The Unwinnable Argument
Arguments are such nasty things. They generally involve a lot of anger and hurt feelings, not to mention self-cherishing. The past couple of days I found myself dragged into an argument online in another forum, one that I really did not want. It was a rather challenging exercise of patience and one in which I did not always succeed.
The forum is a religious/spiritual forum, one that is not exactly interfaith, but there are members of varying faiths there, which can be dangerous territory. People are very attached to their beliefs, myself included, and religion is such a personal, and therefore volatile, topic. That delusion of anger arises so easily in such discussions when two or more people disagree on something.
So I posted a Dharma response to a question thrown out there by one of the admins, and found myself, and even the Dharma itself, attacked by someone of another religion who didn’t like my answer. So what can we do in such a situation? Arguing your case is pointless, the other person will believe what they want to and any debate just leads to anger. If the other party is just looking for an excuse to fight, or is set on being “right” and “winning” the argument, honestly, all you can do is accept defeat and offer the victory to the other person, and walk away. This is what Geshe-la teaches us in “How to Solve Our Human Problems.” After realizing where the conversation was going (nowhere), this is what I did. It just made the other person angrier, because they lost the opportunity to get any sense of satisfaction from “winning,” but again, there is nothing I can do about that. That anger lead the other person to further attacks, false accusations against me, and even name-calling.
I am not a Buddha or Bodhisattva, I’m just an ordinary human being and a Buddhist. I try to practice the Dharma as best I can. I have compassion for this person, because I know they must be suffering terriblly to feel the need to attack and belittle others, and that they are generating some pretty negative karma in the process besides. At this point, all I can do is pray to the Buddhas to bless the minds of all involved, and to help those who need it.
The forum is a religious/spiritual forum, one that is not exactly interfaith, but there are members of varying faiths there, which can be dangerous territory. People are very attached to their beliefs, myself included, and religion is such a personal, and therefore volatile, topic. That delusion of anger arises so easily in such discussions when two or more people disagree on something.
So I posted a Dharma response to a question thrown out there by one of the admins, and found myself, and even the Dharma itself, attacked by someone of another religion who didn’t like my answer. So what can we do in such a situation? Arguing your case is pointless, the other person will believe what they want to and any debate just leads to anger. If the other party is just looking for an excuse to fight, or is set on being “right” and “winning” the argument, honestly, all you can do is accept defeat and offer the victory to the other person, and walk away. This is what Geshe-la teaches us in “How to Solve Our Human Problems.” After realizing where the conversation was going (nowhere), this is what I did. It just made the other person angrier, because they lost the opportunity to get any sense of satisfaction from “winning,” but again, there is nothing I can do about that. That anger lead the other person to further attacks, false accusations against me, and even name-calling.
I am not a Buddha or Bodhisattva, I’m just an ordinary human being and a Buddhist. I try to practice the Dharma as best I can. I have compassion for this person, because I know they must be suffering terriblly to feel the need to attack and belittle others, and that they are generating some pretty negative karma in the process besides. At this point, all I can do is pray to the Buddhas to bless the minds of all involved, and to help those who need it.