Photo Credit: Leslie Mclurg, KQED In crisis situations–whether by human-made violence or natural disasters–we can draw from the tools of nonviolence to help us take care of ourselves and others with sensitivity and awareness. The following list includes activities we can do by ourselves and share with others.… read more
“Victory is impossible until we are able to keep our temper under the gravest of provocation. Calmness under fire is a soldier’s indispensable quality. A non-cooperator is nothing if he cannot remain calm and unperturbed under a fierce fire of provocation. There should be no mistake. There is no civil disobedience possible until the… read more
“We get asked all the time in our workshops, ‘Well, isn’t violence just part of human nature?’ And I used to struggle responding to it, because it was hard to argue. It has always been part of our history. Then several years ago, I met Paul Chappell, a graduate of West Point turned peace activist.… read more
“Who we are in the eyes of others is the image we project, but of course that image comes across differently for everyone who reads it because, as we know from the field of constructive conflict management, no two people’s perspective is identical. (…) How can we overcome these blocks to accurate perception of… read more
“The late writer and activist Barbara Deming wrote about the two hands of nonviolence in her book-length essay, Revolution and Equilibrium: ‘With one hand we say to one who is angry, or to an oppressor, or to an unjust system, ‘Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to… read more
Once upon a time, it happened in a forest that a hare was resting under a banyan tree. He had an intuition of doom and thought, “What would happen to me if the earth will break?” Suddenly, he heard a weird striking sound. He said, “It’s happened, the earth is breaking up.”He jumped up… read more
“Some people naively think that if they simply assert their goal strongly and firmly, for a long enough period, they will somehow achieve their goal. Others assume that if they remain true to their principles and ideals, and witness to them in the face of adversity, then they are doing all they can to… read more
Metta Center founder and president Michael Nagler gives this illustration in his American Book Award-winning The Search for a Nonviolent Future: I am thinking of the anger Gandhi experienced that fateful night of May 31, 1893, when he was thrown off the train at Pietermaritzburg a week after his arrival in South Africa. This was… read more
“Through practices in which we surrender to love, we come to the understanding–even if only for a moment–that we truly have no “enemies.” Instead, we see that we are surrounded by brothers and sisters who are suffering in one form or another, but who are expressing it as hatred. This being the case, shouldn’t… read more
Were you looking for the story about “the earth breaking” and arrived here instead? Here’s the correct link! “Violent and nonviolent action may also be differentiated in terms of their relation to a third construct, power. Scholars have traditionally emphasized power over and equate violence with power. However, others emphasize power to or power with and… read more
