Power Struggles in a Buddhist Group A good friend emailed me about some troubles in a Buddhist meditation group she belongs to. It's a lay led group. The problems are some apparent power struggles about even routine matters and also an element of cliquishness. It seems to be just a small number of people out of the group that are creating the issues.

I don't really know how this sort of thing should be viewed from a Buddhist point of view. But if anyone has a solution or a correct way of looking at this I'd like to pass it along to her. She likes the group overall and she really didn't expect to find this type of behavior among meditators.

My specific question is "From a Buddhist point of view, how do we view bad behavior specifically in a Buddhist setting? Should we allow for these very unenlightened behaviors as we ourselves are unenlightened too? Or should be expect more and move on as this type of behavior may indicate that the meditation is this group is just not working somehow.?"

In other words, if meditation is sincere and regular, can these types of defilements simply continue with no improvement in an individual?
The initial instinct will be to assign blame, or to approach the issue from a victim perspective.

As meditators, we must know better and let go of these views.

Powerful emotions can be very good teachers if we know how to harness the energy.

The teachers in the Thich Nhat Hanh sangha have a detailed conflict resolution guide for exactly this situation that I suggest you review 

http://orderofinterbeing.org/docs/Conflict-Guide.pdf

Background: http://www.orderofinterbeing.org/2013/11/conflict-resolution-guide/

We are often the victims and the attackers, if we can realize this, we can solve anything.   

A poem by Thich Nhat Hanh


  Please Call Me by My True Names
  
  I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us. The first is a
  twelve-year-old girl, one of the boat people crossing the Gulf of
  Siam. She was raped by a sea pirate, and after that she threw herself
  into the sea. The second person is the sea pirate, who was born in a
  remote village in Thailand. And the third person is me. I was very
  angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate.
  If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn’t. I realized
  that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life
  - economic, educational, and so on – it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides. Out of suffering, I
  wrote this poem. It is called “Please Call Me by My True Names,”
  because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have
  to say, “Yes.”
  
  Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow — even today I am still
  arriving.
  
  Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring
  branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing
  in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a
  jewel hiding itself in a stone.
  
  I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope.
  
  The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.
  
  I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am
  the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
  
  I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am
  the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.
  
  I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as
  bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
  Uganda.
  
  I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws
  herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the
  pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
  
  I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And
  I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying
  slowly in a forced-labor camp.
  
  My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the
  Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four
  oceans.
  
  Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and my
  laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
  
  Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of
  my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.
  
  ~Thich Nhat Hanh