by Michael Nagler

In the discourse that plays itself out on the nation’s bumper stickers there is a ‘dialogue’ (or at least a face-off) between two messages.  The first, and more familiar, is GOD SAVE AMERICA — not too prominent in West Marin, but we’ve all seen some.  The other is the reaction: GOD SAVE THE WHOLE WORLD — NO EXCEPTIONS.

Behind these two stark messages are two entirely different — and incompatible — worldviews.  I say incompatible because they are not merely rival positions.  The first belongs to the old and (I sincerely hope) dying paradigm of scarcity and competition, the second springs from an emerging paradigm of unity and cooperation. Therefore the ‘bless America (only)’ people do not understand that when we invoke blessings on everyone America is included: yes, America is part of the world.  Nobody is saying, for example, ‘God Bless Iran.’ That would only put us all back in the simplistic, dangerous ‘me against you’ confrontation we’re trying to rise above at last.

‘God bless everyone’ implies that there can be a way we can all benefit — that there can be a world without abrasive confrontation and deadly combat, without — dare we say it — winners and losers. Such a wide difference in vision cannot be resolved, of course, by honking when we pass one another on Highway One. The combative style of our political culture means that, unfortunately, there has been no useful dialogue at all between the two communities — and that is what we must address.

Why am I saying this right now?  Because a number of Americans were offended when President Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.  They are clearly of the ‘God bless America’ persuasion, where not just material goods like oil or water but spiritual forces like respect and compassion are forced into their worldview of scarcity, though as we all experience, the more we respect others the more we rise in respect ourselves (and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” as Martin Luther King, Jr said from his prison cell in Birmingham in 1963). We should, therefore, appreciate why some individuals were shocked at the President’s gesture — but we should do everything we can to help them be proud of our President for doing such a thing.  Look how far he has already brought us: in 1988 when it came to light that the U.S. Cruiser Vincennes had shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 civilian passengers onboard, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children, Vice President George H. W. Bush stated, “I don’t care what the facts are.  I will never apologize for the American people.” Did this blind patriotism not lead us into the regime of spying, torture, and needless war that caused us so much grief and the loss of our global position — even our meaning in history?

President Obama, by contrast, is more like the soon-to-be-President Mandela who publically took the hand of his arch-rival, F.W. deKlerk, and said, “I am proud to hold your hand—for us to go forward together. . . . Let us work together to end division.”  And the world applauded (Mandela and de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993). The President has made some decisions that make me cringe, and he will make more; but the one thing beyond doubt is that by being the kind of human being he is he has restored dignity to his office — and every one of us in the process.

Also beyond doubt is that we have to help our narrowly patriotic friends out of their old and almost certainly dying paradigm of win/lose, of scarcity and competition.  This will never be done by showing them disrespect (nothing good every comes of showing another person disrespect). As I’ve argued before, we need to reach out to these friends and convince them that we mean them and their America no harm.  On the contrary, we’re trying to create the only conditions that will help us all to thrive.

by Michael Nagler

One of the things we’ve been saying and hearing about us lately is that what we are is as significant as what we do. Not that we’d find it easy to define what we are as a group; but it’s worth a try because the way people are forming new associations today is itself a key part of the revolution, paradigm shift, or whatever it shall be called.  Just as the struggling rebels in the Spanish Civil War congealed into “affinity groups” that live on today in the caracoles of indigenous Mexican movements — and of course the affinity groups of grassroots protests — so also, if less romantically, groups and communities are finding their way into non-standard forms of organizing. And we are one of them.

Michael Nagler and Rev. Heng Sure at a Hope Tank.

Let me share with you just one idea that emerged from a recent hope tank.  It started

when we were reviewing the appalling statistics about soldier and veteran suicides, here and in Israel, with some recent documentaries about ‘basic training’ for military service at the back of our minds.  Like many hope tank ideas, it’s very simple.  Here’s a moral compass: never degrade a human being. For any reason.  You can then go to any institution in the present system and ask yourself, as Gandhi did, is this sound, would it be sound if modified, or must it be tossed aside.  Do you want to defend the country?  Fine, but do not dare to dehumanize prospective soldiers to do it.  Do you want protection from crime?  Prisons?  You can have anything you want, but not if you have to dehumanize people (including yourself) and lock them away. Do you want a sound economy?  No problem, but if you have to lie to people and make them feel empty and insecure, if you have to  distract them from seeing own their inner resources, you are doing irreparable harm for a small good, and that’s not allowed.

This is an idea, of course, not a plan.  Some hope tank ideas roll right out into projects, others just help to fill in the ‘story’ of the future toward which humanity is feeling its way. We need both.

The other two ingredients of our life are guests and projects.  Sometimes they’re both: this month we were visited by Prof. Elizabeth Lozano of Loyola University who came to know of us when a friend who has too many books gave her The Search for a Nonviolent Future. Elizabeth is Colombian, and went back there, armed with her social science skills and the nonviolence models in Search to visit and study those islands of courage in the midst of extreme and unrelenting violence — the peace communities.  The talk we had her give here in town, filmed and taped, may end up part of the three-volume book I am coediting for Praeger right now, Peace Movements Worldwide. (OK, that’s not technically a Metta project, but the line is blurry).

As one of our newest and youngest, UC freshman Justine Parkin said recently, “The days I spend time with Metta are always the best of my week.”  Now that Chris and Audrey have stepped up so impressively to the challenge of organizing this summer’s Mentors program (they were mentees in it themselves just last year), I hope there will be many more good days for many such idealistic, capable, visionary and smart young people.  And that we can find ways to make you part of us.

by Shannon Wills

To the Metta community, the random reader, the seeker of nonviolent Truth…
I write to share with you a short story of what it feels like to be at Metta. I do not think you will be disappointed.
Step inside the Metta office. Find a cushion for yourself among the books and computers in various stages of use and over-use, and the plants, in various stages of growth and expression. This is a room well-worn for a good cause. You’ll see six or seven people doing work in a space fit for, um, three. And you will see on one wall, posted up with thumbtacks, a handwritten sign that reads, “We are not leaderless. We are leader-full.”
Listen to us talk over breakfast about news, nonviolence, and both of them together. Feel the tension and release in the air, as we challenge each other under pressure and work through the challenges together. Smile at the ways we all make each other laugh, for instance, challenging each other to speak “nonviolent” language (“I’ll shoot you an email” is simply not allowed to pass without sidelong glances and a few serious chuckles in our office). And sense the undercurrent, beneath the excited conversations, the secret revealed by those jokes and laughter: something is brewing at Metta, and that something is nonviolence.
Nonviolence is not just a word in our name; it is something you can feel here!
Gandhi, though certainly not our only model at Metta, is probably our most oft-cited exemplar of what it means to be a nonviolent warrior. He understood that nonviolence is its own source of power, and perhaps because of that, he called nonviolence “the weapon of the brave.”
Gandhi famously replied, when someone once asked him what message he wanted to share with his audience, “My life is my message.” When he said those words, he was not making a light statement. What on Earth does it mean to live a life that is a message? For Gandhi, it meant living a life in constant pursuit of the Truth, with nonviolence his tool and his chariot. Gandhi’s nonviolence is not passivity, and it is not for the meek. It is an action, one for the most courageous of souls, and it is not something you can know. It is something you have to do.
So when your “job” is to teach people about nonviolence, as it is for us at Metta, how do you do that? First of all, we’re finding, you have to be brave, even brave enough to admit when you have no idea what you’re doing! And then, you have to try to live the message.
We are not all experts in nonviolence here at Metta. Indeed, though we are sometimes quite adept at working with the concepts of principled nonviolence, other times we find we are learning it as we go, and we may even have to jump headlong into our fears and our deeply-conditioned habits in order to do it.
At Metta, as in life, we sometimes “hit a wall” and are left wondering where to go next. Human relationships and organizational imperatives are not all smooth, even in an organization based so consciously on respect and compassion. I tell you, it is not easy to be shown your assumptions repeatedly, to engage people when you want to avoid them, to speak up when you want to be quiet, to take responsibility when you want someone else to carry the load.
So when we run up against our beliefs, desires, and differing opinions, we continually have to check ourselves, to step back and allow ourselves to think of the most nonviolent option before proceeding. This is not merely a case of us asking ourselves, “What would Gandhi do?,” or something of the like. It is, rather, a watching, a patience, a natural response, developing organically out of this environment of pure inclusion, sincere nonjudgment, and deep dedication to compassion and truth.
Hence, we find ourselves suddenly doing nonviolence at Metta, in a way that has taken me, at least, by surprise. As one week dissolves into another and months of work accumulate behind and ahead of us, the time spent engaged in the work becomes more and more its own reward, a transformative force that teaches what no philosophy can. Nonviolence ceases to be a concept we promote, and becomes, simply, an experience.
Moreover, as I act out this “role” as a nonviolent warrior, I find that it is losing the character of a role, and is slowly beginning to show itself as a force born from my own nature. I have been utterly shocked when I have felt nonviolence coming through me as a result of my thoughts and actions. And it is not just me that is feeling this; I know that others at Metta have felt the same force coming through them, and we have felt it together, as we move through difficulties to places of expansion and creativity that astound us all. (When an administrative decision or a budget consideration can turn into a transformative interaction, well, you know you’ve really got something!)
Gandhi says, “My life is my message.” Please listen. Your life is your message, too. All of us, when we speak, when we eat, when we meet a stranger on the street, are potential instruments of nonviolence. We are doing it, or not doing it, all the time.
So, take our story. Create your own, or share with us (and everyone) a story you’ve already created. Find or build a sangha or fellowship, a group of people with the courage to act with nonviolence, to nourish you when you forget to do it, and to push you when you are not willing or able to push yourself. The cushions, the computers, the plants, the handwritten signs are not necessary to your success! But your bravery is. It is the weapon of the nonviolent warrior. And it is so worth it. Pick it up, and transform your life.

Perhaps this is a big part of it. But how do we move from what we have today to a system of abundance and trust? To cop a phrase from another friend: I don’t know, but I trust ”We” (collectively) do.

Lets not limit our focus to external, material solutions such as high-tech transportation systems and sustainable energy harvesting — important as these are! — and not even to external social structures at the meso (group), macro (nation) and mega levels (region) — important as all of these are! What if we look at the power that operates within each one of us? Ask yourself: what kind of power am I employing right now, and on a daily basis? Threat power? Do I demand that something be done, implicitly threatening to withhold my benevolence or praise if it is not? Exchange power? Am I taken care of solely because of the greenish paper that I give in return? Or do I employ integrative power? Do I speak and act on the deepest truth I know, trusting that it will bring us closer together, align us with what know to be the unity of all life?

And when we are brought closer, then perhaps we can listen to each other — truly listen — and collaborate in creating the world we would all like to see — all of us. Because no one person, or group, or institution has the answer. Surely we must realize this by now. But that is a beautiful aspect of human life, and of life on this planet: we inter-are.

So when we hear that technology is the answer, let’s think of things like nonviolence, lets think of gift-economy (both employ integrative power) — and then lets think of whether or not each of our internal operating systems are upgraded to the most evolved social-spiritual technology.

by Erika Christie

In Spring of 2007, just months before the “Saffron Revolution”, I spent four weeks traveling through Burma. Like hundreds of other travelers every year, in Mandalay I visited the home of the Moustache Brothers, the trio of comedians- two brothers and a cousin- of whom two were imprisoned with hard labor after a 1996 performance that poked fun at the military junta. They are banned from performing for Burmese audiences and are under constant surveillance from the government, but are allowed by the regime to carry on their politically dissident theatre in front of nightly audiences of a dozen or so western tourists. This is beyond any sensemaking, and it was in that context that I, a student of nonviolence studying in a class that I had never attended (downloading Michael Nagler’s PACS164 course each week as the new lectures were posted) and whose professor did not yet know that I existed, walked into an an otherwise unremarkable house and shook the hands of the two men who famously “went to prison for seven years because of a joke”. It felt as if I was traveling outside of the bounds of the physical world.

Later, in Bagan, I spent an evening at a tea house where I met up with a trishaw driver I’d hired earlier that day. He had very little English and had been drinking. Pulling two five kyat notes out of his wallet, he placed them on the table side-by-side. One was new, the other was an old, faded banknote from the Union of Burma. “You know his daughter?” he said pointing to the image if General Aung San. I said yes and he smiled. Then he picked up the newer five kyat note and made a small tear in it. “See this? New money. Rips so easy. Worth nothing, not real. The old money, it never rip… you go like this,” he pulled and jerked the old Union of Burma note back and forth, smiling: “See, no rip.” Indicating the new money lying on the table he shook his head: “That, that not the real.” He clasped the note bearing General Aung San’s likeness in his hand and held it up. “This?” he said squeezing it in his fist, “This the real.”

You can feel it when you are there. Burma feels unreal. The thousands of ancient pagodas scattered across the landscape provide an apt setting for a country caught in a kind of waking dream. Everyone in Burma knows the regime is a lie, that this is an unreality.  The dissenting monks know it. The comedians know it. Grandmothers know it. My trishaw drivers all knew it. You can believe the generals know it too. They can kill or imprison anyone they want, but it only delays the inevitable. And yet nothing moves. No where in the world is the internal, mental struggle for truth more explicit than in Burma. Like a sleeper who is aware that he is in a dream but can’t wake up, beneath the struggle against the junta itself is the struggle to understand how a lie so obvious an hasn’t yet lost its power.

In Burma, everyone is under house arrest. People live in fear of government informants and spies, who are believed to be literally everywhere, so people will not discuss politics with their neighbors, friends, or even their family members. The junta sees to it that there is rarely electricity after dark. That combined with the crumbling infrastructure- the potholes, the open sewers, the tendency for pieces of sidewalk to unexpectedly give way under your feet and plunge you to your death- make it impractical for people to do much of anything outside their homes after the sun sets at about six pm each evening. Flashlights are indispensable in Burma, but the government sees to it that the only available batteries are expensive and weak. (Flooding the country with hand-powered flashlights – or even better, the materials and knowledge of how to make them – would not be a bad idea.)

The few people who were willing to speak to a foriegner about the situtation expressed the same thought: “We can only hope that someday the generals will decide to change.” At the time, this frustrated me, as it sounded like resignation. I now read it as their profound understanding that the situation in Burma is determined not by guns but by minds, and that change can only come when those who are still clinging to the lie finally let go.