The Beginning

For the last eleven years I have been committed to the practice and study of nonviolence. This journey has required much humbleness and compassion as I have had to unlearn (and continue to unlearn) the violence that I have held in my heart, mind, body, and spirit towards myself and others. I firmly believe that all of us, to varying degrees, are enrolled in the study and practice of violence from the time we are born. I believe that throughout our life we are taught and encouraged to engage in violence towards ourselves and others.

It is a difficult realization to come to terms with, and embrace with full acceptance, the ways in which we have allowed violence to penetrate our very being and essence, but it is through this very acceptance that the shackles of violence are broken open and we can be free to make other choices--choices that honor and embrace life, rather than ones that destroy and demean others and the world around us.

Nonviolence as I have come to understand it is the commitment to, and deep honoring of life in all of its forms and manifestations. It is both a philosophy and a way of being. Nonviolence is not only about not causing or creating violence, but also a commitment to actively not cooperate with anything violent or harmful to anyone or anything else (nature, other sentient beings, etc). It is not only about noncooperation but also about seeking creative and peaceful solutions to the interpersonal "wars" unleashed between friends, lovers, families, and communities as well as the conflicts between nations. It is a path in which love is an active force requiring the practitioner to wage it as fully and with as much courage (if not more) than those who are committed to hate and proliferation of violence. It is not passive, waiting for the next conflict or simply resisting evil, but is seeking ways to support and encourage cooperation, liberation, generosity, care, and joy.

In order to set the tone for this blog fully I think it would be helpful to understand how I define violence so that as I document my journey in both ending the violence within me and in the world around me, everyone who shares this journey with me can understand what I mean by violence and therefore more deeply understand what I mean by nonviolence. To me it's easiest to define violence by breaking it up along three different but interconnected categories: Structural, Cultural, and Interpersonal (direct). There is a great handout of this at Turning The Tide

My understanding is that violence manifests and creates a complex web that sticks all of us, leaving us trapped as prey, struggling for survival in a hopeless fight against one another, and ourselves. It's hard to say which strand of the web is created first, and therefore all strands of the web need to be addressed simultaneously as they reinforce each other.

I'll begin with interpersonal as it is one that many of us are most familiar with. Interpersonal, or direct violence can be anything that humiliates, harms, or dehumanizes ourselves or others (including the world around us). Things such as verbal and physical fighting (as well as the seeds of violence within our hearts and minds that precipitate the outbursts of such aggressions that we water daily and feed incessantly). These outbursts can include, but not exclusively: rape, stealing, jealousy, rage, gossip, name calling, all of the isms we harbor towards others such as sexism, racism, etc., anything that allows us to see people as objects rather than as people, anything that strips away the humanity of another so that we can subjugate them and gain power over them to get something we want, or that we think we need, to make ourselves feel "safe" or to "get by" in the world. The hate and aggression here runs deep and this is a difficult topic to explore, for many who think they are being nonviolent often times think that it is action only, but if we consider that actions begin in the heart and mind, if our heart is at war even if our actions are peaceful, there is still war, and inherent in that, peace is not true peace. A great example of this is a group of activists who are planning a nonviolent protest but who continue to view the group they are protesting as "less than" with hatred and animosity in their hearts. You cannot promote peace while simultaneously harboring hate and resentment towards others. Another example would be withholding information from someone that could potentially help them but because they have done "harm" to you in the past you still harbor resentment towards them and while not directly "attacking" them your choice to not help them even though you could would still be an act of direct violence. This form of violence includes the things we do, the things we say, and the ways in which we do the things we do and say (the energy and thought forms behind it).

Cultural violence is the violence that reinforces and supports the ideas and messages that we receive and are educated about and instilled with about violence. It is the media machine that reports 24 hours a day the ways in which violence "works" while rarely if ever shows the ways in which nonviolence or love in action can and do work. It is the common "wisdom" that says "boys will be boys" to justify sexism, harassment, homophobia, and fighting. It is the constant reinforcement reflected in our history books that glorifies wars while ignoring successful nonviolent resistances that have liberated peoples all over the world. It is the labeling of soldiers and others who bear arms as heroes while those who seek peaceful solutions to both prevent and end conflict are often trivialized or villainized. It is the message that violence is the only answer to solve our problems and all other options are weak, a waste of time, and will never work.

Structural violence is the systemic forms of institutional isms (racism etc)and practices such as slavery, apartheid, and our criminal justice system. It is the ways in which certain laws are passed to target specific people (such as sit/lie ordinances that unfairly target poor people/un-housed people) It is hunger, poverty, homelessness, war and all the policies that uphold and support these practices. It is the fact that in this country we spend more on killing people for war than we do to educate our children. We have more money for bombs then we do for affordable housing. It is also the systemic degradation of the natural world in exchange for economic gain. It's the policies of corporations that put profits over people and an economic system that benefits very few but that enslaves (often times with consent) everyone else under the promise that they too might someday attain prosperity.

There is much to unlearn and much to learn on the path towards liberation. Each day it can be so easy to get caught up in the web of violence, stuck in the habits of war and oppression of self and others. There are tools that can free us and many who have lived these tools well. I hope to be able to share with you all the ways in which they have worked for me as well as my struggles in implementing them too. I want to stress again that it's hard to separate these forms of violence as they work so well together, but many times the ways in which I talk about them may be to emphasize one, rather than all three and that is not to create a hierarchy of one being more important, but rather all of them require diligent effort, and work on one addresses all the others.

While this analysis is not complete I do believe it is comprehensive enough to set the tone for our shared journey together. I hope to share my experience with my studies, workshops, work, and all other aspects of my life in which I try as best as I can to wage love and live peacefully.

I am excited to share this with you and I hope that some of you (or all of you) will join with me as I share what I am reading, practicing, and living.

In Love,

Michael