Spirituality & Practice

"It would not be a bad idea if the UN General Assembly turned into a massive sensitivity group for a while. If talk about 'what I think I hear you saying' or how 'I'm feeling threatened right now' could become the officially required language for international discussion, some deeply felt grievances might actually be aired in a way that could promote healing rather than further alienation. "I wish the Christian churches could offer some guidance for this kind of organizational therapy. After all, we are supposed to be a model community in which other people can see how God intends diverse individuals and groups to get along. "Unfortunately, that is not very often how it works. The accusatory rhetoric at the United Nations is not all that different in tone from the way Christians argue with each other. Here is an example from the seventeenth century, when the Puritans and the Quakers were engaged in angry debates: The great Puritan preacher Richard Baxter wrote a pamphlet in which he lumped the Quakers with 'drunkards, swearers, whore mongers, and sensual wretches' and other 'miserable creatures.' And then — just in case he had not yet insulted them enough — he insisted that Quakers are no better than 'Papists.' "The Quaker leader James Naylor announced that he was compelled 'by the Spirit of Jesus Christ' to respond to these harsh accusations. He proceeded to characterize his Puritan opponent as a 'Serpent,' a 'Liar,' a 'Child of the Devil,' a 'Cursed Hypocrite,' and a 'Dumb Dog.' "This is strong stuff. What makes it especially sad is that the angry talk often makes it difficult to get to the real issues. The debate between the Puritans and the Quakers was actually a rather interesting and helpful one. Both parties engaged in some serious biblical exposition; if the heavy rhetoric were removed, the discussion could easily appear to have been a friendly argument between Christians who have some important things to talk about. But I doubt that either group heard the helpful things the other side was saying. Too much angry rhetoric was in the air. "In the Israeli-PLO debates, both sides raise significant issues, ones that are not easily resolved — questions about ethnicity and nationhood, religious pluralism, national borders and so on. But they set up the conversation in such a way that these important matters were extremely difficult to discuss. "Let me be very clear. I am not advocating the naïve optimism that says all our problems would go away if only we could learn to communicate better. Taking strong convictions seriously means refusing to romanticize away our serious disagreements. In some cases, when we come to understand better what the other side really means to say we will find out that their view point is even worse than we thought at the outset. "But that is no reason for refusing to make the effort. If we end up disagreeing after all is said and done, then at least our disagreement will be an honest one."

Your nonviolence must shine through your speech, your action, your general behavior. A votary of nonviolence must cultivate a habit of unremitting toil, sleepless vigilance, ceaseless self-control.

I vow to erase from my vocabulary words that hurt and demean others such as dumb, good for nothing, and pond scum.

Words do not always manage to completely express a thought. Tears always allow us to see the full affection of a soul.

The next time you are about to unleash your venom on someone who has been absent-mindedly clumsy or cruel, remember the Hasidic spiritual tradition where making a person blush can be likened to a stabbing from within.

Sit together with your family And express your appreciation for each other. You can do this in rounds. Start with anyone. Dad, I really appreciate that you drive us everywhere. Milly, I really appreciate how kind you are to your cat. Mom, I appreciate that you make sure we eat good food. Continue the round, until everyone gives appreciation to one other person. Then do a second round, and a third, Until everyone has appreciated everyone else in the family. Do this every day for at least a week When you are all in the car, Or eating a meal. Notice not only how it makes people feel to be appreciated, But how it feels in you to give appreciation.

Jesus told his disciples to pray without ceasing, which seems impossible since daily life demands so much of our attention. Most of us find it much more difficult to pray outside the temple, but praying constantly requires using profanities, words spoken not in church but in the secular space of daily life. A good Lenten exercise would be to experiment with using non-churchy words in your daily prayer as a way to find a more natural and constant prayer-communion with God. Take a little time and reflect on a few of your most frequently used words and expressions as starting points for your prayer. What would your profanity prayer sound like?

Carry a special coin or metal in your pocket blessed for the purpose of strengthening your resolve not to engage in vicious gossip. When you are with people who are maligning someone, reach in your pocket and grasp the coin firmly with the intention that your clenched fist is akin to your clenched tongue. Say to yourself that for as long as you hold the coin in your hand, you will also hold your tongue.

It seems that our blame and negative speech seem to say more about ourselves than others. Think about the following process of investigating what speaking disparagingly can tell you about yourself. 1. Ask yourself, What does talking about this person in this way do for my own self-image? For example, do you feel better about yourself in some way when you fault someone else? Ask, How does speaking of this person's behavior as faults serve me? Why do I really do it? Does it justify your own behavior? Do you feel more accepted by the people you're with? Does it make you feel important? In other words, you may find that by saying another has faults, you feel you're not alone in your own perceived faults, or it makes you feel better — I'm bad, but he's worse. Either way, our speech can be a way to avoid the deep belief of being less than. 2. Try seeing yourself in the other person, and honestly try to find examples in yourself when you have been like the person you are discussing. Change the statement from "Harry is undependable" to "How am I undependable?" Watch for situations in which you may not follow through. In other words, look at your own behavior. The idea is to keep an open awareness about your behavior without judgment or even trying to change it, although that may happen quite naturally once you become aware of your actions. What is your experience now? How do you feel about this other person? About yourself? Perhaps you feel less judgmental of her, or perhaps you notice some guilt or some other feelings arise. 3. Now bring yourself into the dead spot by exercising the prohibitory aspect of the precept [I take up the way of speaking of others with openness and possibility — Not discussing the faults of others]. Stop yourself from speaking disparagingly about Harry. Ask yourself if, right in this moment, I do not find fault with Harry, what's the worst thing that could happen? Stay open. If any feelings, emotions, or bodily sensations arise, label them and rest with them, breathing in and out. Allow yourself to enter into Just This. This particular question brings us to the core of our behavior and if we stick it out, we can find what fuels it. In other words, what we get of speaking ill of others. If you're in a group, make an attempt to stop yourself from talking about others by removing yourself from the group or biting your tongue. Stay open to your reactions as above. 4. Now consider, What would your relationship to this person be if you simply acknowledged her behavior without finding fault with it?

"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.' "