The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

Warm greetings from IMC.

And from this Monday morning we began a new five-part theme.

And the topic of this week will be quarrels.

What the Buddha had to say about quarrels and disputes.

And the overall kind of context for teaching this is that since the beginning of the year,

I've been somewhat emphasizing or focusing on the teachings having the practice of challenges.

What do we do with the challenges in our lives?

And how do we be with them and practice with them?

And one of the big challenges is the conflicts we have with other people and others in the world,

quarrels, disputes, hostilities that exist.

And so that's the topic for this week.

And maybe it's somewhat topical that as world events take more center stage,

it seems that there's no shortage of growing divisiveness, growing quarrels, disputes that people are living with,

and are worried about.

So taking maybe a Buddhist perspective, maybe a different perspective, and usual on this, you'll find valuable.

And so the Buddha addressed quarrels and disputes quite a bit.

It seems that just in our world, just like in our world, that was a common phenomenon in the ancient world.

The ones that sometimes came closest to him in terms of his context was the fact that the religious communities of his time,

the different spiritual seekers and practitioners and teachers, that they, it was an active environment of debates,

and people would actively debate in order to conquer their opponent to defeat them.

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