5.1.11

Friendly Argument

It's amazing to see educated and usually well-meaning Buddhists arguing with knives to each other's throats. So easy it is to be carried away by a tiny misunderstanding. In the seventh scene (where in Constantinaple people fight over a single letter "i") of The Tragedy of Man we read:

Perchance that which, to others, folly seems.
A hair’s breadth only doth divide the two,
Sublimity and folly. In the heart
One voice alone may judge betwixt the twain:
This judge mysterious is - sympathy,
Which deifies or slays with mockery.

Sengcan's poem matches it:

Depart for a hairbreadth and heaven and earth are set apart.
If you want it to appear do not be for or against.

This could be taken as a common expression of the dualistic view and an advice to avoid it. But that is quite abstract, isn't it? The point is to see how we take a position in any dilemma or argument. It is not a problem to decide on something, of course, without that we couldn't even breathe. But when we remain ignorant about a view being just a mental phenomenon and imagining it to be a solid truth emotions arise and then on our actions are driven by unrecognised feelings.

The often used phrase of the unity of wisdom and compassion is not an ungraspable idea at all. It is being able to be kind not against our feelings but though not getting stuck in views that bring about so many emotions. It is the attitude of shaking hands after a heated debate.

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