Buddhist Perspectives on Conflict and Non-Conflict (1 of 2)

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Buddha, Dhamma, Buddhist, Meditation, Religion & Spirituality, Metta, Theravada, Retreat, Dharma, Buddhism, Vipassana, Insight

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2025

⏱️ 114 minutes

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Summary

This talk was given by Andrea Fella on 2025.08.23 at the Sati Center in Redwood City, CA. ******* At the time of the Buddha, someone is said to come to the Buddha and asked “[Why] though beings wish to be free of enmity, violence, hostility, and hate, they still have enmity, violence, hostility, and hate?” (Digha Nikaya 21.2.1) We are still asking that question. Conflict seems to be deeply embedded in being human, and is quite pronounced right now. Practitioners now often ask the same question that was asked of the Buddha, and the teachings that were offered then are quite relevant now. During this two part class, we will explore some of the Buddhist teachings that can help us to understand conflict and how to navigate it more skillfully. The first week we will explore the Buddhist understanding of how conflict arises. The second week we will consider some of the teachings about working with conflict and the path to non-conflict. ******* Video of this talk is available at: https://youtu.be/0C65-9EzdIg. ******* For more talks like this, visit AudioDharma.org ******* If you have enjoyed this talk, please consider supporting AudioDharma with a donation at https://www.audiodharma.org/donate/. ******* This talk is licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone. Nice to see you all.
0:08.0	As Rob said, this class is on the Buddhist perspectives on conflict and non-conflict.
0:13.0	And this is a topic that to me has felt very alive in the last few years. Seems like there's a lot of conflict in our world. And that is
0:24.7	kind of the emphasis that I'm looking at, looking at in this class, is how conflict can be
0:32.7	understood, how conflict between people can be understood from a Buddhist perspective,
0:39.9	how we can see it in our own hearts and minds,
0:43.0	understand how it comes up in relationship,
0:46.5	and also to begin to look at what we can, how we can explore,
0:51.0	maybe, we can explore maybe coming to terms with conflict and also ways to navigate conflict,
1:03.6	perhaps even to resolve conflict, although sometimes that doesn't feel like it's possible.
1:10.3	So navigating conflict perhaps might be the goal, perhaps.
1:16.2	How do we navigate our lives with all of this conflict?
1:20.9	So let's start with a sitting to just settle in together.
1:26.2	And I'll offer a little bit of reflection. One thing I'll
1:30.2	say before we start the sitting, conflict, it's a form of duca. It's a form of stress, of suffering,
1:43.3	and often we think of it as external to us. But we also can see internal conflict. We can see how our minds are fighting with themselves, and we can see how our minds fight with what's happening in the world. And so the exploration of our inner life can also be understood in a way as meeting conflict internally.
2:07.5	And what does it mean to no conflict and non-conflict internally?
2:12.0	And so in the sitting practice, we can explore how are we relating to stresses, how are we relating to reactivity
2:24.5	that comes up as we're sitting?
2:27.0	And the practice of mindfulness, the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, is really about
2:32.0	understanding Dukha.
2:33.8	That's what he said about the the first noble truth
	...

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