nown scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has collected & translated the Buddha’s teachings on conflict resolution, interpersonal & social problem-solving, and the forging of harmonious relationships in the 2016 book “The Buddha’s Teachings on Social & Communal Harmony“ from Wisdom Publications. The Suttas, drawn from the Pali Canon, deal with such topics as quelling of anger, good friendship, intentional communities, settlement of disputes & the establishing of an equitable society. The Buddha’s teachings on community relationships, attitudes, behavior & the practices to make it all work harmoniously come directly out of real life experience & observation within his monastic communities & within lay communities he & his monastic community interacted with.The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, lived, attained enlightenment & taught in India more than 2,500 years ago. However, I believe that
much of what he taught so long ago can be relevant to people’s lives today. The Buddha saw that people can live together freely as individuals, equal in principle & therefore responsible for each other.
He saw that the very purpose of life is to be happy. He talked about suffering in the context of ways to overcome it. He recognized that while ignorance binds beings in endless frustration & suffering, the development of understanding is liberating. The Buddha saw that every member of the human family, man & woman alike, has an equal right to liberty, not just in terms of political or even spiritual freedom, but at a fundamental level of freedom from fear & want. He recognized that each of us is just a human being like everyone else. Not only do we all desire happiness & seek to avoid suffering, but each of us has an equal right to pursue these goals.
Within the monastic community that the Buddha established, individuals were equal, whatever their social class or caste origins. The custom of walking on alms round served to strengthen the monks’ awareness of their dependence on other people. Within the community, decisions were taken by vote & differences were settled by consensus.
The Buddha took a practical approach to creating a happier, more peaceful world. Certainly, he laid out the paths to liberation & enlightenment that Buddhists in many parts of the world continue to follow today, but he also consistently gave advice that anyone may heed 
to live more happily here & now….
We human beings are social animals. Since our future depends on others, we need friends in order to fulfill our own interests. We do not make friends by being quarrelsome, jealous & angry, but by being sincere in our concern for others, protecting their lives & respecting their rights. Making friends & establishing trust are the basis on which society depends. Like other great teachers the Buddha commended tolerance & forgiveness in restoring trust & resolving disputes that arise because of our tendency to see others in terms of ‘us’ & ‘them.’
Joy is wired into our genes, brain circuits & biology. It’s an integral part of our health equation. And in times like these, it matters more than ever.
ve through acknowledging & honoring the goodness in our nature, our healthy humanbeingness. This nurtures our capacity to feel joy, happiness & delight in relationship to another’s happiness, success, health, brilliance & beauty, as well as delight in the magnificence of this planet & all the sentient beings who share it with us.
in this immediate experience of presence, we are free to pour our energies into the activity of life itself… no comparing or competing. We’re free to purely rejoice in/with another being’s delight, success, health, brilliance & beauty.
In the late 1980s, the Thai monk Ajahn Suwat was teaching a ten-day retreat at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) with Ajahn Geoff (Thanissaro) as his translator. Ajahn Suwat had been in America for some time but he hadn’t taught a retreat to Westerners before. After several days, Ajahn Suwat asked Ajahn Geoff, “Why do the students seem so unhappy? They’re meditating. They’re here. But they seem so grim & not at all like they’re enjoying themselves.” After thinking about it, Ajahn Geoff said, “They know how to meditate, but not how to practice dana.” He saw a direct relationship between the lack of happiness & the lack of a foundation in dana.
Ajahn Pasanno
“Compassion lies at the heart of what it means to be fully human. It allows us to be at peace in the midst of pain & turmoil. Compassion is an energetic response rather than a mental idea”
we had integrated the two? What might evolve if we lead with the heart of compassion?
editator for the past 25 years, she is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders 4 training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Spirit Rock/Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program & is a guiding teacher at IMS. She is the program manager & a core teacher in the current IMS Teacher Training Program. Dara is also the Program Manager & teacher in the Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy & Complex Trauma (IFOT) training programs in the United States. She & Kamala Masters will be teaching a People of Color retreat at The Mountain Hermitage in October 2020.
and turning point. Our individual and collective hearts opened with compassion. The force of this compassion opened to the truth of deeply embedded structural violence and the social forces that have harmed our black communities for centuries. Of course, this also connects to all peoples everywhere, all genders, and all those who have been affected by this particular kind of systemic injustice. Although very painful, it also opened a widespread awakening to the truth of this kind of suffering, and the healing of it.
obvious. I take a few moments opening to how it is for this person, and at times compassion naturally arises. But there are times I need to use a phrase to help incline the mind/heart towards compassion, for example, “May you be free from your heartache,” repeating that phrase softly in a comfortable cadence.
apathy or indifference. It can manifest as not caring, a numbing distance, or a lack of empathy. Awareness is like a solvent; when the near or far enemies arise, awareness can dissolve any entanglement or identification with it, allowing compassion to arise.
form a set of themes that are used in the Theravada tradition to this day. They provide a template for the mind’s energies & activities that isn’t an extra to all the other things we might have to do, but encompasses our talking & working, our relationships & interactions with others, our times of private introspection, our decision-making & the forming of our life directions. We practise morality, patience & all or any of the rest while we are engaged at work, or minding the children, or stuck in a traffic jam… The parami take spiritual practice into areas of our lives where we get confused, are subject to social pressure & are often strongly influenced by stress or stress- forming assumptions. Providing alternative ways to orient the mind in the stream of daily events, the ‘perfections’ can derail obstructive inner activities, & leave the mind clear for meditation. Cultivating parami means you get to steer your life out of the floods.”
Renunciation/Values-based Simplicity (nekkhamma) Recognizing the ease that arises with modesty & contentment, I aspire to relinquish needless acquisition & an imbalanced use of material resources.
fault-finding of myself or others, I will encourage goodwill rather than foster ideals of perfection.
As a human being we are endowed with a precious life. The human realm offers a mix of pleasant and painful experiences, there are opportunities for learning, doing good, or accumulating wealth. Many people strive to get as many pleasant experiences as possible, to accumulate material things, or to exercise power.
sharing our time with a sick friend, or setting up a school.
Ariya Baumann
lease come to the gate immediately.
tions.
noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
During the Buddha’s time, a group of monks happened upon one of their fellow monastics in the forest, the Venerable Bhaddiya (Ud 2.10). “Ah, what bliss, ah, what bliss…,” they heard him muttering to himself. The monks were worried that Bhaddiya felt disheartened with the spiritual life and was spending all of his time daydreaming about the opulent life he had before being ordained, so they told the Buddha their concerns. When the Buddha met with Bhaddiya, Bhaddiya responded with words to the effect of, “My brother monks completely misunderstood my exclamations. I wasn’t dreaming of the petty happiness of the royal life but, rather, savoring the supreme happiness that arises from the spiritual path!”
ism?
Yes, my mind still prefers pleasant experiences over unpleasant experiences but, like Bhaddiya, this path and practice have widened my heart to include a kind of bliss not confined to the narrow world of my preferences. It is now open to and part of this vast universe of the Dharma which includes everyone and everything, thus allowing me to savor the supreme happiness that arises from the spiritual path.
December 21, 2019 – Winter Solstice: Japanese Tea Ceremony
