This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Metta as Strength. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Metta as Strength - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 17, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Metta as Strength

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to those here at IMC in person and those joining virtually on YouTube.

Last week when I was here, I talked about goodwill, or metta¹—sometimes called loving-kindness in English, or simply kindness or friendliness. It is a fundamental sentiment or attitude in the Buddhist tradition. It is at the center of good human relationships: how to get along with people, how to create healthy relationships, and how to restore good relationships when they are broken. It is a reference point even for when people are in conflict.

Imagine that whatever this metta is—I like to call it goodwill—it can be a strength. It can be strong. Some people think that love is supposed to be soft, fluid, or accepting. But can love be strong in a way that gives a person a strong backbone and a lot of inner stability?

What would that be like in times of conflict? What would it be like when we are facing hostility? Is it possible, when people come to us with hostility—maybe very intense hostility—for metta to still be a reference point? Does it have a role? Or is it really the time to put that aside because it's a little too sentimental and idealistic, and what's really needed now is ill will? Certainly, we often feel justified. You don't want to be a pushover, so you feel you have to meet it with anger.

I will tell you a story. I think of this story as an allegory from the ancient Buddhist tradition about the Buddha. As an allegory, it is meant to give you a puzzle to consider: How might this work for you? Is this a model for some way that you can bring your goodwill into your world of conflict? I imagine a few of you occasionally, accidentally, have conflict that you have to deal with.

Here is the story.

The Buddha was enlightened in Bodh Gaya under the Bodhi tree near the river Neranjara². He went off to teach his companions what he had learned, and not long after, he returned to that environment where he was enlightened. It seemingly had value for him as an important place. When he came back to that area, he came across a very large group of ascetics—monastics of a different tradition. They were fire worshippers, and apparently, there was a group of maybe 500 of them with a leader.

The Buddha needed a place to sleep for the night, so he went up to the leader and said, "Can I spend the night in your fire hut?"

This was a place where they kept a sacred fire or had something important going on since they worshipped fire. The leader said, "No, I can't let you do that because there is a fierce, venomous serpent in that fire hut that will harm you."

The Buddha asked again, "Can I spend the night in the fire hut?" "No, I don't want you to get harmed."

The Buddha asked a third time, and the man said no. Now, in ancient India, if you ask something three times, it signifies something really significant; you shouldn't really say no after that, or it requires a different kind of meeting. So the Buddha asked a fourth time, but this time he said, "Perhaps I won't be harmed. May I stay there?"

The leader of the ascetics said, "Well, do as you like."

The Buddha went in the evening to stay in the fire hut. He made his bed, and then, as was his custom, he sat down to meditate into the evening, upright and cross-legged.

The serpent, whose house it was, was not happy about this ascetic coming in. To make a point, he spewed smoke as a warning that he was displeased. Maybe it was reasonable; the Buddha asked the leader of the ascetics, he didn't ask the serpent, "Can I spend the night here with you?"

In response, with a mind of goodwill, the Buddha produced his own smoke. This enraged the serpent, so now the serpent breathed flames out at the Buddha. Perhaps that is what the ascetics were afraid of—that if the Buddha went in there, he would burn to a crisp.

The Buddha responded with his own flames; he shot flames back. It is a little bit like Harry Potter or Star Wars, with magic force fields meeting in the air. But the text describes that when the Buddha shot flames back—literally meeting fire with fire in this story—the Buddha's flames were not going to harm the serpent. The Buddha had his goodwill, and he was clearly not going to harm the serpent, but he met fire with fire. He didn't back down. He stayed in his posture.

Could it have been the fire of love? What was this fire that he met him with?

That apparently went on all night, this great duel of fires. The ascetics were outside the hut thinking, "This dude is not going to survive. He is going to be harmed." The text says that the hut was ablaze, glowing because there was so much fire going on.

By the morning, the serpent was subdued, spent, and exhausted. The Buddha had finished with the whole battle. He picked up the serpent, which was now small enough that he could coil it and put it into his begging bowl. He came out and showed the leader of the ascetics, "Here is the serpent."

As these good stories go, the ascetic was filled with faith and confidence in the Buddha and became his disciple, and they lived happily ever after. We don't know what happened with the serpent.

I tell the story in a slightly funny way because I want to emphasize that it is a myth, a fable. I think of it as an allegory. As an allegory, is there a time for us—with our love, with our goodwill, with a dedication to non-harming—to stand upright, clear and present, neither going forward nor back, neither attacking nor retreating? To do some equivalent of meeting fire with fire?

What does meeting fire with fire look like if, on our end, it contains love and a dedication to non-harming?

I think it means we would not meet lies with lies. We would not meet hatred with hatred. We would not meet harsh words with harsh words. We would meet lies with truth, and hatred with love or non-hate. The Buddha said that if someone is speaking divisive words, we meet it with unifying words.

Sometimes when there is hostility and conflict, clearly a big division is being created. Is it reasonable then, in that conversation, to consider what would be the unifying way of speaking? What would be the way to bring us together?

I remember once when I was about twenty, I was the closest thing back then to a long-haired hippie. I had caught a ride from California to Miami, and we stopped in the Florida Panhandle, in a very conservative place. We went into a bar. Back then, to go into a very conservative bar in those parts of the country as a hippie was dangerous. I walked into the bar, and the whole room went silent and looked at me. I thought, "Uh oh, I'm not safe. This is serious."

But one of the people I was with was a natural comedian. He just stepped into the room, and within minutes he had everyone laughing. We were accepted, unified, and brought together. I can't imagine the Buddha going in and telling jokes to do that; he might have had a different way to create unification. But it taught me something very important: there are ways of bringing people together rather than living in the divide. If I had stayed afraid, lost in my own preoccupation, I probably wouldn't have had the wherewithal to create that commonality, to lower the hostility.

There have been times since then where I've had people be very hostile towards me. We had some challenges here at IMC with someone who had tremendous hostility, and I consulted with a psychiatrist. He said that one of the things you can do when someone has this kind of hostility and anger is to tell them that you are afraid. If they hear that you are afraid, they realize they have had an impact they didn't intend, and that can actually shift it.

I have used that sometimes when people have been really angry in what I thought was an unreasonable way. When they finally stopped, I said, "You know, with that kind of anger that you have, you affected me. I'm afraid." Immediately their shoulders dropped. Immediately they got calm. They got a mirror for how they were acting. One time the person just backed off and left. If I had yelled back and met anger with anger, it probably would have made it worse.

To meet fire with fire—but the fire of goodwill, the fire of honesty, the fire of unification—means meeting it with strength. It means showing up and not allowing what people say to cause us to collapse.

At least what the Buddha was offering in terms of the importance of goodwill was not meant to be passive. It was not meant to be a pushover, standing there with a nice smile on your face letting people do what they do. The idea was to meet it in a good, effective way. Maybe to protect yourself, but more importantly, to say, "This is unethical. Let's meet this and really hold our ground."

So, that was my puzzle for you. Can you imagine where it would be useful for you in your life to act with goodwill—with the absence of ill will, the absence of wanting to harm anyone? Can you imagine situations where this approach is appropriate for you? Have you met the fire of hostility with the fire of love, truth, or unification?

Discussion

Participant: My question is what to do when encountering representatives of other religions. Like, say a Mormon person comes to you and tries to convert you. Is it good to meet fire with fire, or say, "Thank you, I'm Buddhist and I don't want to talk about it"?

Gil: It's a great question. I've had that too. But the direction of the conversation has changed, so it's for you to tell me. [Laughter]

Participant: Well, in my case, I spent two days studying Mormonism, went to their church, and then spent another two hours talking to them on the phone. At which point they realized maybe I was trying to convert them to Buddhism. [Laughter] That's how it ended.

Gil: With goodwill or with hostility?

Participant: There was no hostility at all. It was all goodwill.

Gil: Very nice. Thank you.

Participant: I'm not sure I'm going to be able to answer my own question here, Gil, but I'll put it out there. What about a more subtle type of conflict where maybe a group of people are dominating a conversation, and it feels like you can't get a word in edgewise? You feel silenced. My crack at answering my own question is the art of gaining nothing—Mushotoku³. Maybe it's not important that my opinion be expressed in this space, and silence is okay. Maybe the other fire isn't through words but is preverbal or subvocal.

Gil: Was there hostility towards you at that time?

Participant: It's more subtle. I think the force is, "This is the way we should do something," and maybe it's not hostility directed at me.

Gil: See, the advantage of hostility directed towards you is that you have their attention. You are in relationship. But if you are simply being ignored or they are so preoccupied in their own world, and there isn't active hostility, then a different art is needed.

Participant: I have an experience to share. I'm part of a group that is trained in nonviolence and Buddhist traditions, and we go to protests as a de-escalation team. Before we go, we gather and ground ourselves.

We were protesting in front of an Apple store. A person came into the group who wasn't angry at us, but was upset that we were protesting there. He asked, "Why are you here? What's wrong with Apple?" One of the other protesters got in his face and told him to go away.

I wore a yellow vest, so there was some recognition of a role to play. I separated the two and brought the person who was upset aside. I said, "Let's go over here where we can talk away from the noise." It turned out that his father had been one of the early employees at Apple, and there was goodness in that relationship for him. I said, "I'm not here to say why they're upset. I'm here just to make sure everyone is safe."

We talked a little bit more, formed a bond, and he started talking about cats. I said, "Oh, I have a cat." [Laughter] At the end of it, he was completely relaxed and calm, and he wanted to buy me ice cream. The neutrality helped. I wasn't trying to convince him to change his mind.

Gil: That's a wonderful story. Thank you.

Participant: I am in the middle of a situation where I am facing this, and it has been very meaningful to hear these words and to feel what it is like to have love as a power. There is someone with whom I was very close who has some hurt that has come up recently. In his preoccupation with that hurt, he has behaved in ways that do not take into account the impact on other people's hearts.

I find myself being very interested in love, but also having what could be considered justifiable anger coming up. Your story of the serpent is in me. I've been wanting to hold love but also be powerful. I've had to apply loving-kindness and self-compassion to myself because my "serpent" right now is judgment—that I'm being pulled out of my center, that this person has the power to pull me into anger. I know I'm self-responsible, so it's been an uncomfortable battle.

Gil: So the serpent is inside of you.

Participant: Yes. Often they are. The serpent is both the other person's actions and the incense inside me. I am dedicated to love and joy, so there is the disappointment and pain of not being able to hold that. In this conversation, I have gathered what it feels like to have self-compassion even when I have anger and judgment.

Gil: That makes a lot of sense. May that side of you become strong.

Participant: I think this talk is also relevant to self-conflict—trash-talking ourselves. It's easy to spiral and ruminate and meet hate with hate within ourselves. The answer that I found is to remind myself I'm human and I share my problems with humanity. People have the same problems I do. I am not special. I'm not giving myself a free pass, but I think self-compassion is the answer to self-trash-talking.

Participant: I just want to mention my son, whom I'm so proud of. He's working security at a club in San Francisco. Once in a while, someone gets in his face with hostility. He says to them, "That may be true, but we're moving towards the door, right?" I just love that he's able to de-escalate like that.

Participant: This is a question for you, Gil. With everything that you know now, if you were back in that bar as a twenty-year-old, what would you do differently?

Gil: It is so contextual. But with my memory of it fifty years later, I think I would have stood still—peacefully still—and just looked at everyone, said hello, and engaged them in simple questions. I'm not a comedian, but I would have made myself someone who was not afraid, but also engaged. But I wouldn't have walked any further in because it was their space.

Participant: Long ago, when I was less wise, I would get into a mood where I would be pushy and maybe hostile—bullying, really. When another person would be really calm, it would actually aggravate me more [Laughter] because I could see how unreasonable I was. So it was a good and a bad thing, but it made me think in my own interactions: to be calm, but not too calm, because I didn't want to aggravate them more.

Gil: Yes, sometimes being too calm can feel like you're not participating or not in relationship. One thing I've learned to do is to step towards what's difficult interpersonally. To be closer to it rather than pull away. Maybe it's possible to stay calm, but if you step forward, then you are engaged and connected.

Participant: Something that's been on my mind lately is a story from Japanese tea practice. We recently lost our retired head of tradition, who passed away at the age of 102⁴. He led a remarkable life. He was conscripted into the Japanese Navy during World War II and found himself in the Kamikaze corps. The war ended before his number came up, so he never completed his mission, but he heard the cries of his colleagues over the radio as they descended. It haunted and transformed him.

When he returned to Japan, he dedicated his life to world peace through the practice of tea. He practiced tea in diplomatic settings among world leaders who didn't necessarily get along. His motto was "Peace through a bowl of tea." It sounds trite, but the idea is: if we can't offer a bowl of tea wholeheartedly to anyone as a human being—even people we disagree with—then how are we to have peace in this world? It is one interaction, one offering, one bowl of tea, person-to-person at a time.

Participant: I have a house guest at the moment who is brilliantly illustrating that his default is ill will. It is really reinforcing the importance of having goodwill. I guess your practice of telling this person who is extremely hostile that they were frightening you is a brilliant move. It is consistent with wise speech because it's honest, timely, true, and could be helpful. I think I'm going to try it today.

Gil: It is a very honest approach: "This is the condition, let's talk about this. This is not working for me, I'm afraid in my own house. What can we do about this?"

The other thing to realize is that sometimes people who are very angry feel unsafe themselves. If you can listen underneath what's going on, you can see they are afraid, insecure, or hurt. So, as you have this conversation and say "I'm afraid," you might think about how you can do it in such a way that he isn't afraid of you because you're saying something critical. How do you approach that person so he feels safe?

Participant: I appreciate the allegory and the wisdom people are sharing. This idea that there are people who feel afraid and our job is to help them feel less afraid can work on an individual level. I've heard amazing stories of people at protests looking a policeman in the eye and saying, "You don't have to do that," and the policeman stops.

But at the level of group behavior, some groups are tasked with a form of fear that's projected onto them. We live in a time right now when certain actors are trying to create social fear, and it's working. Some people, when they see that others are afraid, find pleasure in that. I would love to believe that the sum total of our individual actions makes things better, but I also think it's hard at the level of groups. I'm stuck.

Gil: I think many people are stuck with this. It is what's going on all over the world.

A lot of this has to do with context—what is possible in the particular context we are in. But one of the really important ideas is the ability to not go along with something. Sometimes that means you get arrested. There are plenty of examples of people who created huge social change by holding their ground and getting arrested. How does that get done wisely and strategically?

The bigger the social issue, the more it takes reflection and consideration to find the point where we can make a difference. That isn't simply holding up a sign. It takes a lot of thinking. I'm certainly hoping that more and more people get involved in these questions.

I will end with this short story. I do a lot of one-on-one meetings with people, especially on retreats. One person came to me many years ago and said she was a white civil rights worker in the South in the 1960s.

She said a group of them went down with signs and stood on a corner to protest racism. A pickup truck full of young men showed up, jumped out, and started to beat up the protesters. The next day, the protesters went back to the same place to continue. The same thing happened.

They went back the next day to stand on the same sidewalk. The same pickup truck full of guys showed up. One of the guys jumped out and was standing above this woman with his fist up in the air, ready to hit her one more time. She looked up into his eyes, and he looked into hers. He stopped. Maybe in disbelief, he said, "What are you doing? What in the world are you doing?"

To be there the third time in a row... that was the beginning of a conversation. That was the de-escalation. The whole thing settled, and while I don't think racism was solved right then and there, it became a peaceful situation, and there was never that conflict between those people again.

How many people are willing to put their own life on the line for these kinds of major social events? People are glorified for joining the military and sacrificing their life for the country. How many people are willing to sacrifice their life for the country in peaceful protest? I think peaceful protests sometimes have a much more lasting beneficial effect, but it requires a lot from people.

The ability to be strong and have goodwill, to not want to harm, and maybe to a certain degree be fearless even when we are afraid, is what's needed if we are really going to deal with some of the issues of our times.

Participant: I recently learned about the paperclip protest⁵ in Norway during World War II. When the Nazis were in control, people started wearing a paperclip on their clothes as a way of indicating protest and alignment—like, "You're not alone."

Gil: Thank you all. May this inspire endless goodwill. That's the key in the Buddhist orientation. Always look for the goodwill. Find the goodwill. Practice the goodwill. Everything else should follow from that, not from ill will.

Thank you.