Opening reading: From Jack Kornfield: My simple prayer is that in all things I learn to love well. That I learn to touch the ever-changing seasons of life with a great heart of compassion. That I live with the peace and justice I wish for the earth.
Definitions of peace from dictionary.com include:
1. The normal nonwarring condition of a nation
2. The mutual harmony between people and groups
3. The normal freedom from violence
4. Freedom of mind from annoyance
Note the use of the word “normal.” Normal freedom from violence; the normal nonwarring state of a nation. Many religions would agree that peace is the normal state – calm abiding, basic goodness, ordinary good will. War, then, is the aberration; the state that is added on, that is made to happen.
In Divinity School discussion groups, we were given scenarios to work with: For example, the peaceful village where harmony prevails; then, a warring group moves into the area and begins to raid, to harm, to take what’s not theirs from the peaceful ones; the village council meets, and discusses the problem: We are peaceful. What do we do? We have no weapons except for hunting. How do we meet this threat without making matters worse? Acquiesce? Move? Negotiate? Challenge them? Fight back a little? A lot? Invade before we’re invaded?
Imagine peace?
In our breakout discussion groups of 8 to 10 people, most of us considering ourselves to be peace-makers, we would break down one at a time, some more so than others: One person said, “All right, it’s the definition of just war; I’d defend the village.” Another said, “If negotiations didn’t work – and they probably wouldn’t—I’d vote for killing them before they kill us.” Yet another: “Bullies need a show of force, for their own good, to make them stop, before they do more harm.” And another, “ In the Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna was advised by Krishna to do his job, and be the best soldier he could be.” Realizations abounded: One person said, “I guess I should take this peace symbol off my backpack.” There were some hold-outs for peaceful means. For example: It’s not up to us; there are greater forces at work. What about karma? God’s will? And: Hate never stops hate; violence begets violence. Or: All people lose their goodness in the heat of the battle; hatred and justifications grow on all sides when there’s violence.
Scenarios like this made me realize the limits of my own peacefulness. And, gave me compassion for all the ways that people defend themselves. Because all of those ways live in me too. I have a good friend who is a correction officer in a county jail; he says he trains officers to make sure they know that “fight makes fight.” Belligerence leads to more belligerence, to escalation. He teaches them not to escalate. But he also teaches them to respond with force if necessary.
Necessary force? How do we moderate all of these questions? We know that fight makes fight, and yet how do we live with that knowledge in our ordinary lives? How do we live with it when we feel we must defend ourselves?
Let’s come back to the last definition of peace-- freedom of mind from annoyance – that would be peace of mind. How many of us have peace of mind? How often? for how long-- do we have peace of mind? It’s easy to want peace, but – sometimes -- not so easy to be peaceful, to have the freedom of peace of mind -- In a traffic jam, pressing numbers on a telephone trying to find that person who wants to “better serve you,” waiting in line, holding steady in a tough conversation where no one seems to be getting your point . . .
There’s a Buddhist teaching about being grateful to your enemies. Christianity teaches love your enemies. I don’t know which is harder – being grateful to them or loving them! You might be able to think of someone who causes your thoughts to reel, your blood pressure to rise, your face to frown – just for a moment, think of a person or a situation that does this to you. How can you be grateful for this? The Dalai Lama says that because he knows he doesn’t think clearly when he’s angry, he can be grateful to his enemies for forcing him to learn patience, so he can think clearly, so he can act from wisdom, instead of rage. He also says something about looking in a mirror when we’re angry or to look at someone else when they are angry, to remember the ugliness of anger. I read about the Dalai Lama’s anger once, when he was responding to accusations that he was responsible for the demonstrations that led to violence in Tibet a few months before the Beijing Olympics. He said that he had never encouraged any response other than peaceful means from Tibet to China and that he would resign if someone found evidence that that were so. He asked for a thorough examination of all of his communications and, he added, they could examine his urine and his stool too, but he would not be accused of encouraging violence. That seemed to pretty much end the public part of the accusation. HHDL illustrates that peaceful means can have a sharp edge too. There’s a time and place for impassioned responses. So, the teaching goes: be grateful to our enemies; they teach us patience; they teach us to find clear ways to address difficult questions. They encourage our creativity. They provide the opportunity for self-reflection. The Dalai Lama admits to his own difficulties, his own efforts to work with anger, and to return to a peaceful mind, and says that the only thing he can rely on, in the end, is his own sincere motivation to do so. He also reminds us that we’re just visitors here, in this life-- 90 to 100 years at most -- so, why squander our time squabbling?, he asks. The shortness of time also highlights our common ground with all of humanity, friends and enemies alike. None of us, as the saying goes, makes it out alive. So how to live as though we know that? How to live with heart and clarity and awareness in our ordinary lives? How to be fearlessly ourselves? How often does fear break into our wish for peace? We can see the fear and defensiveness internationally, but what about personally?
Mark Twain, known for his active imagination, said, Some of the worst things in my life never happened. Some of the worst things we imagine will never happen. And yet we can spend days and weeks and years preparing for the eventuality that they might, armoring and defending ourselves, getting ready for battle. Auden wrote a version of the golden rule that I like a lot: Love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart. We could make our own: Love your messed up neighbor with all your wounded heart. And: Love your own flawed and humble self with all your own flawed and humbled heart. We’re all in this together.
I’d like to share a meditation with you. The words go like this: May I be filled with loving kindness and compassion; may I be peaceful and at ease; may I be happy and free; may I be safe from inner and outer danger. I’ll say the words and again and, if you’d like to, simply direct them toward yourself. The next part goes out to those you love. Imagine people you care about, and silently repeat the words to them: may you be filled with loving kindness and compassion; may you be happy and free; may you be peaceful and at ease; may you be safe from inner and outer danger. Once again, and this time for people toward whom we are neutral; people we pass by but don’t really know. A meditation teacher , Joseph Goldstein, tells a story of wishing well to such a person. He decided to offer loving kindness to the gardener at the monastery where he was staying. He didn’t know the fellow; the gardener was always busy at work and never looked up at passers-by. So each time Joseph would walk by the gardener, he would silently go through the blessing: may you be filled with loving kindness and compassion, and so on. Now, the gardener never knew, but something happened. When I was listening to this story I thought, oh the gardener will look up and smile at him. That’s not what happened. The gardener just kept on gardening. What happened is that Joseph realized how much he looked forward to seeing the gardener because each time he saw him he would feel happy. And finally, one that some people find hard: to say the loving kindness meditation for enemies. I have a story about this one too. Randy, my husband, and I were doing this meditation together at a retreat several years ago. We couldn’t think of any enemies. Then I thought of Mrs. Olsen, my eighth grade teacher who sent me to the hall for something I didn’t do. I could still remember how embarrassed and angry I was. So, sort of as a joke, we decided to use Mrs. Olsen as the focus for the enemy. We started: May Mrs. Olsen be filled with loving kindness and compassion. We tried not to laugh, but it struck us really funny. May Mrs. Olsen be peaceful and at ease. By then we were stuffing our faces against each other to keep from laughing. And by the time we got to, “May Mrs. Olsen be happy and free,” we lost it altogether. I don’t know if Mrs. Olsen feels happy and free, but when I do think of her now, I smile. Who can know the power of words? Thich Nhat Hahn teaches that we all have seeds of peace and seeds of anger. In a very simple and profound teaching he describes watering the seeds of peace in our lives, by paying attention to them, and leaving the seeds of anger to languish, without making them at home in our lives, without encouraging them to sprout.
In 2004, Randy and I took a cross-country motorcycle ride – you may have read abt it in Paula Silbey’s interview of me that was in a newsletter earlier this year. The motorcycle ride was four years ago, in the summer, when the maps of red states and blue states were showing up everywhere, when many people had many opinions about “those people” who were not like them, when divisive politics seemed overwhelming. We were on a motorcycle that summer riding through red states and blue states and purple states -- which in reality, on the ground, are mostly brown and green states. We met people in all those states, people we came to care about after sometimes very brief encounters. I came home with new eyes. I came home realizing that we’re all more alike than we think we are. I’ll close with a poem from Wislawa Szymborska, “A Contribution to Statistics.”
Out of a hundred people / those who always know better --fifty-two, doubting every step / --nearly all the rest, glad to lend a hand / if it doesn’t take too long --as high as forty-nine, always good / because they can’t be otherwise --four, well, maybe five, able to admire without envy / --eighteen, living in constant fear/ of someone or something --seventy-seven, capable of happiness / --twenty-something tops, harmless singly,/ savage in crowds /--half at least, cruel/ when forced by circumstances --better not to know / even ballpark figures, wise after the fact / --just a couple more than wise before it, taking only things from life / --forty / (I wish I were wrong), hunched in pain, / no flashlight in the dark --eighty-three / sooner or later, worthy of compassion / --ninety nine, Mortal /--a hundred out of a hundred. Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.
The closing words are from Diane Ackerman: In the name of daybreak/ and the eyelids of morning/ and the wayfaring moon/ I swear I will not dishonor / my soul with hatred,/ but offer myself humbly/ as a guardian of nature/ as a healer of misery/ as a messenger of wonder/ as an architect of peace/ . . ./ I will honor all life/ wherever and in whatever form / it may dwell on Earth my home/ and in the mansions of the stars.