How To Win Any Argument
Don’t bother trying. Just listen, and then there is no aftertaste; we remain at peace and have nothing to lose 🙂
If we do engage, we have to work at the other’s level, and this is a learning process which is challenging. We give what we think we lack, and that is love. Why? Because love is always superior, and we are done with arguing as it gets us nowhere. People say things due to their understanding, which may be faulty but is their view at that moment.
A modern argument: “I am doing this to save those who are vulnerable!”
Everyone is vulnerable. Everyone has fears, everyone has need of compassion, and everyone has the potential to become a Buddha – but that happens in their good time, and not ours.
Understand what is actually being said here:
“I am doing this to save those who are vulnerable!”
This is meant to be a superior stance when it is, in fact, emotional distancing, a defence mechanism used to cope by justifying an action to avoid dealing with what is in front of us. People have compassion for those afar – the needy ‘over there’ – but they cannot deal with the needs of the person in front of them and so, instead, they create a fantasy to help them. This is non-confrontational, safe and self-comforting.
There is a Tibetan practice called Tonglen; sending out good prayers and taking in others’ suffering. People may believe this actually does something, but it is merely a good intention which has a psychological effect on us only. Do we actually want to take on others’ suffering?
Ultimate compassion is unconditional.
There is no need to win,
as we have already won the battle with our self,
through compassion.