Being Non-Confrontational... Is This Part Of Buddhist Practice ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
A non Buddhist friend once said that she liked Buddhists because of their non-confrontational approach to things...(I had to agree, I couldn't argue against that 
)
All jokes aside, I do try to take the non-confrontational approach when dealing with people/situations,(and where possible by taking into account where the person's mind might be at-what's been happening in their life etc etc) however this is not to say I act as a doormat, but I do tend to let things slide in a detached kind of way, to keep the peace (even if it's just 'my' own peace)...
I guess "being non-confrontational" all depends on how far ones prepared to take the "Do No Harm" aspect of Buddhism....... It's "Different Strokes For Different Folks" I guess 
So what's your take on it ?
Does being non-confrontational have to involve taking things to an extreme ?
Or is there a "Middle Way" ?
Is taking the non-confrontational path for wusses ?
Or does it enhance ones practice ?
Or something else ?
Comments
Hmmm.
I do not think I am, as a Buddhist, either confrontational or non confrontational.
I try to act in ways that do not feed my own ego.
If a confrontation is called for, then I will move forwards towards it while trying to not have my ego be a part of it just as I will try to engage in the skillful means to not un necessarily inflame anybody else's ego.
The "Middle Way" I like it
What is it that troubles you .... ?
That was really well said. I wish I knew how to put a halter on my ego sometimes.![:\](https://newbuddhist.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/little/confused.png ":\")
If anybody knows how, send up a flare.
I think Dharma is very confrontational. We confront Dukkha, our heedlessness and ignorance to the degree we wish.
This impacts on our personal need or lack to confront others as personifications of aspects of our attachments.
This person is wrong, small minded, unkind etc. Maybe so. That does not mean we have or can change them except with the tools we have gained; patience, calm, kindness etc. Have we developed some of those qualities? Maybe we have a cushion to confront first . . .
So whilst the middle way that @how reminds us is impartial, it also means we have to stay centered. This is why saying it is or is not confrontational is the same answer or aspects of it. Middle Way. Makes sense to me too . . .
This isn't the case. If we confront someone or a situation skillfully it can be extremely positive. Issues can be laid on the table and resolved and everybody can come away much happier.
A Buddhist can give all kinds of feedback, confrontation being only one of them.
'Feedback', 'confrontation', 'criticism' ... these can only come from your side.
Yes, @pineblossom, but carefully administered they can benefit both parties. I am sure HH the DL has occasionally had cause or justification to speak thusly....
Yes, being assertive isn't aggressive.
No... But learning how to deal with it in the least stressful way possible sure is.
There are no hard and fast rules. Sometimes being confrontational is the way to go, depending on the situation. You wouldn't want to rule that out, as it could be a useful tool in a given situation. Skillful means can take any form. The main thing is to be guided by compassion, whatever course of action you choose. Stay grounded in compassion and what's best for people in the specific circumstances. Mindfulness in how you use confrontation is key.
Buddhism doesn't mean being a doormat, or being afraid to be assertive.
Sometimes the record needs to be set straight, and that calls for a showdown of divergent opinions.
The only difference when one or both parties involved are a Buddhist, is that you will try to make your point clear in the most skillful tone possible, and not make of the whole affair a mere battle of egos.
Ideally you aim at some glimpse of a truth to emerge victorious, not your ego to emerge victorious.
I think you nailed it @SpinyNorman...
Sadly at times it can be difficult to separate the two...
Only for those who don't know the difference.
Exactly so. For example the former woman (in a previous lifetime) and aristocrat Shakyamuni Buddha dude was assertive in his cultural misogyny. It took Ananda and a few assertive damsels to put him/her to rights. That is why in the West where Dharma is being rediscovered, enhanced and losing its patriarchal tendencies, we haz ladies. Hooray. Take that you macho Awake One . . .
(ahem . . . must behave).
I would suggest the Buddha stated his assertions and has been proven wrong. Sorry guys, even enlightened lads can be wrongish . . .
This is where discernment comes in, beyond merely aggressive, emotional prejudice. What is wisdom independent of hormones, culture, monkey mind, passivity etc . . . ?
. . . and now back to girl talk . . .
You miss the point ..... what name YOU give the conversation is up to you .... it's your call. If you want to feel confronted then so be it. If you want to take it on board and work with it, again, it's up to you. You don't have to label it.
One lojong slogan says 'give victory to others and accept defeat'.
That's actually quite hilarious...
I recently landed a job as a Parking Officer, essentially booking people for parking offenses.
I consider myself to be non-confrontational, so does my employer...that's one reason they hired me.
As a profession, we aren't popular, and on occasion the public like to remind us verbally and sometimes although extremely rare, we can get assaulted.
I don't like confrontation, i'm good at staying calm as i don't like things to escalate, sometimes being calm, calm things down...sometimes not, when it doesn't i walk away, the offender doesn't want to hear what i have to say, they have become deaf to any reasoning and just want to unload their anger/embarrasment/etc on me.
So rather than being a doormat..i quietly walk away without inflaming things.
Oh, as a side note, i have around 20+ years martial arts training so theoretically i could sit them on their ass, but i choose not to ;-)
If they only knew!
Cool of you.
It seems the label of nonconfrontational (or not) comes from the person who is perceiving. There are people here who would consider me confrontational if I was standing in front of the door for too long. My intention or actions or thoughts might not have anything to do with what they are perceiving.
Sometimes, we have to confront situations or people. There is a big difference between doing so skillfully, being rude and being a doormat. Someone who is bullying someone else isn't going to appreciate being approached and will probably consider you to be confrontational. And by definition, you are, because you are confronting someone and a situation. But to do nothing out of a desire to not be confrontational wouldn't be skillful.
Sometimes things needs to escalate. Sometimes, until voices are heard a bit more loudly, nothing gets done. Just depends on so many factors.
My husband is a tax collector, confrontation is his job, lol. But he does it quite well, quite skillfully, and people are rarely upset at him or his handling of their problem even if they are upset with the laws he is following.
@karasti above mentioned the "bully" example, @Jeffrey.
Do you think in circumstances where you are involved in a "bullying" situation, the slogan could apply?
Some situations, we can let them slide, especially when we perceive that it's more about my ego having the last word than about exchanging different points of view.
Other situations fall in a grey zone and call for a different, more assertive action.
You choose not to, or you don't because it's your job not to?
I think with a Bully the scene for giving victory to others may not apply. At least I don't see it. The 'give victory' slogan is discussed by Trungpa as a means to diffuse conflict. So there may be a fine line between a bully. It is like you just say 'oh it's my fault' and then everyone relaxes. He says it is like everyone is passing around this gooey stinky thing that nobody wants to have and everybody is getting upset and crazy. So you take the stinky thing and say 'oh that's mine' and then the situation is diffused. But I think a bully is a step farther from 'playing the blame game'. A situation in zen koans is how a celibate monk was accused of fathering a child that the woman couldn't or wouldn't take care of. Instead of arguing he said 'ok it's mine.. I'll raise the child'. Then later the woman and real father wanted the child back and the monk says 'ok.. sure it's not mine'.. Now I am not sure if anyone would actually do that, but I think it is an example of transforming a negative situation into a loving and caring situation.
He chooses not to. I know two traffic wardens where I lived before, both trained in self-defence (and one was himself a MA instructor) who physically engaged with irate motorists.
They were both admonished for doing so, although they both pleaded self-defence/mitigating circumstances.
They both since resigned/changed jobs.
That's an awesome attitude.
Some situations, we can let them slide, especially when we perceive that it's more about my ego having the last word than about exchanging different points of view.
Other situations fall in a grey zone and call for a different, more assertive action.
Yes! GIVE the 'victory' to the bully, such as it is. It sounds counterintuitive but is it quite powerful. What they 'get' is never what they wanted in the first place.
What is it, exactly, that we 'relinquish' or 'lose' when we give the victory to a bullying person?
But what if it's not you being bullied, but someone else? I have trouble seeing how this (what I wrote above) applies, to be honest. I don't know if the other person has the insight or capacity for it to 'give the victory' in the spirit the slogan implies. I would (and have) stepped in between, ego ablaze
.
I can't proudly report that I put that slogan to use in those circumstances.
But it worked
I hear ya @Dhammadragon, I don't see how what I said applies when I WITNESS bullying done to someone else, god help them if it's my kid. I hope they got a good dose of Dragon Breath and I'm GLAD it worked.
After 33 years of working in schools, both as a teacher and as an administrator, I never once saw a bully who stopped bullying who wasn't forced to stop bullying.
@Vinlyn; you never saw a bully who stopped bullying because they began to have compassion for their victim? That is so sad.
No, I did not. Why would most bullies -- who crave power -- just suddenly give it up?
Theory and practice.
Giving away power is the point of the real 'power' of the Boddhisatvas. They are not the same as the weak bullies who cling, grab and push . . .
Certain approaches, word associations and dharma teachers are bullies, they can and are eventually exposed. To confront people's hurtful words, behaviour and aggression is something we can do skilfully or in a bullying manner.
Practice and practice.
You are talking about children, who often don't see the real impact of their actions until they are older. Have you ever checked up on these kids after they left your school? I'm willing to bet that some of them REALLY changed without some implementation of force.
If it takes someone one single day or 80 years to decide to stop bullying people it doesn't dwarf the scope of just how difficult it is to CHOOSE to change your own behavior. I can picture Saddam Hussein in his court tribunals, while he had already been "so-called-forced" to stop bullying people, still ranting and raving and striking fear into the Iraqis in the courtroom. They were visibly scared of the man who was already arrested, detained, and at the end of his power. He was still bullying, even after being "forced" to stop. He never made the choice to stop. So what really changed? Nothing for the bully-er. And not much for the ones being bullied. Why? Because they kept on making the same choices. Put a tiger in a cage and its still a tiger. Unless, of course, it chooses to be a swan.
Yes, I have caught up with a few one way or another after they became adults. The ones I caught up with didn't seem to have changed much. Some had actually been in jail or were in prison.
I'm not really sure what your point was. Naturally, some people, like Ebeneezer Scrooge, changed...but even then it wasn't out of the blue. A light didn't just go on one day while they were standing in the grocery store checkout line. Something happened to bring about the change.
@vinlyn-
Of course something happened to bring about the change... it was the personal choice of the individual who changed coupled with their experience. On the other side, you can protect people who are getting bullied by bullying the bully-er. I get that. Fight fire with fire. There's always a bigger fish, so on, so forth.... (i work with children, as you know, so i'm aware that you can't allow bullying to go on in your school environment, and i don't allow it. I make it clear to the kids that they should come to me if they are getting bullied, and i will promptly deal with it) That's the concern for the victim.
As it pertains to Buddhist practice (re:OP), any change that occurs to an individual's behavior, if not chosen by that individual, isn't really behavioral change. Its just conditional/environmental change, and doesn't have any real positive impact on that mental state of that individual. The purpose of Buddhism is to work on the self, and the greatest "achievements" in this work on the self is when you make choice to behave in ways that don't hurt other people. What i am saying is this: even assholes have the right to become enlightened, but they will never get there by someone forcing them to become enlightened, or walking some specific path. Its a choice. If we're only concerned about the emotional state of the victims of the bully, and not the bully themselves, then we're probably missing the point of this Buddhism thing. After all, the bully is certainly suffering internally far worse than that of their victims, aren't they?
Well said @TheBeejAbides, you can come to the hell realms for a picnic, where the bigger fish get fried.
Dealing compassionately and realistically is not easy and for most of us not even possible.
However even bullies, demons and the accursed Hinayana are sentient beings (strange but true)
Thanks for the reminder of the levels and possibilities of the sentient saving Mahayana vows
http://www.bodhicitta.net/BODHISATTVAVOWS.htm
With a wish to free all beings
I shall always go for refuge
To the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha,
Until I reach full enlightenment.
Enthused by wisdom and compassion,
today in the Buddhas' presence I generate
the Mind for Full Awakening
For the benefit of all sentient beings.
As long as space remains,
As long as sentient beings remain,
Until then, may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world.
I don't think anyone is saying that we're only concerned with the victim of the bully.
However, the first concern is doing something to relieve the suffering of the bullied. He (or she) is the victim here.
Then, the question becomes what do we do about -- and for -- the bully. Part of it is some reasonable punishment, that could range from detentions, to suspensions, to expulsions, to legal charges, depending on the severity of the situation (both in terms of the specific event or longer term behaviors). But even punishments are intended to demonstrate that negative behaviors have negative consequences (you might call that karma). But beyond that, there was always in-school counseling (often refused by the parent), providing resources for the bully to get counseling outside of school (at the parent's expense). There might be community service assigned.
But in an American school full of non-Buddhists, you don't go into a conference with a student and his (or her) parent and say, "Let's try a Buddhist approach." Not if you want to keep your job.
What you might do is work on skills related to the Golden Rule.
But a frequent bottom line is that the parent of the bully supports his son's tough behavior, and without parent support, you're not going to change much most of the time because the parent will be supporting the negative act.
The kids don't belong to us, and we often have to work around the parents, to the extent possible.
Apparently being confrontational on this forum is fine - Buddhist or not......
m m m . . . in cushion, on cushion . . . empty cushion . . .
Fun for all the family
. . . and now back to the serious stuff . . .
I had to go back and read the title of this thread! Bullies often believe wholeheartedly that they are the real victims, and it can take some high order discrimination (or age and experience) to tell the difference. A quote I read recently stated a little over half the people polled in Australia believed women used false stories of domestic abuse to prevent their husbands from getting any custody. The actual cases that were followed through proved this happened NEVER (less than 1%).
It's confusing out there. I've found that a lot of people don't know when they are being 'bullied' verbally or emotionally. No one who is smacked around believes it's really OK, but most people couldn't identify subtle and not so subtle aggression when it's emotional. We are so damaged already by our exposure to violence and hell that it's gotten normalized. I hope its a stage we as a species will 'mature' out of. We haven't been civilized that long . . .
@Hamsaka sadly I am not surprised at institutional bullying.
Against women, children, the ill, the poor, animals, the marginalised. I would suggest this form of bullying is far more prevelant and even endorsed by cultural norms.
Thank Buddha and Mr Cushion (sponsored by Dharma 'R Us) that we can with patience and application develop kindness towards our and others tendencies and inclinations, impediments etc . . .
I choose not to, and i have in many other situations in and out of work, no-one 'wins' in violent situations.
Thank you dhammachick, it's funny that i spent many years learning to do something that i don't want to use, i did fairly well in comps and demo's, even taught for a few years, but at the root of it all, i don't like violence...fortunate for me i'm on this path
It is so very disheartening, in how pervasive and 'invisible' or 'disguised' bullying is. We come by it so honestly, though, and just as often we show capacity for compassion. It just doesn't make as much money, so it doesn't end up on the front page as often.
Our environment and our nature as humans together created both potentials. It's not like we can just delete the hard-scrabble power mongering traits that proved vital to species propagation. I think Sigmund Freud was onto something when he described 'sublimation' a hundred and twenty something years ago. We are what we are, and as ugly as it can be, power-over-others has served us well as individuals and civilizations. I don't think we are doomed to helplessly act out our primate selves. It can just be so THANKLESS (seeming) to let go of physical and emotional violence. A person needs to be well on their developmental way to begin to see the beauty of mudita, for instance, rather than plunging into envy and rage.
Taking other people's toys is still institutionally and personally rewarded, and will be until some kind of world-wide critical mass of consciousness is reached. Orson Scott Card (sci-fi author) may have had it right in his Ender's Game series. The world was finally united without warring factions due to a space alien attack. We 'got it together' as a species when our EXISTENCE as a species was nearly wiped out.
It usually takes tremendous adversity to shock us humans into our right minds
.
Would be good to think humanity could be united in something other than violence and deceit, decaying in to immediate, pre-planned internal conflict when the threat was defeated as portrayed in Ender's Game. Prefer the Gaia vision at the end of Asimov's Foundation series. I can dream ... Or perhaps it's just that I haven't got to the end of the Ender's Game series? Even Asimov's vision was justified by the fear of what other galaxies contained. Yet more potential conflict/confrontation
I used to daily wrestle certain people in elementary school at recess. I imagine these people did not particularly welcome it as I picked on weaker kids. I would consider that bullying. I have gotten over it. Sometimes I would pick fights to see how tough I was but that was against both strong and weak kids and I would sometimes end up getting beat up. I've totally changed since then. I am not competitive, I don't care if I am tough or not, and I would never lay hands on anyone who did not invite it.
Bullies, most often, were victims of bullying themselves, often by their parents. Or they witness their parents doing it. It is their way of trying to regain a sense of power in their life. When they are bullied, they find someone they perceive as weak to hold power over. Obviously, this does not mean we allow them to bully, but I think going to the root of the problem with the bully would have more success rather than simply punishing them. Our society doesn't do this well. We never seek the root of the problem, we only like to trim the weeds on the top so that they grow back thicker than ever.
Yep, it's something we just can't hide from - though we try some of us at times...
I feel better about the whole thing, having even just a small bit of the Buddha's wisdom under my belt.