"Practicing peace as part of the green path can take many forms. As with the practices of understanding energy and working with desire, the opportunities are endless, arising continuously in all manner of contexts. If you offer this practice your full intention you will find that peacemaking and peacekeeping are part of what we do every day to support stability in our lives. We cannot function well under conditions of chaos and conflict; some measure of peace and equilibrium is necessary for life to flourish. But it is remarkable how much of our life energy is spent in sparring with ourselves or others, or being fearful of attack, or cleaning up the aftermath of conflict. Working toward peace is something we cultivate with persistent effort, learning our way into the practice. Peace with others, peace with the earth, peace within our hearts — each of these can reinforce our motivation to keep peacemaking at the center of the green practice path.

"We can approach the practice of peace in a systematic way, observing our own behaviors and thoughts as we deepen our attention to peacemaking. I find it helpful to think in terms of body, speech, and mind as major arenas of effort. Peace work with the body is a form of caretaking of the most intimate environment we inhabit, our own flesh and blood. Each person has their own triggers of conflict, their own expressions of resistance. It is important to honor the history of your own experience and how that experience has been recorded in the memory cells of the body. You might try making a map of your own conflict history to see what it can tell you. Contemplative practices can increase awareness of internal fighting or defense reactions and also entrain new patterns that calm the body. Tai chi and yoga, for example, can literally change your neural and hormonal flow patterns. Meditation and prayer also calm the body through stillness and centering. As these forms of peace-building become familiar in the social landscape, more environmentalists are coming to see the long-term benefits of contemplative body practice.

"Engrained speech habits also benefit from committing to peace work. Environmentalists, unfortunately, have a reputation for self-righteous blaming and poor listening. We seem to be so anxious to be heard that we are impatient with hearing others' perspectives. It is too easy to lash out at the parties responsible for causing environmental suffering. 'Right speech' is one of the spokes in the wheel of the Buddhist Eightfold Path. It means not lying, not gossiping, not slandering, and not putting others down to puff yourself up. It means not participating in oppressive speech that silences others' voices. Practicing right speech is a practice in humility, a real effort to remember that your words are only one point of view. Harsh or thoughtless words so easily derail the peacemaking process. This is very sobering. The slow cultivation of cooperative relationships is a fragile thing that thrives best on kind speech.

"Peace-building in the mind is perhaps the most challenging practice in terms of peace work. We believe our thoughts are invisible to others because we think them within the privacy of our own minds. But thoughts guide speech and behavior, reflecting a lifetime of conditioning that we only partially understand. Fighting thoughts displace peace-building thoughts because they so quickly mobilize the attack-and-defend system. If you are working to save something that matters dearly to you, you may be using fighting thoughts to keep yourself energized. But fighting thoughts need enemies to blame and wrongs to be righted. It can be pretty limiting and draining to rely on fighting thoughts for momentum. I am recommending peace-building practice for the mind as a long-term investment in an approach that is ultimately more sustainable.

"It has taken me some time to come to this conclusion. I grew up in a culture of argument; whatever the issue, everyone in my family wanted to prove they were right, and others were therefore wrong. We did not seem to be able to have a reasonable discussion with different points of view. Our household was characterized by constant competition for power based on who could win the most arguments. Family order, personality, and gender dynamics all played into this, but no matter how much my mother tried to teach us about social justice, we persisted in our put-downs. These constant battles drove me out into the woods behind our house where I sought silence and refuge. The trees, the beautiful yogis of the forest, became my teachers of peace practice.

"Turning to nature as practice partner comes easily for many on the green path. If you find pleasure in hiking, camping, canoeing, or any of the many ways of being in nature, you likely have had some moments of profound peace outside. The big sky bright with stars, the full moon rising in the clouds, the deep quiet of snow in the woods. We receive these gifts and they help us remember that peace exists; it is part of our world already. (This is not to say that nature is always calm; we know that storms come, tempests blow, trees fall and crack into a million splinters.) And peace in nature is found not only in wild areas. Walking by the fields on the edge of town or quietly appreciating the backyard tree — these, too, are portals to peace practice.

"Meditation teachers encourage us to find this place of peace in ourselves through conscious breathing. When we are upset or filled with conflict, our ch'i is flying everywhere, looking for something to hit or running to get out of a situation. If we stop for a moment and concentrate on our breathing, we bring our awareness back to the body and return home. If the anger cannot be calmed in a few breaths, we can try walking meditation, aligning the breath with our steps, letting the earth support us. These simple breathing practices are very grounding. They stop the conflict from escalating; they allow us to be present with ourselves and to find a touchstone of reassurance in the solid ground. Maha Ghosananda, sometimes called the Gandhi of Cambodia, explained that 'making peace must be done everyday. It is like walking. You have to make every step. If you forget a step, then you fall down . . . If we protect the world, we protect ourselves. If we harm the world, we harm ourselves. We are in the same boat. Therefore, we must take care of the boat.' "