Nonviolence, from a scientific standpoint, can be understood as a type of energy. How do we recognize and harness this energy? To what effect? Michael Nagler explores these ideas.… read more
Tag Archives: Nonviolence
Harnessing Nonviolent Energy: Daily Metta Weekend Videos!
December 28, 1898, two events happened on this day that are quite significant for our civilization: the beginning of the atomic age and the launch of modern mass media. Find out what this has to do with nonviolence! We’ve reached Chapter Four! Michael explains the famous “work” vs. work concept as it applies to nonviolence:… read more
Rethinking Earth Day Celebrations
The following piece is and adapted version of a post that originally appeared on the Peace Resource Center of San Diego’s (PRCSD) Facebook page. Stephanie Knox Cubbon, Director of Education at the Metta Center, serves on the PRCSD board. Every year for Earth Day, San Diego holds Earth Fair, which bills itself as the… read more
Toward a way of life: Daily Metta Weekend Videos!
In our first Daily Metta video, Michael discusses the relationship between inner work and culture, two dimensions of the change that will lead to a nonviolent future. Find out why. In this next video, he explains how when we experience anger, we can direct its energy toward nonviolent action. Nonviolent states of mind have real… read more
A Higher Court: Daily Metta
“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.” ~ Gandhi, Quotes of Gandhi, UBS Publishers, New Delhi, (1995) p. 34 When it works to redress a wrong—one of the best-known applications of nonviolence—it awakens the conscience of the wrongdoer or the “reference… read more
The Power of Training: Daily Metta Weekend Videos!
In our first Daily Metta video, Michael Nagler tells a story from the life of David Hartsough and gives us insight into how nonviolence worked itself out in this situation. He then goes on to make the case for nonviolence as a way of life. Find out why. In this next video, he discusses the… read more
Suffering: Daily Metta
“In concrete terms, what pure suffering, wholly one-sided, does is stir public opinion against a wrong.” ~ Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi: Correspondence with the Government (1959), p. 301 When Martin Luther King said “unearned suffering is redemptive” he was referring to the same effect. It is the “secret weapon” of satyagraha, the core dynamic of active… read more
Defy Fear: Daily Metta
“The truth is that cowardice itself is violence of a subtle type and therefore dangerous and far more difficult to eradicate than the habit of physical violence.” ~ Gandhi, CWMG, 25:437 That cowardice is a form of violence can be counterintuitive. I have had people tell me that they ran away from a fight: wasn’t… read more
Principled Nonviolence and its Power: Daily Metta Weekend Videos
In this first video, Michael Nagler continues onward in The Search for a Nonviolent Future with insights into the paradox of nonviolence: rising above oneself and becoming more of oneself, truer to oneself. He then shares the origin of the term “person power,” coined by the Metta Center. In this next video, he describes the… read more
Sacrifice: Daily Metta
“I see no courage or sacrifice in destroying life or property for offense or defense.” ~ Gandhi, Mahatma 6.67 Naturally, Gandhiji’s point here is to stress two cardinal features of “nonviolence of my understanding” (title of a small book he wrote): the one is that nonviolence is a positive force, which is obvious only to… read more
