Nonviolence is Seeing Oneself in the Other

For two years I ran job readiness group for 10 teenagers in Rochester, NY. During one of my last meetings formal meetings with the group my favorite moment of those two years took place. For me, it was the most amazing of all of our times together.

My youth were usually pretty wild and would spend most of their energy talking over me, fighting, and making each other cry, but this night was different and changed the group dynamics for the rest of our time together.

I had them all bring in something small that they believed represented who they were in some way. I laid a mandala, an object that none of my youth had ever heard of before, on top of a bright piece of yellow cloth on the floor and began to explain that a mandala was a representation of the universe. All of the lines made a beautiful picture and led back to the center connecting every point to every other. I explained how there was no beginning and no end, and showed them pictures of sand mandalas made by Buddhist monks and explained how mandalas were thought to first be used in for meditation and prayer by the Hindus, but how all of the major religions have adopted them into religious practices and art work. I also explained how psychologists have often used mandalas with patients in order to help them relax and focus.

After my spiel, which they were unusually quiet for, I explained the activity. Each of them were to tell the group about the object that they brought and how it represented who they were. Then they were to place their object onto the mandala, and the next person was to go. It was magic. I explained the activity and it just started! I didn’t have to force anyone to go first, and it just kept going one person after the other. Some decided to even go twice. I just sat there and watched in amazement and they actually had to break me from my trance and remind me that I also had to go.

And then just as easily as the activity began, the conversation started. “Look at the Mandela and tell me what you see,” I said.

“We all are different, but we all are connected because we fit into the universe.”

“I learned that if no matter how far away I placed my object. I really couldn’t get away from other people. I was on a line that linked me to someone else.”

“We are more different than we thought. That’s cool.”

“Wow, when something bad happens to one of us, it affects everyone else. Look, we can’t stop being connected.”

That night, I saw a personal transformation take place in each one of them and in myself.

— Brandi Remington