’. Can you do this?

The first basic realisation is that the other is part of you. You cannot escape. We are all together in this. Remember that and learn to forgive. Learn to love. Otherwise it is hard to live humanly. All the time hatred and destruction; we cannot live that way. These things I need not tell you, you know all these things; I want to talk to you about other things. Remember that our Life is saying ‘YES’. With Yes though, there is always ‘No’. Without the no, you cannot say yes. You must be able to say no. Without no, your yes is useless and powerless. You are saying yes, but at the same time be able to say no.

Conflict comes on many levels. Personal conflict you know well; it might be due to ego; your ego and my ego clash. This is a conflict. Or it might be due to principles. Certain principles bring conflict. You fight for principles and values and so on. Then there are conflicts due to our hatred and greed and all these types of things. You see, conflict is not one thing. Conflicts arise on many, many levels, so don’t think there is only one level. Each has to be dealt with differently. All conflicts cannot be dealt with in the same way; each is different.

It is important to remember that in yourself there is a lot of ambiguity and conflict; you are not yet clear about your own self. Our own anger, needs and violence; we have a lot of violence in us, don’t forget that. We carry violence in us; we cannot completely get rid of it. Violence is simply anger and fear. For example, there is anger and fear against death, against suffering, against others too and we have to learn to deal with that. Secondly, we also carry a lot of ambivalence that keeps us unclear. We are not clear about where we stand and where we go. First of all, we have to know that, and learn to accept our own ambiguities. Sometimes, we want everything to be clear but that cannot be. Sometimes, yes, you can ask for clarity but not always. Sometimes you have to learn to live in ambiguity and carry on; it is not always possible to be clear. Certain relationships, love, yourself and where you stand, these cannot always be clear. Understand I am speaking of generalities, but remember all these things. Secondly, also remember, there are your own values to consider; what are you standing for? This is very important. For, when you stand for something you need to say no to what is against it. A simple example; there is someone you love; you are going to say no to whatever may harm that person. Same when you have respect for yourself, you say no to those who try to disrespect you. If you are standing for certain values, then, stand for them. From that position you must say no to many things.

I remember, some years ago there a girl studying nursing with the Sisters at a school in Dindigul. She was a poor girl and failed in her first year. Her parents came to speak to me. “Please Father” they said; “we are in a bad situation being so poor. If our daughter works as a nurse she will be able to support us. Could you please speak with the Sisters and ask them to pass her.” I was a little stupid and went and asked the Sister in charge to please reconsider the result as it would be of such help to the family if the girl passed. She told me how the doctors and nurses make so many mistakes in the hospitals; that nurses often do not understand the doctor’s instructions or are unable to read the prescriptions then give patients the wrong medicines or injections sometimes with fatal results. She asked me if I wanted to be responsible for this girl making a mistake and perhaps killing a patient. You see, when you stand for something you must be able to say no. Because I am kind, this is no reason for a girl to poison someone. You can’t say yes, just to be kind. There are values you have to stand for. For your values sometimes it may even be necessary to die in order to protect them.

Foremost you must come out of ‘your’ way and learn to respect the other. This is really important. Nowadays, in philosophy they talk about ‘The Other’; respecting the other and understanding the otherness of the other. Usually, what we want is to turn everyone into someone like us. They should be in harmony with us, must like us, love us and be the same as us. Christians want everyone to be Christian, Muslims would like everyone to be Muslim and some just want everyone to like them. We want everyone to be like us! That is simply not respecting the other. You have to respect the otherness of the other. You know how it is, you can see it with your own friends or children, that of course you want what’s good for them. You think you know what is good so you want them to think like you, to be like you.

You want to convert them into being like you. This though, may not be good for them. You have to respect the otherness of the other. Allow the other to be other. This is the most difficult part, to allow the other to be other; other to you and your ideas, expectations and so on. This is very difficult for all of us; to let the other be other. You must give them space. Respect the other; allow them to be the other, giving space for them to be the other. Of course, importantly, the other must also respect you. The typical way of humankind has been to destroy the foreigner, the stranger, the other. This is our world history. ‘OTHERS’ – Destroy them! Remove them! There should be only our tribe, our family, our likes, our religion; our nation... all should be like us! This is human beings, frightened of the other so wanting always to destroy the other. We must allow the other to be the other; let them be. However, then another difficulty arises. The others demands. There is not enough space and not enough property. Then we are caught, this is the problem. How to share things and how to live together? If we destroy them then we can have everything. This immediately makes more trouble. All these things are problems. Basically, as some sociologists now recognise, it is envy that is the central point. ENVY. What does envy mean? I said before that otherness we find hard to tolerate, but when we are the same, this also we find hard to tolerate. Why? Because people can then get better than you! You see the point? The other will imitate you and may get superior to you. This you cannot tolerate so again you want to destroy and remove the other. Can you not allow the other to flourish, to be joyous, to be better than you, to be as they are? In spirituality we must become aware of all these things and not always trying to be better than the other. Don’t try to be always perfect, always good; no.

We must learn to accept our own imperfections; as I said at the start; learn to be with our own ambiguity. Meditation should help you to accept your own negative emotions; anger, fear, hatred, jealousy; by being with all of them. In one sense you know, Buddhism will say that they all have a positive side, so accept them all, be with them all. Then, when you go out; go out! Go out in a way that will be positive and good, but first accept and give space for yourself to be that. If you want always to be good, you will become evil. It is often the good people with good intentions who bring about evil in trying to impose their brand of goodness.

There are a couple of more points I want to give you; one is that in Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture) The Pandavas and Kauravas are in fact related; they are brothers. Actually, even now, problems come when people are close; brothers, sisters, families and friends easily become enemies. When you are close there is friction. These two brothers though are fighting each other in war for their kingdom. Briefly, the story centres around Arjuna; the warrior. Finally with Krishna (the Hindu god) driving his chariot, Arjuna comes to face all his relatives in battle and has to kill them. He feels he cannot do that, it is pointless killing all these people in the war for a kingdom. He drops his bow and arrow and says to Krishna that he cannot kill them. Krishna tries talking and finally Krishna reveals his cosmic nature and divinity.

Arjuna looks into it and finds it is too much for him. He pleads to Krishna to return as an ordinary human and Krishna comes back. On one side, it is Arjuna’s duty to kill and to protect his brother’s family and kingdom, but in killing he must destroy all his families’ relatives. He has a choice, what should he do? On the other side, Krishna’s revelation is that everything is preordained. Already providence has declared what Krishna will do and that it seems as if all will be done that way. So, what to do? He is caught in that. It is said; nishkama karma: ‘do’ without expecting gain or fruits; do your duty. But this is not the point. Here there is simply ambiguity. He does not know exactly how he must act, but he acts. And in this act he must somehow do his duty. Non violence is also a duty; he could leave and go away. He is faced with war and he goes to war. Remember these sorts of ambiguities in life and that you cannot escape them. You cannot simply say “I will avoid that”. Then you are choosing not to face life and that is another choice: avoiding life. As soon as you begin acting in life you will somewhere be forced into saying yes or no to something. You cannot avoid it. There is no escape.

In Austria there was a Catholic, Jägerstätter, and during the Nazi regime everyone was dragged into the war. He read the tradition and teachings of his Church and saw that the war Hitler was making was not just. Jägerstätter was a family man with children yet he did not feel he should participate in an unjust war. He went to his parish priest, but like most in the Church at the time the priest said; “don’t be foolish, all the bishops agree with this war, we are doing nothing wrong. You have a family; don’t endanger them by standing by your principles. Go to war.” Still he felt it was not right and that he should not go. He went to the Bishop who also told him not to be stupid, to consider his family and that there was nothing wrong about the war. His conscience though would not allow him to fight and in the end he was killed for it. The Church would not accept he was a good and holy man and only now that the Pope has called Jägerstätter a holy man is the Austrian church slowly coming round. It is not easy to accept that one has made a mistake or has been wrong. When you ignore the ethical sense and its imperatives, you slide easily into immorality and evil, as you can see what happened in Nazi times. Most of the Nazis were ordinary people, family men, kind, loving and caring at home. There is the notorious phrase of Arendt on ‘the banality of evil’.

The famous Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi remarks, "Monsters do exist, but they are too few to pose a real threat. It is completely ordinary people who are actually more dangerous.”

A few years ago I read a report about a British girl and her boyfriend. The boyfriend made humiliating demands of her and she refused him. He threatened her saying he would kill her if she didn’t do what he wanted. Ok she said; kill me, my life is worthless if I go below my values. He did kill her. She had said no, what you want is not for me. The point is that she was willing to die rather than do something below her dignity. Sometimes you must stand for certain principles and values, either for yourself or for others. There are many things and times when you must sacrifice yourself. Perhaps for a cause or for a person. Yes, you are willing to die and not to kill the other. You must be willing to die like that. Not simply to throw your life away; it needs to be in order to protect something or someone you care about. Particularly, standing for certain principles is important. The difficulty though, is that we are too much egocentric and this can cause the whole problem. We don’t want to negotiate, don’t want to understand. If there are strict principles or values we can stand for, then we can be willing to die for them. Most often matters will not be clear-cut; life is messy, ambiguous, with light and darkness mixed. Very often evil comes, not because of this but mainly because we want to assert ourselves. I will not take this! Then it is simply ego assertion.

I will not give in. I will not go away. You must come down. That is what we are saying. You must come down or I will destroy you. That is the whole problem. It makes us evil and brings about evil in the world.

So remember some of these things, especially that you cannot avoid conflict but must know how to deal with it. Try to learn to respect the other, to listen to the other, to care for the other and to understand the other. The other is other and at the same time not other. Learn to give in, and that giving in does not mean giving up your values and principles. Your values must be there; you must stand for certain things and be able to say no to certain things. If you can’t say no, then your yes is useless. Your yes is not yes and you are simply a coward. You are afraid of your own life, of your things and frequently afraid of being hurt.

Buddhism may teach ‘don’t get angry’, however anger is important. Anger is very good. The only thing is if you lose yourself in that anger then you have lost your freedom. You must learn how to be angry in life otherwise you are useless. You must though express your anger in a good way otherwise you will get lost in it. If a value or justice is harmed, or your own beloved is hurt; then you must get angry, only don’t get lost in mad anger. Show anger, express anger, stand up! But there is an anger which is narcissistic rage, and this is destructive.

There is a nice story from Rama Krishna about a poisonous snake in a village and people were afraid to walk the paths. One day a sannyasi was passing through the village and the boys approached him. “Guruji” they said, “can you please help us, this snake has killed people and we are all very afraid”. He agreed to help and being well versed in mantras he put a spell on the snake saying; ‘hereafter you will not kill anyone, this mantra will bind you’. Thus, he made the snake harmless and went on his way. The boys saw the snake was no longer dangerous and began throwing stones at it as a game. The snake was powerless and got injured. Some days later the sannyasi returned on his way back and happened to see the snake. The snake was almost dead. “What happened to you?” he asked. “Guruji” replied the snake; “you bound me with that mantra so that I could not kill; this is the result” “Why?” said the sannyasi “I merely made your bite unable to kill; you did not need to stop hissing and scaring the people!”

You see the point? Learn to hiss! Show yourself and that you are angry. That is the point. You must be able to express your anger; show you are prepared to fight. BUT... don’t get mad or you will lose yourself and destroy everything. There is the difference. The main point for us to realise and remember is that conflict cannot be avoided but what makes it a problem is that our ego is hurt. When our ego is hurt we get mad. I think you know that! Straight anger is good; but it turns to madness when your ego is hurt. All of us are affected, only some are more sensitive than others. Some people will never get angry, no matter what you say or do to them; they are ‘cool’. For most of us though, when the ego is hurt we flare up. We need to learn how to bear our pain and secondly understand that for all of us and especially people that have greater insecurities or are prone to paranoia, the major problem is fantasies. People agonize about what they imagine others are saying of them. There is a book by Paul Watzlawick with the good title: ‘The Art of Becoming Unhappy’. It is a humorous account of how to make yourself unhappy and tells many stories about the mind’s imagination and fantasies.

In one story; a man wants to borrow a hammer from his neighbour. While walking to his neighbour’s house he remembers that some days before the man had ignored him in the street. Ah, he thought, I bet he hates me; he always acts so superior. I bet he won’t even lend me his hammer, probably he thinks I will steal it. By the time he reached the front door he felt quite indignant, so much so that when the door was opened, he shouted at his neighbour “you stupid man, keep your stupid hammer, I don’t need it!”

You see, this is our paranoid way of behaviour, getting lost in fantasy and allowing the imagination to take over. That is why we need calm situations in which to talk to people, to share with people and to listen to what they are saying. Talking though cannot alone solve everything. It may not help with severe differences; dialoguing itself cannot always solve conflict. There are counsellors like Rosenberg and others who believe that dialoguing will solve any issue; but they are naive; it cannot finally solve everything. So, what can we do? We can tolerate. We can say I accept, you accept; let us disagree. Let us keep peace; don’t destroy me, I won’t destroy you. Or, bring a third party in to mediate and listen. If you don’t listen, what can you do? Take care though; some people are able to sound so kind, dialoguing and acting caring when all the time their intension is to destroy you. This is not a fantasy. These things happen and that is why people become paranoid. Jesus spoke: “Be innocent like the doves and cunning like the serpents.” We must be aware; people can be evil and want to destroy everything. It is both; we must go in trust and goodness while at the same time having certain cautions as things can go the wrong way. Don’t be too naive, some get carried away by their own ideas. Never imagine you are the kindest most compassionate person. This is the ego trip. If you feel you are a kind, compassionate, loving and forgiving person; forget it! It is the same ego trip. Learn to tolerate yourself being sometimes mean and ugly! We are not pure angels. Don’t imagine you are such a kind person that you say you will always forgive, always accept and always be compassionate. Don’t talk like that; it is just ego. Yes, be kind and be forgiving; you are human, accept your humanness. In the life, trust is important. Trust must be a basic in your life but remember that people can be also evil; don’t forget that. Of course, there is goodness, Buddha Nature is in everybody but people can be ambivalent. They can destroy everything. You can see around the world what is happening. These major problems cannot be solved just by talking. What to do? That is the real problem. The same is true of relationships.

I have a book which has stories about medieval India and a group of dacoits called ‘Thugs’. They were murderous robbers that ‘worked’ religiously in that they would not kill anyone by using a knife. To kill, they would put a towel around their victim’s neck and strangle them. In one story, a family group including three young girls were travelling and were joined by some of these rogues. They developed a friendship; were kind and helpful. The girls particularly liked them. They were stopped by police at a check post as it was known the robbers were in the area. The police wanted to check the men’s luggage, but the girls held on to the packages and said they were their own. The family assured the police that they were all travelling together; the men were known to them and were good friends. The police were satisfied and let them pass on. They had not gone much further when the robbers took out their towels and strangled the three girls and their family. It was easy for them as they all trusted them.

Goodness and evil are mixed together in this life, and not just outside. It is in you. How do you live with this? How do we carry on? By trying not to get caught by your own ego hurts. Some people can be negative; really totally negative. Perhaps you know the story about Iago in the Macbeth tragedy of Shakespeare; he was so happy at destroying, it is like he is pure evil. People can be like that. Be aware of evil.

It is essential to be kind to yourself and not to condemn yourself. Learn to hold lightly in meditation your pain and problems and weaknesses. Learn to accept them, and to befriend them. Don’t run away from all these things; they are part of us. Don’t forget the darker side is a part of us too. The two sides; saying yes, saying no. They are two sides of the same thing.

Saying yes is primary otherwise you cannot say no.
One is worthless without the other.
Remember that.

Teisho January sesshin 2009