"If we want to be safe, we have to build safety. What can we build to be safe? Not a fortress, not bombs or airplanes. The United States of America is very powerful in terms of armies and weapons, but the people living in America do not feel safe. Many people are thinking of safety in terms of weapons and armies, but even with a powerful army and a stock of weapons, there are moments when the American people feel very frightened, very vulnerable. So there must be some other kind of practice we can take refuge in, another way to be safe. We can learn to build safety with our in-breath and our out-breath, with our steps, with the way we act or react, with a smile or a word, with our effort to restore communication.
"You cannot feel safe with the person who lives with you if you cannot communicate with him or her. You cannot feel safe when the other person does not look at you with sympathy, when you are not capable of looking at him or her with compassion. Safety can be built with your way of looking, your way of smiling, with your way of walking. It can build confidence. Show the other person that you are truly not harmful, that he is safe in your presence, in the way you think, the way you breathe, smile, and walk. Everything you do is peaceful. So by expressing your peace, your compassion, the other person feels very safe. And when the other person feels safe, you are safe. Safety is not an individual matter.
"A country cannot be safe if it doesn't do something to help other countries feel safe, too. We cannot just think of our own safety — because safety is not an individual matter. We have to think of the safety of other groups of people, of other nations, too. If the United States wants to have safety, then they have to take care of the safety of the people of other nations. If Great Britain wants safety, then people there have to think of the safety of other groups of people."
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