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Four Ways of Unity - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on February 22, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Four Ways of Unity

Hello everyone here at IMC and those of you online.

As a prelude to the talk, when I sat down to meditate just now, what arose for me was a sense of wonder that sometimes happens when I sit. I have gone to amazing natural places in the world—to the edge of the Grand Canyon, the Sierras with amazing views of mountains, or coastal scenes with views of the ocean. It is an awe-inspiring experience of nature all around.

Sometimes when I sit down to meditate, I have the same sense looking inward. Here too, this is a natural wonder that I get to participate in. Somehow, in my capacity to feel, to know, and to mentally perceive from the inside, the whole experience of being alive is a natural wonder. It is a nature preserve that you are walking around in. It is amazing, the complexity and the wholeness of this thing that we get to walk around in—physically, mentally, and heartfully. It is a byproduct of millions, almost a billion years of evolution. We share so much of what we experience in our body with other mammals. So, I sit there in awe, in wonder at the wholeness of it.

Nature by itself does not divide itself up in the way that humans are capable of dividing up nature, the world, and themselves. We have this principle of a local ecosystem where everything works together. Everything has a role and a place, and it is in a balance of a certain kind. Then we build a freeway through it, or we have property lines and people build walls. Suddenly the animals can't move around as easily, or if they do, we decide that they are wrong and shouldn't be there.

I read a wonderful article some years ago about a farmer. Water was an issue where he was farming, but there was a river that ran through the land. Many years ago, all the beavers had been killed. He reintroduced the beavers, and sure enough, the beavers started building dams. With the dams, the water started to flood a little bit. With the flooding, trees and a riparian zone started to grow. Pretty soon the local area had plenty of water. There was more rain. There was more everything. He restored what had been destroyed by the ways that humans get in there and don't allow the natural ecosystem to operate.

The same thing is true within ourselves. It is very rare that many of us, in our modern way of living, allow our own inner natural ecosystem to operate as a whole. We prioritize certain parts. We push away certain parts. We emphasize certain capacities and abilities, and other capacities atrophy. The way that we were evolved to be a whole, with all these different capacities operating and working together, is not quite there.

The same thing happens in society. Societies, families, and communities can be whole, and when they work together as a whole, things work better. People are generous and support the whole of a community. When the community is divided—when there are the insiders and the outsiders, the "us versus them"—then as divisions start forming, the natural flow of the ecosystem begins to be undermined. As it is undermined, it tends to create more divisions and more hostility.

Recently there was an interview with one of the leading academic students of nonviolence named Michael Nagler. He was at UC Berkeley for many years. He talked about how authoritarian regimes and governments that were overthrown through nonviolent means tended to become democracies. The authoritarian dictatorships that were overthrown through violence tended to produce more of the same kind of government—less democracy. There is a way in which, when we divide violently and cut people off, it tends to produce more of the same.

There is another way that restores the whole. One of the stories that really impressed me a long time ago when I was in Japan takes place back in the fifth or sixth century. The valley that Kyoto is in was small, but there was this idea that evil spirits would come down from the northeast and attack Kyoto. They had to protect themselves from these evil spirits. So, they built a Buddhist monastery and temple up there to do chants and practices in order to protect against these evil spirits. That temple became more and more supported, richer and richer, and bigger and bigger. At some point, it became a huge force that included having monastic soldiers. They had their own army.

And then it happened. Evil came down from the northeast and attacked Kyoto. It was the monastery itself—the very thing that was put there to protect Kyoto.

There are ways in which we try to protect ourselves, take care of ourselves, emphasize certain things, or hold certain beliefs that actually make things worse. We think we are protecting ourselves, but we are protecting ourselves by continuing to be divisive.

In Buddhism, one of the very important teachings of the Buddha—both in terms of Right Speech and in terms of a skillful, wholesome way of living—is to avoid speech that is divisive. The worst thing you can do is speech which divides the people who are currently unified. Beneficial speech is speech that unifies, that makes whole. The best thing you can do is to unify the divided. This is a very high principle in Buddhism.

Meditation practice is how we unify ourselves and become whole. We no longer live divided within ourselves. We don't have the self-critic that is so mean to us, or the fear that keeps us from really opening up and relaxing and being all of ourselves. How we speak and how we live in the world can either contribute to more divisiveness or more of this unification.

There is a teaching that goes back to the earliest texts that I like to translate as the "Four Ways of Unity," or the four grounds of unifying people¹. Literally, it means bringing together, gathering together, or holding people together. These four are:

1. Giving
2. Affectionate Speech (or Loving Speech)
3. Beneficial Action
4. Equality

These are the four ways to gather people together in a harmonious whole to heal the divisions we have.

1. Giving

There is probably no other virtue in Buddhism that is held up in greater value than giving, or generosity (Dāna)². Over and over again, you see the texts and the tradition emphasizing the value of generosity.

For the individual who practices generosity, the idea is that it helps us become whole. When generosity is done well and wisely, for the right reasons, it is a releasing, a loosening, and an opening up. Any movement towards being possessive—holding on to "mine" and refusing to share—limits us. Being possessive about things, and even people, harms the person who is possessive. It is like putting a freeway through the natural world, tightening up, or putting ourselves into a fortress. This movement of releasing—"Here, you can have this"—can bring a lot of joy.

I don't know if it is statistically true, but many people have had the experience of going to a relatively poor place in the world and being amazed by how generous people are compared to places where people are wealthy. Maybe when you don't have much money or many goods, the value of giving away is more obvious. There is more goodness in the immediacy of human connectivity. It is more obvious that sharing brings a joy, a delight, and a sense of rightness and wholeness.

One way to unify people is to practice generosity. It is not uncommon advice that Buddhist teachers will give: if there is social disharmony—difficulties with your in-laws, a relative, or a neighbor—give them a gift. Give them a small gift, just a token. It is a little bit hard, if you give someone a gift, for them to hold onto their anger and hostility. It begins to soften it. It might take years to soften some people, but even if it takes ten years, it is better than not doing it at all and living with hostility.

Many years ago, when I was in college, I read a study in an anthropology journal about a group of people in the Philippines who were living somewhat isolated from the modern world in the mountains. They had a culture which emphasized dreams. At breakfast, families would get up and tell each other their dreams. They had the custom that if someone had a bad dream that involved someone else in the village, the next morning they would go and give them a gift. Who knows why someone was in your bad dream? It might have nothing to do with them. But the idea is that you would go give a gift, you would repair, and you would make an effort to somehow heal whatever that dream represented.

Giving is healing. Giving is unifying. Giving connects people together in warmhearted ways. Retreating into our fortress and saying, "It's all mine, I worked hard for this, I deserve it, and you have to take care of yourself," perpetuates the divisions.

How can we practice more generosity in the world around us—to others, to our society, and around the world where people are starving and in terrible situations? Doing so supports us as individuals to become unified. Our own natural inner world flourishes by doing it because how we are internally and how we treat the world externally is completely connected. You cannot separate the two. If people are divided in themselves, they tend to be divided in their relationship to the world around them.

At San Quentin State Prison, they have produced a lot of good. One of the great things that came out of San Quentin is a slogan from a training where "lifers"—people who had committed very serious crimes—were trying to be accountable, look into their crime, and look into the childhood sources of trauma they had. Out of that work came the saying: "Hurt people hurt. Healed people heal." That is phenomenal.

This inner and outer dynamic—how we treat others—has a lot to do with how we have learned to heal ourselves or become whole in ourselves. If we are whole, then we relate to the world as a whole. We relate to everyone as our kin.

2. Affectionate Speech

The second way of unity is loving speech, or affectionate speech. The ancient commentary refers to this as being "sprinkled with ambrosia" or "sprinkled with blessing water." It means to speak in ways that are kind, affectionate, feel good, and are beneficial.

We have examples in this world now of amazingly harsh, violent, and disrespectful speech. I get the sense that people behave differently when they are in contact with each other one-on-one in communities versus when they have a bullhorn. The amount of hate speech that goes on online is astounding. It is unbelievable that anybody would take the time to spew one-sentence hate speech towards someone. This divides. The sad part is that it is so harmful for the person doing it. Hurt people hurt. If they are hurting themselves that way, they are likely to keep doing it.

What can the rest of us do? Don't return in kind. Figure out a way to talk that is healing. Hopefully, if you are healed a bit, come from that place and offer your kindness. Even if you have to disagree with someone, disagree kindly, gently, and lovingly. Do not have a voice that implies hate, malice, or disrespect. Speak affectionately. We are all kin, one way or another. That is what this teaching of nature is—that we are whole. The word Dharma means nature. We are living in the natural world, finding how to be here in a way that allows the ecosystems of this whole planet to bring out the best in all of us.

3. Beneficial Acts

The third way is beneficial acts. Do something, please. Giving is a doing. Speaking lovingly is a doing. But maybe there are other things you can do. Maybe there are small ways you can take care of your neighbors when they are sick. Maybe there are ways that you can support causes that need our help. Many nonprofits have gone under or are struggling to offer the kind of help they used to. There is an infinite number of things we can do beneficially.

We can also appreciate beneficial acts. Appreciate acts of giving and generosity that exist. I am quite impressed and appreciative of how much the United States is a donation culture. You can quibble about where the donations go sometimes, but compared to much of the world, United States culture has a very strong foundation in people making donations.

The other thing that is really big in the United States is volunteering. People volunteer all over the world, but somehow it is a little bit more organized here. When I raised my two sons in Redwood City, I was blown away by all these adults who were volunteer sports coaches. The amount of sports teams that these kids could join for free, and be supported and loved by these coaches, was amazing. There is a huge economy of generosity freely given in this culture—people who go to soup kitchens, take care of animals, and so on.

Let's appreciate and value it. When I talk to my European Dharma friends, they say, "That's not going to work here." They don't have the same culture of donations in Europe; they often expect the government to offer social care. It is awesome that we have this center of ours, IMC, where we can offer everything freely, run by volunteers and supported only by donations. It is very hard to look at the divisiveness in the US and miss the other parts of it. To appreciate what is good and support it so it can grow is part of these beneficial actions.

4. Equality

The final of these four unifying practices is treating everyone equally. The ancient commentary describes this as seeing everyone as you would see yourself. As you would like people not to be mean to you, don't be mean to others. As you would like to be respected, respect others. Don't hold yourself higher than others or lower than others. Meet people as equals.

The ancient texts give an example: "If they are standing, you stand. If they are sitting, you sit. And if they are laying down, you lay down." In ancient India, if someone was of a higher status, you absolutely couldn't stand if they were sitting; you had to be below them. But Buddhism emphasized equality. The monastic community was meant to dissolve all the social hierarchy of India so everyone could be equal. I would like to believe that a Buddhist Sangha³ like ours is doing the same thing—everyone is treated equally here.

We have examples in this country now of people being treated unequally. The language being used is intense; they are called "criminals." Some of them just had a traffic ticket. I have had traffic tickets. Have you had a traffic ticket? Well, then you are a criminal. It is awful. This is not treating people with respect, care, and equality. We are seeing increasingly the way in which there is an inequality of how people are being treated. This creates division. This breaks the natural ecosystem in our own hearts.

Conclusion

So, how do we bring this together? How do we live together as a whole? We do it by seeing that it is all nature. We want nature to operate as one big, whole, healthy ecosystem—both the inner nature and the outer nature working together. It is exciting to appreciate that the inner and the outer ecosystems work intimately together. If you heal one, you begin healing the other.

These are the four means of unifying people: Giving, Loving Speech, Beneficial Action, and Equality.

Thank you.