Over dinner with two of our older friends, she shared with us the following meditation: “Breathe in peace; breathe out love.” I stopped eating, put down my fork, and practiced what she shared. Her words resonated deep inside me, and I was very grateful that she had shared it with us. Later in the evening, upon reflection, I asked myself an important question: What is peace?
I think the challenge of this word is that it is often defined by it’s opposite, namely that peace is the opposite of violence and war. However, I find this definition lacking, because the word is being defined by what it is not rather than being defined by what it actually is.
The dictionary tells us that peace is “the freedom from disturbance,” or “tranquility.” It also defines peace as “a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.” I find all three of these definitions to lack depth.
Some authors define peace as “a stress-free state of security and calmness that comes when there is no fighting or war.” Others say that peace happens “when everything [is] coexisting in perfect harmony and freedom.” While these definitions are an improvement over the former ones, I still find they lack a sense of wholeness. Therefore, I continued to search.
After much reading, continued reflection, and many in-depth discussions with others, I began to understand that peace starts with a level of consciousness, i.e. a unitive perspective about life that is felt, understood, and integrative. It continues with the blending of consciousness and intention, which is then translated into action. In a world filled with violence, hatred, and persecution, I believe that the integration of consciousness, intention, and action are vital. But in order to achieve this level of integration, we need to improve our ability to connect, cooperate, and communicate.
To better connect with others, we must first better connect with ourself. While this sounds simple, it is neither simple or easy. The reason being that this level of inner connection often involves taking stock of what we believe and what we are feeling. The result of which often leads to in-depth reflection, which can, at times, lead to reframing, and reinterpretation of our core beliefs. And the outcome of such action is usually a change in how we see ourselves and the world around us.
From this foundation of inner connection and alignment, we must then decide how we are going to connect with others. With the echo of the pandemic still ringing in our lives, we must rekindle the clarity gleaned from surviving this global experience and remember that we we are all in this together. For example, during the pandemic, we were banging pots and pans each evening to celebrate and honor the healthcare providers, essential personnel, and others who were caring for our family, friends and neighbors.
Now, we must continue this courageous clarity, and begin moving forward based on the premise that each person is special and unique. The core principle of Buddhist psychology is to “see the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings,” writes Jack Kornfield in his book, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (Bantam Books, 2008). Quakers also start from the same place, believing that there is that of God in every person. In essence, the pathway to peace starts by seeing and recognizing the inner goodness and dignity in all people. This is the starting place to breathing in peace and breathing out love.
Next, the capacity to cooperate and collaborate with others is very important to peace and peace making. It is how consciousness and intention are transformed into action. It is where the unitive nature of peace becomes real.
Yet in the beginning, the ability to come together and to collaborate well with others starts with relationship building. People need to trust each other and to have a relationship-centric approach to peace more than just a solutions focus or a “let’s get it done” mentality. The difficulty of this approach is that it will require us to step outside our comfort zone bubbles, and engage in dialogue with others who may not think the same as us. American author and journalist, Bill Bishop noted that we all live now in “balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible.” This is not the way forward.
Brene Brown in her book, Braving The Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (Random House, 2017), notes that “… we don’t derive strength from our rugged individualism, but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together. Our neural, hormonal, and genetic makeup support interdependence over independence.” And to create this interdependence, we must have a relationship centric approach to peace and peace making. Through local problem solving and local relationship building activities, which engage a diversity of people from different backgrounds and perspectives, we can generate positive change and positive results.
Yet, in order to do this level of work, we must learn how to communicate in a respectful manner. We must learn how to speak the language of peace in order to generate the feeling of peace. Many people think this translates into speaking clearly and often. However, the best and most effective forms of collaboration and cooperation I have witnessed over multiple decades, always starts with better listening rather than better talking. The goal, referencing an old Stephen Covey adage, is to “seek first to understand, second to be understood.”
The only way to understand better is to create and maintain safe relational spaces. And to recognize that each of us suffer from two common problems. Adam Grant in his book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know (Viking, 2021), notes that many of us get caught in confirmation bias, i.e. “seeing what we expect to see,” and desirability bias, i.e. “seeing what we want to see.” While these are normal, the challenge for us is to remember that peace is the sum of relational change, not just systems change. By building trust through being trust-worthy and through respectful communication, we are showing up for our collective moments of joy and pain, paying attention to the suffering of all, and honoring the dignity of all, no matter what community they live in.
For me, Ryan Holiday in his book, Stillness Is The Key (Portfolio/Penguin, 2019) captured this best when he wrote, “The space between your ears - that’s yours. You don’t just have to control what gets in, you also have to control what goes on in there.” When we grasp that inner clarity, alignment, and connection are the precursors to outer actions, alignment, and connection, then we will rediscover the feeling and the experience of peace in a whole new way.
With the goal of creating a sane and safe world, we must get past the cognitive dissonance that we are currently experiencing and actively engage in peace-making. As noted before, this may require us to step outside our comfort zone bubble. It may require us to focus on making and maintaining connections through cooperation and collaboration. It also may require us to engage in respectful communication as we walk the pathway to a unitive peace. And we must remember, to paraphrase Einstein, we can not solve problems with the same consciousness that caused the problems in the first place.
But as we do this vital work of peace-making, which begins with the union of consciousness and intention, we will experience something very unique. We will experience being broken open through a transformation of consciousness, rather than broken apart by the problems of the world. As this happens, we will remember and understand the challenges and frailty of the human condition, and also the miraculous choice to breath in peace and breath our love on a daily basis. And our lives, and subsequently the world will be a better place because of this choice.
© Geery Howe 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment