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Love, War, Peace, and Everything in Between: 4 Steps to Changing the World
West Bank, Santas Ghetto. Photo by EddieDangerous, Flickr Creative Commons
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
–The Talmud
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Over the past two weeks, many of us have watched anxiously as the tension around Syria and drumbeats for war grow.
Yes, a very bad thing happened there. Hundreds of people, perhaps more, were killed by chemical weapons. Bad things happen all over the world, though. Do we try to respond to all of them? How do we choose what to respond to and what to ignore? And what should the response be?
It is daunting to consider these questions, and so many of us turn the other way.
We have been forced into a corner where it appears that the only choices are:
a) to act with aggression, or
b) to ignore and do nothing.
This, however, is a false choice. (I wrote more about this here.)
When we are in a corner, the choices seem more limited – and in fact may be limited by the corner itself. Viewed in this way, of course a nonviolent solution may seem implausible and impossible.
What I believe is this: Peacemaking is more than a single response to an isolated event. Rather it’s a way of life, built up moment after moment, day after day, year after year.
It grows out of a deep commitment to embodying nonviolence in oneself in all ways – speech, thought, actions. It has to be woven into the way we treat each other and govern our societies.
And it is rooted in Love.
Peacemaking requires imagination. It’s really a creative act, as John Paul Lederach describes beautifully in his book, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace.
And it needs to be accompanied by justice; that is, ensuring that all people (and creatures) have equal access to the conditions and resources we need to survive, and that we have processes in place with which to address the myriad ways that justice has been denied to individuals as well as groups of people.
During this past summer, I taught a workshop in northern Thailand on socially engaged Buddhism. One of the many things we explored was the difference between change and transformation. Sure – you can switch out one unjust regime with another, and you’ve achieved social change.
But social transformation can only happen by working at the level of root causes and cures. The greatest of these are our mental models – the view we hold of the world (and ourselves).
In my workshop, I shared a model of three overlapping circles that looked like this:
The place where those three elements — Spirit, Strategy, and Power/Privilege/Position — intersect is what makes transformation possible.
Back to Syria – how to respond? Admittedly I’m not an expert in this, but I love what Anne Lamott wrote about just that:
There’s no way regular people like us could know what to do in Syria, whether to strike or not. The greatest strategic and political minds of our day, with genuinely brilliant advisers and sci-fi intelligence gathering, can’t figure it out. So how is some aging hippie Nana peacenik going to figure out the Rubic’s Cube of this distant savage heartbreaking civil war, where many of the rebels are jihadis, and there’s no one who is prepared or organized enough to run the country post-Assad?
But isn’t this one reality–that the most fastidiously trained and learned people in the government, military, humanitarian and diplomatic fields, can’t figure out the right move–reason enough to hold off bomb strikes for the time being?
If we want peace in Syria — or anywhere — we have to work for it, right here and right now in ourselves, and in the workings of our country.
So how can we move toward this vision of creating a more just and peaceful world? Here are four steps that can help us get started:
1) Realize that a peaceful and just society is possible, and that nonviolence is the most effective way to get there.
I want to give you a homework assignment – watch this incredible documentary: Pray the Devil Back to Hell. It’s the amazing true story of the women’s peace movement in Liberia. It will make you understand that the impossible is possible, when spirit, strategy, and power/privilege/position intersect.
2) Realize that we are not alone.
Connect. Find a community of like-minded and like-spirited peacemakers. Here are a few suggestions:
Remember that we bring all of our humanity into every situation, and that we often unwittingly re-create violence in these very groups where our desire is to make peace. So don’t expect them to be utopias… but realize the power of patience and willingness to learn together. This is how we practice peace right where we are, and wake up together.
3) Have a practice that nourishes peacemaking.
There are so many possibilities… some of these are individual practices, some are collective. Here are a few: Nonviolent communication, council practice, meditation, yoga, art… plenty more ideas here.
4) Take peaceful actions in your every day life.
Every day you can do something that builds peace in yourself, in your neighborhood, in your environment — what I call micro peacework. Take that action. Don’t stop. Persist. Commit.
Do you have more ideas on how to practice peace? Please share them in the comments below.
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Sharing the Love
The Liberated Life Project is a labor of love.
If you feel moved to give a love offering in return, here are 3 things you can do!
1) Become a subscriber and receive posts in your email each week. Sign up here.
2) Tell your friends! Share LLP posts on your Facebook page and elsewhere…
see the ‘share’ buttons at the bottom of this post.
3) Make a donation! See the button below. I will be eternally grateful.
—Maia
What Diana Nyad Teaches Us About Liberation
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
– George Eliot
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Yesterday many of us watched the amazing quest of Diana Nyad, as she successfully swam the strait between Cuba and Key West – at the age of 64.
As she came on shore and gasped for air, she offered these words:
“I have three messages. One is, we should never, ever give up.
Two is, you’re never too old to chase your dream.
Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team.”
All three are great pieces of wisdom but I am especially taken with Diana’s second point.
Years ago, I remember seeing a photo in a wonderful book called I Dream a World – it portrayed an African American woman who was in her 80s, as I recall, and receiving her college degree.
That image has always stayed with me as proof that we never need to buy into the myth that we are too old for something. As I’ve said many times here, liberation is about freeing ourselves from social and cultural beliefs that do not serve our souls.
One of the biggest of those beliefs is around age, and what age is “appropriate” for what kind of activities.
That’s why I love stories of people who break out of that mold. Like Diana Nyad. And like:
- Nola Ochs, who started college at the age of 65 and graduated at 95 (at the same time as her granddaughter).
- Mary Armstrong, who celebrated her 90th birthday by skydiving from an airplane at 12,000 feet
- Yuichiro Miura, who at 70 years old became the oldest person to climb Mt. Everest in 2003
I am grateful to Diana Nyad for her courage and her persistence…. and for exemplifying what it means to live unconstrained by the limits of our minds or our society.
What magnificent thing do you want to do with your life? Have you let the idea of your age hold you back from it? How can you imagine that changing if you gave yourself permission to think bigger?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Sharing the Love
The Liberated Life Project is a labor of love.
If you feel moved to give a love offering in return, here are 3 things you can do!
1) Become a subscriber and receive posts in your email each week. Sign up here.
2) Tell your friends! Share LLP posts on your Facebook page and elsewhere…
see the ‘share’ buttons at the bottom of this post.
3) Make a donation! See the button below. I will be eternally grateful.
—Maia
Free Your Mind and the Rest Will Follow
UXO Laos Centre
Where do I begin?
It is Tuesday afternoon here in sleepy Luang Prabang, in the country of Lao (full name: Lao’s People Democratic Republic, though it seems that not many Laotians may feel they have a voice in this “democracy”).
I am sitting in Benneton’s Café, across the street from Wat Sop Sickharam, a Theravadin Buddhist temple. At 4 pm, in about half an hour, several of the saffron-robed monks there will climb a stairway to a tower to begin a drum and gong serenade. I have no idea what it signifies but it is trance-inducing, especially in the heat of the afternoon.
Just a little while ago, a huge thunderstorm passed. This is monsoon season here, or ‘green season’ as it is called. I narrowly escaped getting drenched, finding shelter under a storefront awning. The owners were kind enough to let me park my body there until blue sky broke through again. It didn’t take long – the rain was fast and furious but only lasted about 15 minutes.
Right now I am sipping on an iced coffee and just finished the best chocolate croissant I have ever had in my life. You can sit here for hours and no one will ever prompt you to leave or bring you the check unless you ask for it.
That’s one of the things I love about traveling through Southeast Asia. The languid pace of life here shifts me into a very different gear. Even I, a meditator, feel something inside grind to a halt, something that pushes so much more in the States.
The sweltering tropical heat helps. All the time I’m drenched in sweat, a good reminder that I am not separate from the air and atmosphere around me… completely permeable.
It’s been said that Luang Prabang is the perfect fusion of Asian and European cultures. The French influence is strong here due to the period that the French colonized this country from the late 1800’s until Lao declared independence in 1945. In true colonial fashion, the French, however, refused to recognize this declaration until their own defeat in Vietnam in 1954. You can see this influence in the architecture — traditional Buddhist temples and teak houses sitting next to European style buildings, with doors and brightly painted shutters that wouldn’t look out of place in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans. And in the food.
In the wake of this perfect croissant, I am thinking that colonization is not such a bad thing.
But wait, there is more, of course.
Colonizing, empire building…. These are activities not confined to the West, but we have done them with devastating efficiency over the past centuries.
This post didn’t start out being about this topic. I was going to give you a day by day impression of this journey to Thailand and Laos, more like a travelogue, which started 16 days ago.
But please bear with me. This is what is most in my mind and heart right now.
I am feeling torn between mindlessly and gratefully soaking up all this atmosphere, beauty, and grace –
the people I’ve met, those I already knew as well as those for whom I am a stranger, have been wonderfully kind to me;
the food that has been delectable beyond belief;
the landscapes that have been a marvel to behold, as I’ve traveled from busy Bangkok to quirky Chiang Mai, up to northern Thailand and then by a two-day “slow boat” journey along the Mekong River to Luang Prabang
– and then getting tripped up by attacks of conscience, becoming aware of the tremendous impact that the actions of my country, the U.S., have had here, particularly in Lao.
Yesterday I took a trip to the UXO Lao Center, a short tuk-tuk ride from where I am staying. I read other travelers’ reviews and wanted to find out more. The “UXO” stands for unexploded ordnances. Here is what I learned:
- Lao has been the most heavily bombed country in the world, per capita.
- Over 260 million bombs were dropped here by the U.S. between 1964 and 1973.
- Even now, 40 years after that last bomb was dropped, a Laotian man, woman, or child is killed nearly every day by unexploded ordnances. Thousands more have been maimed for life.
- More than a third of the country’s population lives on less than $1.25 USD a day.
- There is a vicious circle between these unexploded bombs and poverty here. The places with the greatest poverty correspond with the most heavily bombed areas. People who have been crippled by these bombs have lost their livelihood and are desperate for resources. People in these areas often search for scrap metal to sell to make some money, and the most readily available form of this scrap metal is the unexploded ordnance…. And the cycle continues.
So here in the midst of all this beauty, I have become acutely aware of how “lucky” I am to travel through this region in luxury and comfort, never once seriously considering my safety and security. My biggest concern right now is making sure I get back the laundry I dropped off yesterday in time for my departure back to Thailand tomorrow. In about a week I’ll fly back to my home in the States where I have everything I need… and a lot of things I don’t.
I am not so sure that all blending of cultures is bad, nor that all Western influence need be categorically harmful. Change is inevitable, movement of people and goods is natural.
What I am sure of, though, is that many of the actions that my government has taken have devastated this part of the world (and many other regions as well). There are a lot of creature comforts involved in being the beneficiary of empire building. Much of our comfort comes, or has come, at a high cost to others.
Engaged Buddhist writer and activist Nathan G. Thompson reflects on this in a moving article on the Buddhist Peace Fellowship website – here’s an excerpt:
Much of the modern world has become essentially a haunted house. A body/mind that endlessly seeks to satiate cravings that are impossible to satiate. A body/mind that is a powerhouse when it comes to producing suffering. Those of the Buddha’s day never had to consider things like nuclear implosion, drone warfare, 24/7 media propaganda, or globalized environmental destruction.
In a handful of centuries, colonialism in its various forms has brought hungry ghosts realms to an entirely unprecedented level. Entire nations are fueled, literally and metaphorically, by efforts to satiate cravings. In the name of “progress” and “economic growth,” humans manipulate the gene patterns of our food supply, and poison entire ecosystems for some oil or natural gas. In the name of “security,” we efficiently kill those we perceive as “immediate threats,” incarcerate large portions of populations deemed “dangerous”, and oppress the rest that aren’t behind actual bars.
Sobering, isn’t it?
And then there is this, from a 2012 proposal brought forth by Ohlone, Pomo, and other Native American activists and allies to change the name of “Occupy Oakland” to “Decolonize Oakland”:
Decolonization is a practice of healing from violence in forms such as slavery, occupation, and poverty. It is about raising our children to find beauty and meaning in their cultural identities. Decolonization means telling stories that emancipate our minds and dreams….
Colonization and imperialism are just as much a state of mind as anything else.
What is the mind that feels compelled to dominate rather than listen and co-create?
What would it look like if we humans committed to entering into every situation with respect and humility rather than fear and aggression?
What would it be like if self-determination were raised up as the most important factor when cultures come together, rather than the profit motive which wreaks economic and environmental destruction?
The temple drums are now starting. Waking us up.
Karma is all about our actions, waking up to the consequences of our actions, understanding that we cannot escape these consequences, that what harms one, harms all.
This is all about freedom, inside and out.
You may not think your life is part of the body politic, but it is. Nearly all of us who live in the developed world carry the seeds of colonization in our being. Even if all this seems pretty far from your reality, it isn’t. It’s as close as your own mind, as near as the dominant / submissive relationships many of us tend to have with each other, without even realizing it. And also the relationship we have with our own psyches.
As I wrote last week when I was at the start of this journey, our freedom is inseparable from that of everyone else. I do not know exactly what it will take to wake up, only that we need to.
This post started with a photo of some the bombs found by the UXO Laos project. I’ll end with one of the monks on their early morning alms round from yesterday. It is, after all, beautiful here. Perhaps in the end that is what love is: beauty mixed up with tragedy.
Our task is to find ways to free ourselves from the suffering in our own minds as well as that we inflict upon others. Tragedy will always be part of human existence, but I believe we can do better about the kind of tragedy that gets generated from our own ignorance, greed, and aggression.
What a journey that will be.
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