Erika

As physical training is important to violence, spiritual practice seems to be just as important to nonviolence. Nonviolence revolves on spiritual principles and as a result if we were to better our spiritual understanding and application of those principles it seems that would help us greatly in nonviolence. Just looking at the successful practitioners of nonviolence throughout history their immense spiritual understanding and capability can be seen. If we want to successfully practice nonviolence then working to imitate them in this respect, even if it will pale to their level of achievement, seems like it would be important work.

Currently my spiritual practice revolves primarily around a couple of practices. Probably the main one is my study of the nonviolent martial art Aikido. Aikido is a Japanese martial art and can be translated as the “Way of Harmony through Energy” or even the “Way of Harmony through Love”. In the practice we train on getting attacked in many different ways, with empty hand techniques or with weapons. The goal is to counter the attack in a way in which not only ourselves but also any attacker is also not hurt as well. It is a physical and mental training of the principles of nonviolence. Some of the understanding is that every action we do has an effect. If someone would attack us and we were to physically hurt a person what would the results be? That particular attack may be stopped but the negative feelings they had for us would increase. In addition, if animosity remained it would just encourage the attacker to learn more skills of violence to win any next contest. As a result, just like anything based on violence in order to stop any more violent attack in the future I would have to become more violent myself. This would not only increase the violence in the world but also leave one in a state of moral slavery. My goodness would then depend on the actions of my opponent, if they became more violent than so would I. As a result my level of morality or goodness would be dependent on factors outside of myself. I think this is a microcosm for society as a whole. In Aikido however, if we are able to accept a violent attack and respond with kindness by neutralizing the attack and intentionally and purposefully not hurting an attacker than it does the opposite. It takes the opponent’s mind and teaches a lesson. It sets an example of returning compassion for aggression, which can transform both the attacker and the Aikido practitioner as well. I find the continuing practice of training to not harm someone even if they were just an instant ago attempting to inflict harm while controlling the situation is a good training ground for practicing non-violence. This constant training and practice I feel has applications in everyday life and the consistent physical and mental training involved makes it a good and transformative practice for working on non-violent principles.

A second practice I have been working on is the program by Eknath Easwaran, which I think has been expanded a little by Professor Nagler. I have been working on passage meditation for the last couple of years on and off and have got more serious in the last year of so. I have still have a lot to learn but I have been consistent about meditating everyday in the morning and have been trying to incorporate the other elements in, with varying success. There is a workshop for passage meditation in my area in September so I am hoping to attend if possible and gain a little more exposure and perhaps get some guidance in some of the areas I have questions on or am struggling with.

While talking about spiritual practice, I was at a museum one day and they had us reenact a lunch counter scene from the civil rights movement. They had some of us in the audience either play the demonstrators at the counter or their harassers.  I was one of the harassers in this demonstration. We basically crowded around the people at the lunch counter and tried make them feel really uncomfortable to give them a feel of what it was like to be in that position. It had an effect on me and I also think it had an effect on the people who were playing the demonstrators at the lunch counter.  From my readings, it seems that those who participated in the civil rights movement went through similar training to get them ready for when the real thing happened. I believe such training is extremely helpful. It has led me to wonder if this type of training is not something that could be implemented at some religious services. Often religious services preach and ask people to live certain moral standards however may not put them in the best position to do so since they just hear about it and do not get a chance to train and practice it in a controlled environment. As a result, I wonder if adding a training component at some services where people can actually practice in a training environment putting those principles to practical use could possibly be of some help.

Spiritual practice helps us to cultivate inner strength. I believe that to be the case more and more as I am exploring the spiritual practice of Passage Meditation and the other practices that go along with it. I find that I am cultivating strength, stability, patience, compassion, perspective, all these good kinds of things, as I set about the work of slowing down the thought process in my own mind and filling it with good stuff.

I was raised as a Catholic Christian, so I am very comfortable using the Prayer of Saint Francis right now. In fact, I love that prayer and Francis of Assisi, too. I’ve been using it for a while, though, and I am thinking of trying another passage starting next week. I’ve only just started getting into the daily practice of meditation. It has taken me some time to get in the routine of waking up at 415, having a coffee, sitting back down for a half hour, and then biking to work for 5:30. But God knows I need to, because when I get to work (I work in a kitchen), it’s like I am having to practice nonviolence with my co-workers the whole day! Even if I’m starting to rush, just reminding myself that I did my meditation helps me to slow down a bit. I am more attentive, I am slowing down, and I make fewer mistakes because my work is thorough. And when I do make mistakes (this is the best thing I’ve noticed yet about my practice), they do not get the better of me like they used to.

Meditation is helping me to draw from that source of active love (nonviolence) inside of me, because as my mind becomes steadier, the negative current running through my mind loses some of its strength. I’ve noticed that as this happens, I am starting to identify less and less with the negative, violent side of myself. My problem at the outset was thinking about mistakes I have made in the recent past while I was meditating. It’s like they would just barge in and not leave. Some days the conflict happening in my mind between who I used to be and who I am aspiring to be proved too difficult, and I just had to go do something else instead of meditating. We talk a lot about forgiving others when we talk about nonviolence, but less about forgiving ourselves for things we have done to others. This has turned out to be a real challenge for me personally, one I was not anticipating.

Meditation is helping me slow way down, though, and so I can look calmly, and compassionately, into my own mind and find where those negative, destructive, feelings are buried, and slowly uproot them. It’s like with plants. If there are weeds right around your plants, you have to slowly work them from the ground lest you disturb the soil and plants around them. In meditation, I am carefully, slowly uprooting things  I don’t want there, in such a way that I don’t disturb the things I am trying to actually cultivate!

I can see how we are all able to do both wonderful things and awful things depending on where our mind is at. This awareness is helping me to be a lot more compassionate and forgiving towards others and myself. It’s actually a totally liberating feeling, being able to recognize our essential goodness, and not have to use my energy staying angry and frustrated at others (and myself) who are maybe saying or doing things that are not so good. As I have worked on my own mind, though, it has made me less impulsive so that I am not condoning the bad stuff like I used to with either a laugh, another unkind word, or a thoughtless action. I might even be able to think of a creative reply or action, now, because I’m learning to stay calm, and not be intimidated or afraid. I’m harnessing that positive energy in meditation, and using it whenever I need to. Saint Bernadette said she wanted to be not a channel, but more precisely a reservoir of God’s grace. That’s the best I’ve heard it put.

But this is only happening with practice, and regular practice! I emphasize that because the more I meditate on who I want to become, what I want others to be,  and what I want the world to look like, the clearer it is (here is the wisdom of nonviolence) that I am actually meditating on who I am, who we are, and what this whole world really is.

I have to tend to my mind like I would a plant. It will get unruly, maybe even sick, if I don’t take good care of it. I need to pay attention to my mind, feeding it the right things, not poisoning it with other things, pruning things as needed, weeding here and there. Meditation is the tool I’m using to take care of my mind. I hope it will help me to flourish as I am learning about nonviolence 🙂

Brendan

I find it interesting that while we are delving into our spiritual practice material, I find myself reading Chapter 3 of Search.  I am a bit behind, but it seems serendipitous since Chapter 3 includes the section on “Inner Work” or training. Nagler writes here about “one pointed attention”, which is also focused on in our meditation podcasts and other aspects of Lesson 6. “one pointed attention is the psychological key to nonviolence” is one of the quotes in this chapter. My favorite comes from the Dalai Lama quoted here as calling meditation “internal disarmament” which allows us to intervene right where violence starts, at the very root of our hostile thoughts–our sense of separateness.  This passage brings together for me much of what we have been studying so far…the old story, nonviolence and its power to disarm others and ourselves and, now, our focus on our inner work of meditation. So, I’m kind of happy that I have gotten behind on my reading.

I would say even now that without a spiritual practice nonviolence is not really possible in its most powerful form. We need that practice of stepping back, stepping away from the thoughts that tumble around in our minds so constantly.  It takes consistent practice to let go of “my program” and to sink deeply into the Unity that is.  In the same way, this practice of meditation provides the nonviolent activist with a habit of being able to step back, step away for just that moment that is needed when confronted with violence in whatever form, to allow a creative alternative to a violent reaction in return. Ok. And I do have a spiritual practice. For years now I have been practicing what is called  “Centering Prayer”. It differs from Passage Meditation in that the practitioner does not try to focus on anything at all except being available to the presence and action of God, whatever one might call the Supreme Being.  Mostly, if thoughts occur, you gently let them go.  There is no trying, just letting go. Different, but quite effective. Thanks.

Jean

Stephanie
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My strengths within this sector are at the management level including: Strong moral compass,  Independent worker & strong team player, Micro & macro-level thinker, Creative touch, ,   Inclusivity,   Balance between idealist and realist,  Systematic thinker, Empathy, Story-teller and strong writer,  Flexibility,  &  Ability to thrive in rapidly changing and fast environments.​  I also have a very strong ability understand, read, and mentor people. All of these strengths can play a large role in developing creative solutions to issues and managing projects within the social system.
 
My weaknesses include being emotional and ungrounded when something traumatic or very strong happens. I tend to lose my grounding temporary, which I need to work on, especially when it comes to holding my nonviolence in my heart. I can work on these weaknesses by:
1) Slowing down my reactions and developing an auto-response that is full of peace and tolerance through meditation and experience working with these energy.
2) Letting go of the anxiety, hurt, pain of not being understood and knowing that it doesn’t matter if one person doesn’t understand me that I have a strong support group that does.
3) Let go of past hurts so that they do not bleed into the future. Understand that past does not have to predict the future.
 
I also like Kelly get bored easily when I am not engaged or being used to my highest ability.
 
My program works with the empowerment and development of self-sufficiency within marginalized populations and survivors of violence. I hope that this will make a dent within the corporate rule, war system to empower and heal children and women before they go on to create or engage in more cycles of abuse.

Something I am not sure if it is a strength or weakness, is that there are many projects I find interesting and valuable. As a result in the past when I would be introduced to projects that seemed to be interesting I would try and work on them to some extent. I think seeing life more as an interrelated whole has given me a paradigm where a wide array of projects look important or interesting. However as a result I have found myself overcommitted in the past. This has resulted in me feeling a little burned out at times and not doing as effective a job as I could. Instead of working and delving into a project I have worked a little more on the surface level partly because I didn’t feel I had the time to delve in more and partly afraid that if I did get too involved it would take away from other areas I committed too.

I have now gone in the opposite direction and have stepped away from almost all the activities I have been involved in, almost waiting and searching for the right project or mission to come along. It hasn’t really yet so I find myself not being of service or involved in nearly the way I would really like to or feel I need to to be fulfilled. I am hoping this course helps me find an area I can focus my attention on and be of service since right now I feel I am not contributing as much as I should be.

-John

John – thanks!  I will definitely look that book up!  I have been doing parent education for the past several years but I would love to get back to working with young people again.

Stephanie, I think food is unquestionably a keystone issue!  It affects everyone, it is a fundamental human need, and it has very clear ties to violence at every level.  Starvation, failure to distribute food fairly, sustainability, the way food animals are treated, the way the people who work on farms and in slaughterhouses are exploited, “value-added” food and marketing, the way big money influences food safety laws, the environmental destruction resulting from chemicals and animal waste, the fuel costs of our current food system….it has it all!  Imagine if we compare one week’s worth of real locally grown food to one week of the standard American diet?  Less packaging, less refrigeration, less fuel, fewer chemicals, community building, more safety, first-hand knowledge of the working conditions on the farms, more money spent locally and less going into corporate pockets, healthier people spending less in the medical industrial complex, it goes on and on!

This model of social change and movement towards a new world has been helpful in delineating steps and components within the movement. I feel as though I find my place in a combination of different components but I have a strong interest in peacebuilding in the gendered violence and marginalized populations arenas.  Also, like others, I found the Gandhian economics and the sound & vibrant economy to spark an interest; I have studied business in detail and have always found there to be something completely backwards about the model of our economy. As far as where I am on the model within the 5 components of personal power, I feel as though I avoid most corporate media, except for a few of my favorite shows every now and then. I watched a movie (This is 40) on the airplane flying home earlier this week and was totally appalled with the messages about it was sending, especially the aggressive/violent communication between family members. It reminded me why I should stay away from media like this. As for adopting a spiritual practice and building constructive programming, I have done this well in the past but since I have been in a long period of transition and change, I haven’t been able to continue at the level that I would wish for. I look forward to the day that I am settled in an apartment or my house that I can develop these more. I know in the meantime, I can do small gestures to achieve these components; I meditate sparingly but truly feel as though this is something I need to make sure I get back on track soon.

Moving forward with the map as a tool, I believe it will be useful in understanding the interconnectedness of different projects— and the goal we are all working towards. I also think that this is a great tool for newcomers to social change and I will share this widely!

Hi Kelly,

Interesting to hear about your work in the local food movement. That is something I have an interest in. I have been consistently trying to make an effort to try and better my food purchases and make sure they are the most constructive they could be. I have been trying to go to my farmers market and rely on them for my products more. Not sure what to do in the winter though when that resource goes away. I have been trying also when I go to whole foods to look for items that are made local. I have also experimented with the benefits of buying local more exclusively or trying to by local and fair trade items from overseas as well. Trying to figure out what strategy is the most effective.

I think it is great that you may get involved in the juvenille detention facility. Reading your post made me think about a book I recently read that I learned about through the Metta Center site by Colman McCarthy called “I’d Rather Teach Peace”. He is someone who is involved in teaching peace and the book tells about his experience teaching the subject in various places such as Georgetown but also documents his experience in a juvenile facility. If your looking for something to read you may find it interesting particularly because his teaching method seemed, to me at least, extremely interesting and thought provoking but also cause his description of the juvenile experience may be something that can maybe help as you prepare to do something similar.

John