“Nonviolence is who we are.” In today’s Daily Metta video, Michael reviews the deeper dynamics of nonviolence and touches on ideas such as humiliation tactics and shaming as well as “work” vs. work while analyzing a long quote from Marshall Frady on Martin Luther King, Jr. Please add your comments below. About Daily Metta Stephanie… read more
Tag Archives: search for a nonviolent future
Power is of two kinds: Daily Metta
“Nonviolence is who we are.” Michael discusses a quote from Gandhi where he says, “Power is of two kind: fear of punishment or love” as a starting point for understanding nonviolence. Please add your comments below. About Daily Metta Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily Metta in 2015 as a way… read more
Awakening Compassion: Daily Metta
Here Michael cites the discovery by Rachel MacNair of what she calls ‘Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress’–the fact that as the Buddha and the others often said, when we injure another, we feel that injury ourselves, a fact for which there is now scientific proof. Michael emphasizes how the nonviolent actor can awaken awareness of this reflection… read more
Seeing the Shadow Side: Daily Metta
In this talk, Michael addresses the very common misconception about nonviolence, only slightly less common than it was in 1906, that it is the absence of violence purely and simply, and therefore a very weak force, if a force at all. Please add your comments below. About Daily Metta Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s… read more
Charitable Acts: Daily Metta
“A man of charity does not even know that he is doing charitable acts, it is his nature to do so, he cannot help it.” ~ Gandhi, The Gita According to Gandhi, p. 185 Gandhi firmly believed that our nature is good. We do not need to prove it to ourselves by having others affirm… read more
Power of Vulnerability–Daily Metta
“Everyone is experiencing nonviolence but since they don’t have a name for it, it doesn’t stick.” Michael recaps the story on page 43 of Search for a Nonviolent Future, of the woman who stood up to her husband, which illustrates three interesting points about nonviolence: a)there is no name for it that we recognize; b)… read more
Are we ignoring the lesson of nonviolence? Daily Metta
“We are seeing nonviolence working all the time and we are ignoring the lesson.” When nonviolence happens, do we notice? Michael relates two stories: Nurse Joan Black and Antoinette Tuff, and examines how the media interpreted them, and emphasizes that if our understanding of nonviolence were richer, we would learn something powerful about our capacity… read more
No Guarantee: Daily Metta
“The hardest heart and the grossest ignorance must disappear before the rising sun of suffering without anger and without malice.” ~ Gandhi, from Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, XXVI, p. 159 Let’s be realistic. It’s important to realize that while our hard-hearted opponent must be changed by our suffering without anger or malice, her or… read more
Start With the Core: Daily Metta
“The hardest heart and the grossest ignorance must disappear before the rising sun of suffering without anger and without malice.” ~Gandhi, from Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, XXVI, p. 159 Where to begin with this seminal declaration. Let’s start with the core. This is the essential dynamic, or the magic, if you will, of nonviolence,… read more
Three lenses for violence–Daily Metta
“Violence is a failure of the imagination.” In today’s conversation Michael talks about the “three lenses” one can use to look at violence: moral, medical, and educational. He explains why we think the moral model is not working, why the medical model is better, and why the educational model would be best, although we hardly… read more
