From Interfaith Dialogue to a Religion of Nonviolence

A Personal Reflection from the Hickey Center’s Summer Course on Understanding World Religions

George Payne

Since 2005 the Brian and Jean Hickey Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue at Nazareth College has energetically helped students, faculty, religious leaders, and other working professionals to better understand the world’s great faith traditions.[1] Under the creative and compassionate guidance of Dr. Muhammad Shafiq, the Hickey Center has become an exceedingly valuable resource for our community.

So it was with high expectations that I enrolled in the Center’s 2012 Train the Trainers: Understanding World Religions and Interfaith Relations week-long course.  Before the program commenced participants were prepared to learn some necessary tools for respectful interfaith communication, to hear about people’s own religious experience, and to visit local places of worship.[2] The presenters included a Hindu professor of physics, a liberal and orthodox rabbi, followers of Sikhism, a Muslim Imam, as well as Christian ministers and Mormon laity. Sites of worship included a Hindu temple, Sikh gurdwara, Mormon chapel, Jewish synagogue, and the Islamic Center of Rochester.

After completing this training I gained a deeper appreciation for the diversity in Rochester’s religious community. I concluded that religion is indeed a precious gift to individuals, and that each religion makes a unique contribution to social justice and spiritual enlightenment. However, I also noticed that religion can become exclusive, intolerant, and can produce arrogance in its followers whenever devotees are encouraged to believe that their form of religious experience is better than someone else’s. I also learned that interfaith dialogue is the most effective way for our traumatized planet to progress in the direction of a nonviolent future.  Among the most basic benefits to healthy interfaith dialogue is the promotion of sympathy, increased admiration for cultural differences, growing mutual awareness, and the revelation that we are bound by love and compassion more than by class, race, and nationality. In the wake of the bloodiest and most ecologically depraved century in human history these skills are hardly luxuries. On the contrary, if the world community is to courageously face the epic challenges of nuclear proliferation, climate change, and global terrorism, it is vital that these skills be developed by as many people as possible.

There are of course major problems that escort the practice of interfaith dialogue. Interfaith dialogue is a complex and volatile enterprise. There are numerous pitfalls and stumbling blocks that prevent people from genuinely relating to each other in a manner that does not incite bad memories and moral repugnance. The philosopher Voltaire wryly observed that “if you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they dwell in peace.” Voltaire’s learned opinion does not lack veracity if we consider isolated cases like Europe during the Reformation, Northern Ireland during the “Troubles” and Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, yet if one earnestly appraises the annals of American history, they will find that even pluralistic societies spawn an alarming degree of violent prejudice.  Religion can be a powder keg even in liberal democracies; for when people agree to openly discuss the merits and demerits of religion, they often resort to unwarranted stereotypes and nasty accusations. This is an unfortunate custom that contributes to the propagation of the most despicable social ills plaguing the world today. Even the most casual pundit of religion will have little difficulty identifying its most blatant abuses. The Jesuit scientist Pascal put it this way: “Humans never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction.” With Pascal, I contend that almost every major religion has embraced and promulgated the justification of war, the oppression of women, anti-intellectualism, the division of families and other social groups, as well as the distortion of historical fact. In light of these abuses and defects, the failure of religious devotees to sincerely value diversity is a major problem that can only be addressed through a healthy communicative encounter based on the virtues of respect, fairness, humility, and genuine curiosity. Given religion’s penchant for exploitation and cruelty, it is absolutely crucial that interfaith skills be taught, developed and honed as vigorously as possible.[3]

Now that I have alluded to the importance of interfaith dialogue in all types of societies, it should be noted that one of my chief discoveries during the training was to recognize that mere communication between people of different religions is not sufficient by itself to foster mutual respect and learning.  It is one thing to simply intellectualize about different methodologies in prayer and meditation, but it is a far more influential experience to physically witness devotees worshipping with other followers in a building designed to mollify their most incapacitating existential fears. To simply theologize with a devotee outside of this sacred context removes the dimension of religious experience that actually has the power to animate and sustain their joyful allegiance.  There is no article in National Geographic that can substitute for this full bodied immersion experience, nor is there a documentary or television show that can visually and aromatically encapsulate the phenomenon of people worshiping together.  The significance of doing religion rather than merely talking about religion was summarized by the brilliant essayist C.K. Chesterton, who advised us to “let religion be less a theory and more of a love affair.” But in order for religion to be an authentic love affair, the lover must not hoard or dominate the primal source of his or her love. Religion will remain a priceless gift to individuals as long as the recipients of this gift do not believe that they inevitably deserved it in the first place or that they were the only one to have received it at all. The first delusion is an artifact of arrogance and it has many subtle manifestations. The second delusion is rooted in envy which inflames the disputes over dogma precipitating real acts of violence.  Without analyzing this psychological problem in more detail suffice it to say that as soon as devotees shun these two modes of self-delusion they will make tremendous progress towards promoting sustainable peace both in themselves and in the world.

Having turned our attention towards sustainable peace, the Catholic theologian Hans Kung has warned us that “there will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions, and there will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.” If sustainable peace is to be achieved in the world, it is imperative that religious devotees honor the uniqueness of their own tradition while being open to celebrating the traditions of others. Without this charitable exchange devotees will be controlled by an irrational hostility that diminishes the worth of other people’s ideas.  This being the case, it is uplifting to know that thousands if not millions of responsible men and women are taking the charge of interfaith dialogue seriously. For example, since the 1960’s there have been many Roman Catholics invested in changing the Catholic Church’s policy towards non-Christian religions. On October 13, 2007 many eminent Muslim leaders expanded their commitment to interfaith by endorsing and contributing to a manifesto titled, A Common Word Between Us and You.  And as recently as 2009 there has been a major interfaith dialogue conference held in Spain that attracted leaders of different faiths such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. These prominent examples supply us with just a minuscule sampling of interfaith initiatives occurring all over the world.

Finally, I want to add that as result of this training I have gained a more profound impression of ahimsa, which is a Sanskrit word that means non-injury in thought and deed to any living being. Although the concept of ahimsa originated in the Indian religion commonly known as Jainism, it has been interpreted and applied by spiritual geniuses including Jesus of Nazareth, the Buddha, Rumi, M.K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Mother Theresa.  After taking communion at the Hindu Temple of Rochester, meditating with a teacher from the Rochester Zen Center, eating sweets at the Sikh gurdwara, hearing the Orthodox Rabbi recite from the Torah at Beth Shalom, and praying with Muslims at the Islamic Center, it dawned on me that these rituals are all symbolic characteristics of ahimsa. Because of this training, the ideal of ahimsa is beginning to appear in my life as a marvelous synthesis of everything noble and veritable about pure religious experience. Once ahimsa is adopted as a personal lifestyle, the sinister aspects of religion begin to disintegrate.  In other words, as soon as devotees choose to stop giving refuge to harmful intentions towards other persons, animals or even insects, they can begin to live freely in the world without the shackling restraints of invented dogmas, contrived notions of individual superiority, or other debilitating self-delusions.  Conversely, religion without nonviolence becomes just another vehicle for hate, intolerance and jealously.  In starker terms, a religion that is afraid to make ahimsa its most important doctrine becomes the most efficient way to disseminate hate and jealously; for religion without ahimsa is merely a spoiled form of anthropomorphism. Perhaps author Anne Lamott articulated this best when she said, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

As a last thought I want to reiterate my gratitude to the Hickey Center for crafting this soul-fortifying training.  Far from being a leisurely pastime suited only for intellectually curious academics, interfaith dialogue must become a required skill for every citizen living in every nation of the world.  Let’s pray that courses like this one become more prevalent in the days ahead.

Some Well-known People from History Who Embody Ahimsa

1.  Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)
2. Cesar Estrada Chavez
3. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
4. Dorothy Day
5. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
6. Archbishop Desmond Tutu
7. Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (Rumi)
8. Albert Einstein
9. Jane Addams
10. Jiddu Krishnamurti
11. John Lewis
12. Jesus of Nazareth
13. Vinoba Bhave
14. Sojourner Truth
15. Aung San Suu Kyi
16. Edith Stein
17. Chief Joseph
18. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
19. Rabindranath Tagore
20. Abraham Joshua Heschel
21. Albert Schweitzer
22. Jane Goodall
23. Wangari Muta Maathai
24. Karol Jozef Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)
25. Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone (St. Francis of Assisi)
26. Paul of Tarsus (St. Paul)
27. Agnes Gouxha Bojaxhiu (Mother Theresa)
28. Khwāja Shamsu d-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Shīrāzī (Hāfez)
29. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
30. Susan B. Anthony
31. Howard Thurman
32. George Fox
33. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
34. Mahāvīra
35. John Dear
36. Tenzin Gyatso (The Dali Lama)
37. Kahlil Gibran
38. William Wilberforce
39. King Ashoka
40. John Woolman
41. John Muir
42. Vadana Shiva
43. Leymah Gbowee
44. Sister Helen Prejean
45. Julia Butterfly Hill
46. Martin Luther King, Jr.
47. Archbishop Oscar Romero
48. Swami Vivekananda
49. Henry David Thoreau
50. Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley
51. Thich Nhat Hanh
52. Lanza del Vasto
53. Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Núrí (Bahá’u'lláh)
54. Thomas Merton
55. Chief Black Kettle

 Criterion

• A radical commitment to nonviolence
• A cosmic sense of compassion that reaches out to all living beings
• An insatiable appetite for social justice
• A magnetic personality that attracts followers all over the world
• Fearlessness in the face of evil
• Spirituality based on the principles of love and persuasion rather than fear and coercion

compiled by George Payne

My Time at the M.K. Gandhi Institute

by Kevin Varkey

The first time I heard about the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence was around three months ago.  I distinctly remember frantically talking to anyone and everyone about possible summer internships, while at the same time writing papers for grad school and studying for my exams that were fast approaching. Needless to say, it was a very stressful time for me, as I was finishing up my first year of a Masters in Theological Studies at Boston University.

Thankfully, Brother Larry, the chaplain of BU’s Marsh Chapel got me in touch with Kit Miller, the director of the Gandhi Institute. I remember being slightly terrified but very excited, when Kit surprised me by calling me randomly during the day and then telling me that she had the other three staff members with her and that they were hoping to conduct a group interview via speakerphone. And so I heard the voices of George, Shannon, and Anna for the first time. They asked me about my views on Gandhi, nonviolence, my past experiences, and what I hoped to gain from working at the Gandhi Institute. I can’t really remember what exactly I told them in the midst of going through this verbal gauntlet (just kidding), but there was one thing in Kit’s questioning which really stood out to me. She kept asking me what I could teach them and what I could share and whether I had any particular skills or knowledge that I would be willing to teach to others.  I’ll be honest: this confused the hell out of me, because I had never been asked such a question before. Obviously, every other employer and internship wanted to know what my skill set was so I could help them complete assigned tasks, but Kit wasn’t asking me about my technical skills. Rather, she wanted to know what I knew about nonviolence, Gandhi, and social justice, and if I could teach others. Still a little confused, but very impressed, I said yes.  I had just gotten a first glimpse of the love, humility, and respect that the staff of the Gandhi Institute projects outwards as they work towards their goals. They truly look at everyone as equal partners in their quest for a just and better world; this is what made me want to intern there, and be a part of the Institute.

Only several days after getting here and meeting Kit, George, Shannon, and Anna, I was referring to the Gandhi Institute as if I had worked there all along. This is a testament to the loving and inclusive environment that they work hard to provide at the Gandhi house, and which I’m sure is felt by countless others who visit.

Another surprise was how much I would learn and be a part of in my two months’ time with the Institute. Within three weeks of my arrival, I had participated in a workshop on “Nonviolence and the Problem of Evil” led by George, walked alongside hundreds of other Rochester residents as they partook in Teen Empowerment’s peace march, and sat in on a meeting of Pathways to Peace as they discussed the problem of gang violence in Rochester and at-risk youth in the community.

Soon after this George and I participated in a weeklong seminar at Nazareth College entitled “Train the Trainers in Understanding World Religions and Interfaith Relations.” Led by Dr. Muhammad Shafiq and Rev. Gordon Webster, this workshop included lectures and presentations on different religions, dialogue between religions, and the rules and etiquette for discussing matters of faith between members of different faith traditions. We also visited a different house of worship on each day, including a Hindu temple, a Sikh gurdwara, a Mormon chapel, and an Orthodox Jewish synagogue. It was an incredible learning experience and I truly felt humbled to have been a part of such wonderful dialogue and understanding between people of different faiths.

Soon after that I was exposed to Joanna Macy’s “The Work that Reconnects” at Anna and Shannon’s community building barbecue that was a great success. It was the first time I had ever really heard of Joanna Macy and her incredible work, but the idea that all beings are radically interconnected and interdependent was a view that appealed to me immediately. The exercises and conversations we had further instilled the sense of this truth in me.

I had another taste of Joanna Macy and her work during the Gandhi Institute’s 4-day Nonviolence and the Work that Reconnects Summer Intensive. During the first two days, I learned even more about Gandhi and nonviolence from George, as well as listening to guest lecturers Dr. V.V. Raman and Bob Good. I also had the honor of presenting for an hour and a half on my own topic, “Nonviolence and Religion.” Although I was a little nervous, I was incredibly grateful to be given the opportunity to present on a topic that I had studied and learned about for so long, and which I was very passionate about. The third and fourth days of the Intensive were spent learning more about Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnects. Anna and Shannon’s exercises and activities brought our entire group closer together and led to some incredibly emotional scenes as we shared our pains, worries, and joys with each other. It was a beautiful experience that I shall never forget.

I also greatly enjoyed the work party that we organized in the time that I was here. It was really inspiring to see so many people from the neighborhood working together to dig up dirt to create garden beds, mow the lawn, and even pull weeds. It felt like a real community effort. It was a group of people coming together for the common cause of making the Gandhi Institute’s little plot of land a little more beautiful. As I looked out at everyone working hard, I could imagine how beautiful it would look in the coming years. By coming together to create something as simple as garden beds, the people of Rochester were taking control of the destiny of their city and the direction in which it is heading. As an outsider from Boston, I could see that they were saying that they had the power to affect positive change. Despite all their city’s problems, they had come out to do something positive because they still believed in their city and its people. This was a beautiful thing to be a part of.

I’m incredibly thankful to everyone who helped make my time here at the Gandhi Institute such a wonderful experience. To Erinne, Zeek, Marian and Brenda, thank you for your laughs and friendship- I will miss you. To my amazing landlords, David Knoll and David Skinner, thank you for all your help and kindness throughout my entire stay. You are both a shining example of the kind of community that is possible if we all take our part in this world seriously and are willing to lend one another a helping hand. Thank you David Dornford for your stories, wisdom, and friendship. Thank you for being so kind and for listening to me. Thank you Debrine, for being another shining example of the kind of positivity that we can bring about in our communities through hard work, an open mind, and an open heart.  Keep fighting. Thank you to Anna and Shannon for being such kind and wonderful people and for teaching me so much. I will miss your sincerity and laughter. Thank you to George, for taking me under your wing, and for sharing yourself and your learning with me. From the time you picked me up at the airport, you helped make me feel welcome and I sincerely appreciate that kindness and friendship. And finally, thank you to Kit, for believing in me and seeing within me the possibility for growth and learning. Thank you for always encouraging me to do more, and for treating like I was a member of your family. Your genuine kindness and concern has touched me, and many others, and I know that it will continue to guide you and the Gandhi Institute in the time to come.

On the Truth Mandala and Anger*

Imagine thirty-some participants sitting close together in a circle. The center space that we create is the Truth Mandala. It has four quadrants: sorrow, fear, emptiness, and anger. Each quadrant has an object in it. Sorrow—a pile of dead leaves. Fear—a rock.  Emptiness—a bowl.  Anger—a stick. We as participants are invited to step in and pick up any of the four objects, or more than one at the same time. We express what we feel relevant, speaking from our life experience.

I was scared to step into the center of our space for anger. Sorrow was the safe choice, really. I knew what it meant to be sad, to be broken by grief. Expressing fear wasn’t too far from that level of risk, my analytic mind said. But picking up the leaves or the stone or the bowl was nothing compared to what it would be to pick up that stick for anger. My conditioning to suppress this feeling has been so strong that stepping inside and picking up that stick seemed a revolt, an act of rebellion in itself. Dare I admit I am angry? Dare I touch it and feel its shape, its bark? Shouldn’t I do some internal work instead? Shouldn’t I be praying for some transformation of my anger into kindness? Some magical opening to compassion?

The longer I sat there on the perimeter, the longer this feeling was building inside—the urge to share and the wondering how long I could sit there and not give in to it. And what was I going to say? If I dare ask for the group’s attention, I better be succinct and well-spoken, right? (I don’t even know where this story came from.) And then as I was trying to rehearse what I would say, it was as if the Mandala spoke to me and said, Nevermind the words; I’ll tell you the words. And suddenly everyone else had gone and this was the moment. So with my uncertainty and fear, I crawled into the center of our circle and picked up that stick.

I started with a calm voice: I am angry I’ve been disconnected from my anger and taught to view it as sinful. The group laughed in recognition. I continued,

I am angry I was taught to fear the earth and bugs and creatures and instead that I must learn to control it. I am angry I was taught to hate my body. I am angry I was taught that to be a woman means to submit to men. I am angry that I was taught it is better to obey than to take care of myself. That in fact, I should override the voice that guides me to do so because it isn’t worth as much as the male voice.

Sitting there, I knew there was more. This was only the beginning of reclaiming this part of me that I shoved in the closet long before even knowing it. Hello, dear anger, it is nice to make your acquaintance. Maybe you could stay awhile? I think I’d like to explore your contours, your beauty, your strength, your passion for justice.

When I stepped into that mandala, when I picked up that stick, when I started speaking, I started crying. My eyes were closed as I spoke—I was listening to what the mandala was telling me. It didn’t matter if I was articulate or succinct, because it was the truth. And it wasn’t just my truth, it was and is the truth of other women and men who came before me, who speak other languages, who are younger and older. In that moment, I was a messenger. And the most beautiful thing happened—when I should of felt alone or embarrassed or ashamed while I was huddled, crying, voices around me began to say, I am with you, and I hear you. And I was held there. My pain and anger were held there with me. The intensity was held. As I had witnessed for others, it was the same for me. No comforting, no shushing, no strokes on the back. Just I hear you. I am with you.

And I didn’t break. The pain didn’t consume me. I was still there.

Some of my favorite lines from Pablo Neruda’s poem, Keeping Quiet come to mind:

If we could do nothing for once, perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness, this never understanding ourselves and threatening ourselves with death, perhaps the earth is teaching us when everything seems to be dead and then everything is alive.

If we are going to transition to a healthy society, we need to reconnect and feel the depth of our pain for how things are now. This pain is necessary because it is an indicator that we are part of a failing system, a dying organism. The fact that we feel the pain shows that we are connected to something larger than our individual bodies. If we are connected, our actions will impact those to whom we are connected, in positive or negative ways. If we are connected, then we have the ability to make change, big changes in how things operate.

We actually know the solution to global warming, animal extinction, and rising crime, unemployment and school drop-out rates. These problems weren’t invented by aliens. They are symptoms of our current systems, which we invented and perpetuate. They are indicators that what we are doing isn’t working. We can’t pretend it is “business as usual” any longer. And underneath it, I believe we all know that driving faster and consuming more and electing our favorite candidate won’t solve it. What will solve it begins by letting ourselves feel our pain for our own lives, for our families, for our communities, for our country, and for our world. And while this work can begin alone, we need to co-create spaces to understand that we aren’t the only one to feel this pain.

If you feel despair at the state of the environment, at the spread of fracking sites and nuclear waste spills and animals bathed in crude oil, if you feel despair looking at the run down shops in your neighborhood and the young men dealing drugs on the corner and the number of homicides in your city, please know you aren’t alone. Know the fact that you feel this despair doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.

And if you have ceased to feel it because it seems too intense, too huge, too hazardous to get in involved with, all that despair, I want you to hear that that is ok, too. There’s not something wrong with you, either. You’ve been surviving the way you know how. Know that you aren’t alone in not wanting to go there. And know that feeling your pain for the world isn’t about being alone or letting it take you over or paralyze you. It is about reconnecting to everything of which you’ve always been a part.

From our pain comes our strength and our ability to take action.

Come, be in a space with us to hold this pain together. Whether you touch it every day or have never touched it. Together we have enough strength to hold it with gentleness. And together when we hold it, we can harvest the courage and drive and power it yields to make the changes we want in our community.

*This blog is one of two blogs on my experience for ten days in North Carolina at a Work That Reconnects Intensive with Joanna Macy. The time involved discussion and experiential exercises, some of which I describe. Check out more about her and the work here.

On the Mirroring Exercise

*This blog is one of two blogs on my experience for ten days in North Carolina at a Work That Reconnects Intensive with Joanna Macy. The time involved discussion and experiential exercises, some of which I describe. Check out more about her and The Work here.

On the Mirroring Exercise*

Sarah, my partner, wrapped her slender arm around my waist, took my hand in hers, and guided me out from the wooden pavilion. My instructions were to shut my eyes, as I wouldn’t need them anymore.

In silence, Sarah guided me through a breeze, sunshine on my closed eyes, across crunchy terrain and a soft squish, squish, squish. My eyes were closed; my feet came awake. From my toes and heels through my legs and core—when was the last time I knew as much from my feet? I had thought without my eyes my feet would be lost. To my surprise, they knew how to see. They knew how to listen. As we continued onward, they delighted in their newfound responsibility, relaying information to the rest of my body about the ground that supported me.

After a while of quiet walking, we paused. Without a word, Sarah tapped the back of my leg, and I felt myself crouching down. Gently she guided my hand to something on the ground—smooth, cool ridges, I traced my fingers over its contour, over the bumps and unexpected plunge into soft spongy-ness. I stayed here for a while, my fingers delighting in this discovery. And then we rose and continued on. After a while, we stopped again, and this time Sarah tilted my chin up, and instructed, “Open your eyes and look in the mirror.” And there my reflection was—branches and leaves illuminated by the twinkling sunshine that filtered through them. The varying shades of green splayed out in front of my eyes: my strength, my resilience to reach ever higher for nourishment. I gazed at my own beauty, taking in the details.

This wasn’t what I was taught growing up. In fact, I was taught quite the opposite: from growing up in a paved suburbia to spending time among tall buildings to buying food at the grocery store to watching movies with monstrous spiders and snakes. I ingested all this, unknowingly growing into a woman who believed that the earth was ours to control, conquer, ours to use and manipulate for human profit and comfort. There were creatures out there that would harm me; it was a rough place, and the way to survive was to dominate it. In her book World as Lover, World as Self, Joanna Macy calls this perspective viewing the world as a trap. The goal is to “disentangle ourselves and escape from this messy world,” with focus on the afterlife awaiting us (p. 21).

So this was new: this closed-eye wandering and trusting and feeling with my hands without first checking to see if it was “safe.” As Sarah guided me, it was as if I was re-born. Everything was beautiful and alive and breathing. The smells were enchanting, the textures curious and complex.

And what if I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror and truly believed that the Pecan tree before me was me? How might it change me?

I came back from ten days in North Carolina ready to give up my view of the world as a trap and adopt another perspective which Joanna mentions in her book: world as self. This isn’t about giving up my individuality, she points out, because living systems need diverse parts to thrive. It isn’t about forgetting my interests or passions to mindlessly join a campaign. It is about thinking about what energy I use, what I consume, how much waste I produce. It is about confronting corporations and the government about how much destruction we are wrecking on our planet, on our own being, our own body. And it is about taking part in the creation of a community and world that is life-giving as an alternative to our current way which is life-destroying. New structures and systems must arise so that we have alternatives to all that is failing us.

Will you take part with me? If I were with you now, I would guide you silently to that majestic Pecan tree I grew to love over my time at The Stone House retreat center. I would place your hand on its rough skin, tilt your chin up towards the sky, and whisper in your ear. Since I’m not with you, I invite you to stop whatever you’re doing right now, leave your computer, and go outside, just for a moment. Find a tree or flower and really look at it, just for a moment. If you can’t find one, reach down and touch the ground with your hand for a moment. Open your eyes.

 I dare you to let what you see change you.

Courageous Justice vs. Fear Based Justice

Courageous Justice vs. Fear Based Justice

There are two types of justice. The first type of justice is primarily concerned with equalizing the scales. You insult me, so I have the right to insult you back. You break into my home, so I have the right to break you. You attack my nation’s soil, so I have the right to put you into the soil. This type of justice is commonly referred to as punitive or retributive justice; it has its most popular basis in the Biblical sanction to redress harm by taking an “eye for an eye.”

Punitive justice relies on fear. A justice of fear is preoccupied with the loss of something deemed important or valuable, and it is generally fixated on the militant preservation of social comforts. These social comforts range from material possessions to intangibles such as relationships or values. The fear of losing respect has spilled more bloodshed than all of the isms combined. On a personal level, the cycle of violence that fear based justice perpetuates is founded on a lie that we must sometimes want to harm another person. Fear based justice is incapable of stopping the cycle of violence because it makes self- defense morally preferable to creative suffering. On a national and global scale, this mentality has resulted in unfathomable atrocities.

Countering a justice of fear, the supreme Chinese philosopher of the Tao Te Ching advises that, “There is no greater misfortune than underestimating your enemy. Underestimating your enemy means thinking that he is evil. Thus you destroy your three treasures and become an enemy yourself.” (Mitchell 69). The three treasures are simplicity, patience, and compassion. If one is “patient with both friends and enemies, they will accord with the way things are” (Mitchell 69), and if we are compassionate toward ourselves, we will reconcile all beings to the world. Whereas fear based justice may succeed in presenting a mirage of mutual understanding, in actuality it only establishes the practical foundation for revenge.

Unlike the selfish and sometimes malicious characteristics that define fear based justice, the virtues of simplicity, patience and compassion are the cornerstones of authentic justice, or what can be referred to as courageous justice; it is a type of justice that radiates with luminescent empathy for the alienated and downtrodden. Courageous justice sees the scales of equality as a devious device of distraction that takes us away from the truth of our inner connectedness to each other and the Earth. The scales can never be even in the eyes of courageous justice because equality presupposes separation.

Courageous justice was totally embodied by the political saint Mohandas K. Gandhi. Throughout his life Gandhi worked for a type of justice rooted in the undying vitality of truth and principled action. Early in his career he became a barrister and strove to master British jurisprudence. As a leader of ashrams he was expected to arbitrate disputes and settle petty grievances. As an intrepid opponent of untouchability and child marriages he challenged Hinduism to renounce its dogmatic affiliation with hate injected casteism. And as a social reformer in South Africa and India he struggled against the barbaric precepts of white supremacy.

But perhaps the purest expression of courageous justice can be seen in the way Gandhi related to the rural poor of India. At the age of 51, he vowed to stop wearing his familiar garb and don simple Khadi dress. Gandhi wanted to completely self- identify with the poor. What did it mean to be called Mahatma (translated as “Great Soul in Beggars Clothing”) and own more than the lowliest child? Towards the end of his prolific life he had forgone eating anything except nuts, some fruit, and an insipid porridge. Gandhi could not stomach the thought of enjoying more nutrition than a starving mother. He once said that “there are people who are so hungry in this world that God can only come to them in the form of bread.” This is a beautiful example of courageous justice because Gandhi did not want to be equal to the poor; he wanted to become one with the poor. Courageous justice stands in opposition to the fallacy of separate but equal; it also stands for the proposition that we are all inseparable.

Finally, courageous justice is a significant feature of a larger scientific, social, and spiritual phenomenon called ahimsa. Ahimsa can be understood as the power which emerges within an individual once they eradicate the desire to harm any living entity. The individual who is consumed with the power of ahimsa is not at all concerned with fear based incentives such as personal reputation, the protection of commodities, or even national pride.

So according to Gandhi, we can trust ahimsa to achieve a type of justice that does not leave dirt and destruction in its wake. Ahimsa is a clean and constructive justice that can only be understood “in its positive form, which means the largest love, the greatest charity.” A follower of ahimsa must love their enemy. Gandhi said, “The gift of life is the greatest of all gifts. A person who gives it in reality disarms all hostility… And no one who is himself or herself subject of fear can bestow that gift. She must therefore herself be fearless. We cannot practice ahimsa and be a coward at the same time. The practice of ahimsa calls forth the greatest courage.”

Sources

All quotes from Gandhi are taken from The Penguin Gandhi Reader, Edited by Rudrangshu Mukerjee  (Penguin Books 1993)

Tao Te Ching, Translated by Stephen Mitchell (Harper Perennial 1998)

The Peril of Unending War: the story of Sebastian

by Kit Miller

On April 18, 2012, the Gandhi Institute co-sponsored an talk called ‘The Courage to Refuse War’ with Columbian conscioustions objector Sebastián Patiño with several Rochester faith groups and with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. These are my notes from the talk. All errors in terms of facts and figures are mine!

While US youth struggle with little or no funding for jobs, education, and services, the US spends over $6 billion a year in support of Columbia’s military…….

Sebastián Patiño is 19 yrs old. He is a Conscientious Objector (CO) in Columbia, a US ally. Officially, Columbia does not have a mandatory draft for the armed services.

Sebastián began by describing what it is like to live in a country that has been enduring civil conflict for close to 60 years.
The numbers are hard to integrate:
More than 50000 people are gone, victims of what are called ‘forced disappearances’;
Recruitment of child soldiers aged 8-17 is the 4th highest in world;
More than 800 mass grave sites, some with hundreds of bodies, dot the country–one just a few miles from Sebastian’s home.

He shared his reasons for resisting military service, in a country where resisting such service renders you a second class citizen, or worse. “I resist because I don’t want to have connection with so much violence and devastation. 46 percent of my people live in poverty. The only way to get ot of military service is by ‘paying out’.
People who can afford it opt out, so it is the poor who pay again by having their young men forced to serve.”

Trying to be a CO in Columbia is difficult and dangerous. Without the military ID that young recruits receive, Sebastian is unable to obtain a job, or to officially graduate from the school he attended, or to travel by road in the country. It is dangerous for him even to use mass transit in Bogota, the city where he lives, because the military stops young people using the trains and detains them if they do not have military identification. Sebastian described ‘street run ups’ when the military illegally detains young people (see photo).
Many youth disappear through these roundups; from 2004-2007 there were 150,000 registered complaints of this happening.
Although Columbia’s Supreme Country outlawed street run ups in November, 2011, they continue to occur.

A friend and fellow CO, Jose, who was illegally recruited during a street run up was taken from Bogota to the Amazon region on the other side of the country. He was threatened with a knife by a military officer for refusing to participate. The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Mennonite church of Columbia and others created a campaign to release him. After some months, Jose was released. When he went to a security office to get a background check for a job, he was arrested and charged with desertion. The campaign to release him was re-eneacted. He was released but is now on parole. All of this happened to Jose simply for following his conscience.

Sebastian is grateful to his family, to the Fellowship of Reconciliation and to the Mennonite church in Columbia for their support of him as well other COs. Unfortunately the Catholic church, a major institute in Columbia, does not support them.

US taxpayers are heavily involved. Current annual allocation to Columbia from the US is $9 billion dollars. 72% of those funds goes to the military. In addition, the US military maintains 14 bases in Columbia.

Sebastian asks the people in the US to do whatever they can to stop funding the war and violence in Columbia.

For more information about Sebastian and his national speaking tour with the fellowship of reconciliation,
see Columbia project

To contribute to the Fellowship of Reconciliation project in Columbia,
donate here.

Paul Chappell at the University of Rochester Interfaith Chapel by Jason “Jayce” Olshefsky

Aphorisms

NONVIOLENCE

Conditional nonviolence is incapable of overcoming unconditional evil.

Nonviolence is the opportunity to suffer for your enemy.

To harbor zero malice towards any sentient being is only the beginning of nonviolence.

Only through self-identification is it possible to treat a vicious person with grace.

Pacifism is the refusal to preempt war on oneself.  

Faith without action is unpublicized doubt.

VIOLENCE

Logic and violence are never far apart: notice how there is always a reason for striking back.

The world ferments with undistilled violence.

No weapon is more sinister than another; from stones, to switchblades, to stealth bombers, all weapons have agony as a goal.

In cultures of violence a normal person is someone who walks around under great duress without saying anything.

Violence is a burning lack of awareness.

Without restorative justice prisons become monster farms.

“Coexistence, Dinner and Dialogue”

As valuable as e-communication and social mediaare, when it comes to understanding and appreciation of other views, there is no substitute for the good old-fashioned, face-to-face sit-down.

All the more so when the subject is religion and spirituality.

Happily, around Rochester anyway, college students are among the first to grasp the importance of dialogue. Husain Bawany, 21, a junior biology and religious studies major at St. John Fisher College, organized a recent, highly successful event he dubbed “Coexistence, Dinner and Dialogue” for about 65 students and a few others from Rochester-area colleges. They met Dec. 10 at Fisher, where they shared a meal, shared some of their religious beliefs and experiences, and began to explore ways they can be a part of each other’s lives. They were Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and others.

Bawany, a Muslim and a native of Pakistan, has lived in Brighton since he was a young child. He pulled this event together as part of his work as a fellow with the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester.

“There’s a lot of support from the colleges,” he says, “for us to come together and expose ourselves to others’ religious beliefs, eye to eye, with a civil discourse.” In all traditions, Bawany says, “service is a universal.” Pulling together to do something for others, he says, is a powerful way to build a relationship. One of the first things they’ll do, Bawany says, is write cards with greetings of hope to be distributed to refugee children at Mary’s Place, a refugee services center in Rochester.

“I grew up Baptist,” says Eric Williams, 20, a junior accounting major at Fisher with a religious studies minor.

His faith is important to him, Williams says, but he’s very interested in other religious views.

Faith “isn’t about following rules,” he says, “but finding a relationship with God.” He believes there are things he can learn from students from other faith traditions.

Naomi Ahsan, 22, a UR neuroscience major from Brighton and a Muslim, says an Interfaith Leadership Institute that she and Bawany attended last year at Georgetown University in Washington taught them there are protocols (speaking only for yourself, for example, not for all members of your faith) that make the conversation easier. The Coexistence gathering, she says, “is one of many efforts to foster a real dialogue. There is a belief that people do have similarities if you dig deep enough.”

There are many misconceptions and simple questions people have concerning other faiths, Bawany says. And this event gave students a chance to ask, and test. It also was an opportunity for students who have no religious faith or who are skeptical to sharetheir views.

I give these students a lot of credit for being smart enough to know that the conversation is essential not to bridging all religious differences, but to seeing the humanity in others — and discovering that humanity puts us on the road to nonviolent approaches to solving problems. It’s a tough thing — to share deep principles of faith that we accept as true, all the while learning to accept and even search for the truth in others’ views.

“We welcome people coming together,” says Kit Miller, who directs the Gandhi Institute, “because in an odd way, we are so conflict-averse these days that we actually add to the potential for violence by ignoring its causes.”

But to make the most of dialogue, she says, “you have to be willing to be changed.”

Mark Hare’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. He can be reached at (585) 258-2351.