October 22:
“Its practice is more than our daily food.”
–Gandhi (Harijan, April 2, 1938)
A three-year old friend who recently learned about nonviolent non-cooperation at circle time at preschool was very excited when her parents told her the bread she was eating at dinner that night was called naan. “Wow!” She exclaimed. “We just learned about naan-cooperation today at school!” True story.
Gandhi here compares and contrasts the nourishment of food with the nourishment of nonviolence. When we eat, we do it at certain intervals during the day, and “rightly taken” he adds,”it sustains the body.” Nonviolence, he said, “if rightly practiced” is nourishment for the soul. Unlike food, however, with nonviolence, “there is no such thing as satiation.” What he means is that there is no end to nonviolence. While it satisfies deeply each time we use it correctly, its power and depth know no limit except the ones that we impose on it ourselves.
He goes on to say that since this is the case, “I have to be conscious every moment that I am pursuing the goal and have to examine myself in terms of that goal.” Gandhi did not take nonviolence for granted. Just because it is the “law of humanity,” as he said, we cannot assume that its ends can be achieved and maintained without a conscious effort. This is why, even if we want to just draw on the power of nonviolence for some specific, short-term effort, we have to train ourselves to access it when we need it. Without a daily practice that’s as regular as our intake of food nonviolence is not impossible, to be sure, but it does become more difficult.
Experiment in Nonviolence:
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By: Stephanie Van Hook
Stephanie Van Hook is Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.
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Gandhi’s Influence on Dr. James Farmer
A Door Into Ocean
Bystander Intervention is only the beginning
Film Screening Thurs. Dec.10
We cannot love our “enemies.”
One very positive step nearly all can take is making sure ones daily food,
eaten maybe 3 times every day, is not contributing to violence towards living, breathing , sentient beings.
When I desensitize myself by eating the flesh of animals that have suffered badly for my taste buds , it is only a small step way to from desensitizing myself
to the suffering of other people.
“I have to be conscious every moment that I am pursuing the goal
and have to examine myself in terms of that goal.” M K Gandhi
Will Tuttle has been a most helpful speaker in this area. Quote –
‘ All the world’s major religions have their own form of the Golden Rule
that teaches kindness to others as the essence of their message.
They all recognize animals as sentient and vulnerable to us,
and include them within the moral sphere of our behavior.
There are also strong voices in all the traditions emphasizing that our kindness
to other beings should be based on compassion.
This is more than merely being open to the suffering of others;
it also explicitly includes the urge to act to relieve their suffering.
We are thus responsible not just to refrain from harming animals and humans,
but also to do what we can to stop others from harming them,
and to create conditions that educate, inspire, and help others to live in ways
that show kindness and respect for all life.
This is the high purpose to which the core teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions call us.
It is an evolutionary imperative, a spiritual imperative,
an imperative of compassion, and, in reality, a vegan imperative.
~ Will Tuttle
May I add a thank you for The Daily Metta.
I don’t have a lot of time for reading in the day but the Daily Metta is a sane way to start the day.