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

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So hello and welcome to the second talk on the Buddhist teachings related to quarrels, quarrels, disputes.

The idea that human beings live in conflict with each other was very well recognized by the Buddha.

Not only do they have a lot to say about it, but it could be understood that the core teachings of the Buddha,

even the whole purpose of becoming enlightened, has to do with creating a world

where people are not driven by unethical behavior.

That the core teachings of the Buddha are ethical, with an ethical goal.

A person who is awakened is defined as someone who will not harm anybody at all, including how in the way in which we have disagreements with people.

Certainly we will have disagreements, but to disagree in an argumentative way with hostility and anger and assertions of power and demeaning other people is not the direction in which the Dharma teaching, Dharma practice, the Buddha taught.

It really wants us to take responsibility for our contribution to suffering in the world.

And certainly that's not enough to diminish the suffering in the world just to look at ourselves, but without that, without a deep look at ourselves and what's going on with us.

We could actually inadvertently continue being models and perpetrators of hostility, of hate, of assertion, of power, of all kinds of ways that are continue, the endless cycles of harm that has existed since the time of the Buddha.

So his teachings on quarrels is the topic for this week, and one of the ways, so the primary strength of the Dharma, the Buddha taught, is the capacity of this practice for us to really take a deep dive in ourselves and understand ourselves.

Not to ignore the world, but I like to think of it as we deep dive inside of ourselves to really see ourselves and free ourselves from the inside out, turn ourselves inside out, and return to the world with a heightened sensitivity and capacity to care, to love, without any hostility, without taking on any stress in that process, without any kind of conceit that gets in the way,

of caring for others and the world.

So in one set of teachings about quarrels, disputes, the Buddha talks about six roots, that six roots of quarreling, and these are the six kind of problematic ways in which, underneath the quarrel,

from which we contribute to the quarrel, to the argument, to the disagreement, in an unhealthy, unbeneficial way.

And so we want to find a way to go under the surface, take a go layer down, and not kind of constantly be involved at the level of the quarrel, and who said what, and what's going on, and what I should do,

which is living a little bit in an objectified world of the problem, but we also want to take time out to really understand what are we contributing, what gasoline are we putting into the fire?

And so one of the purposes of things like meditation is the introspection to drop a layer, at least a layer, into our being, into our psychology, to see what are we contributing in terms of pressure,

in terms of energetics, agitation, stress, onto how we contribute to the quarrel.

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