Buddhist Women and Social Justice: Ideals, Challenges, and Achievements

5. Redefining and Expanding the Self in Conflict Resolution

Chapter 5 Redefining and Expanding the Self in Conflict Resolution MEENAKSHI CHHABRA In the seventh chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, The Parable of the Phantom City, the Buddha narrates a story to his disciples about a leader who guides a group of people along a difficult and treacherous path toward a place full of rare treasures. After journeying part of the way, the group becomes disheartened and addresses the leader, “We are utterly exhausted and fearful as well. We cannot go any farther. Since there is still such a long distance to go, we would like to turn around now and go back.” At this point, the leader conjures up a phantom city so that the group can rest there. Once they have rested, the leader erases the phantom city so that the group can continue on their journey to the place of rare treasures. Like the phantom city in this parable, images of world peace and social harmony give hope and encouragement to those engaged in the work of conflict resolution. APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION A wide spectrum of conflict resolution approaches have emerged in the last century, ranging from “hard power” (the use of force), to adjudication , arbitration, negotiation and mediation, interactive problem solving , and reconciliation. As seen in the case of Bosnia, forcibly imposed 89 “hard power” solutions are not real solutions at all, since they usually leave wounds that continue to fester, leading to an intractable cycle of conflict and revenge. Although adjudication, arbitration, negotiation, and mediation have quelled the conflict, they have failed to deal with its causes. As a result, the solutions that have emerged out of the conflict have been difficult to sustain. The interactive problem solving approach has a sociopsychological basis. It focuses on resistance to change, a resistance that is typically rooted in psychological needs and pervasive fears. The psychological needs that can be identified include cultural identity, security, recognition , participation, dignity, and justice. The fears that can be identified are often rooted in being deprived of these needs. Interactive problem solving seeks to understand the impact these needs and fears have on people’s perceptions and beliefs. Thus far, the field of conflict resolution has focused on either the political or the social-psychological dimension of human experience. Like an ancient three-legged kettle that struggles to balance on two legs, conflict resolution strategies that have been grounded on political and sociopsychological theories are missing a vital component. Until reconciliation work began in South Africa, an entire dimension of human experience was left out of the field of conflict resolution—the dimension of spiritual experience. It is this third dimension of experience, the missing third leg of the kettle, that can bring balance to the field of conflict resolution. This is the challenge for the twenty-first century. In this chapter I attempt to respond to this challenge. The two lenses that I bring to this challenge are my practice of Buddhism, as taught by Nichiren Daishonin and practiced in Soka Gakkai International (SGI), and my experience with the interactive problem solving approach as a student in the field of conflict resolution. THE WIDELY ACCEPTED CONCEPT OF SELF Why have contemporary theories of conflict resolution focused on the political and psychological dimensions of human experience and neglected the spiritual dimension? This has not been a deliberate oversight , but instead appears to be dictated by widely accepted conceptualizations of the “self.” According to Mead’s theory, there are two aspects of this self: the “I” and the “Me.”1 The I is the core identity— 90 MEENAKSHI CHHABRA that which one cannot change. The second aspect, the Me, is that part of the self that is socially constructed—that which evolves as a consequence of our interactions with the world. We use these interactions with the world to construct our own reality and end up with a set of beliefs about the self, others, and the world. Along with the beliefs that we establish comes a degree of certainty about those beliefs, a strong desire to be “right,” and a strong aversion to being “wrong.” These beliefs create a sense of inner coherence and also provide us with a set of expectations about the world. A major challenge to this process is being able to maintain this coherence while integrating new information from the outside world. When we are in a learning mode, in the best case scenario...