Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminate thinking, I will cultivate openness, nondiscrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.
The First Mindfulness Training reminds us to practice protecting life and not to kill. This is a practice that is intended to remind us of violence both small and large. As with each of the Mindfulness Trainings, it’s intended not to be an absolute but a path to walk on. It isn’t possible to avoid killing altogether. For example, you may say you’re going to be a vegetarian so that you’re less involved in the death of animals, but when you cook your vegetables to eat, many microorganisms die. So even your vegetarian diet isn’t entirely vegetarian. That’s okay. You’re working toward less suffering. It’s not that there’s no suffering. But you choose the way to minimise the suffering. We can reduce the suffering a little bit every time we act, every time we eat, every day.
In a world in which people use violence in the name of idealism, religion, or God, the First Mindfulness Training helps us transform our craving, anger, and ignorance. The Second Noble Truth reminds us that our suffering will continue as long as we hold wrong views. Our craving and anger arise from ignorance, so, with Right View, we’re no longer able to justify violence, and by practicing nonviolence we save and protect life, the First Mindfulness Training.
When we practice the First Mindfulness Training, we strengthen our eyes of interbeing. Our look has to be wide and open so that we can see without being caught in ideologies and dogmas. We can see that when we kill someone we kill ourselves. When we meet someone we think of as an enemy, we tend to think that we need to protect ourselves, and that hurting the other person will help keep us safe. But hurting another person doesn’t keep us safe. We may think the only way to be safe is to attack the other person. But hurting or killing the person we think of as our enemy will only make more enemies. We have to understand our own anger and suffering and help the person we think of as our enemy to alleviate his or her own suffering. Violence can’t end suffering. Only understanding and love can transform suffering.
We have to address the large amount of fear we have inside us. If there’s no fear, anger, or suspicion, then people aren’t going to use nuclear or any other kind of weapons. It’s not When you attempt to make nuclear weapons, it’s not truly because you want to destroy the other side, it’s because you’re fearful that they will attack you first. If you want to offer help anywhere in the world, whether it’s in the United States, North and South Korea, the Middle East, or anywhere, you can help to work on removing the fear, anger, and suspicion on both sides. Israelis and Palestinians, for example, both have the desire to survive as a nation and a people. Both are fearful that the other side will destroy them. Both are suspicious, because in the past what they’ve received from the other side has been violence. So to make true peace possible, you have to try to remove the fear, anger, and suspicion. It’s not just up to politicians. Can each of us act in such a way that we can lessen the huge amount of fear, anger, and suspicion that exists?
Many people buy guns because they’re afraid and they want to protect themselves. So the main, driving issue isn’t nuclear weapons or guns, it’s fear.
In a relationship, if reconciliation seems to be difficult, it’s usually not because the two people aren’t willing to reconcile, it’s because the amount of anger, fear, and suspicion in each person is already too big. We often say that it’s the other person’s fault; we want to reconcile, but they don’t. But that’s rarely the case. The other person may want to reconcile, but she or he still has a lot of anger, fear, and suspicion. Telling this to the other person won’t help. If you want to help someone reduce their fear, anger, and suspicion, you first have to practice to reduce the amount of fear, anger, and suspicion in yourself.
Prayer or good intention is not enough to change an angry or violent situation. The First Mindfulness Training is a reminder that you have to practice, to train yourself to lessen violence through understanding. You can do this by practicing mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness means that instead of reacting to whatever stimulus is around us or provokes us, we go back to our breathing, we calm our body, we stop our thinking, and we bring the mind home to the body in the present moment. We become more aware of our motivations, our thoughts, our actions and their consequences, and the way we speak to others. We understand ourselves better. We see our part in the situation and we see that we may be harboring misperceptions about the other person or group. With this clearer view, we see that the others are human beings like us with very much the same feelings, motivations, and concerns.
Unless we have the practice of understanding and compassion, even if we try to help in a situation in which there’s tension, we may not succeed. Suppose South Korea sends North Korea a large shipment of grain and other foods, saying that the North needs a lot of food for the poor people to survive. South Korea may be motivated by the good intention to prevent starvation in the North, but the North may see it as an attempt to discredit them, as though the South were saying that the North isn’t capable of feeding its own population.
Anything you do or say can be distorted and create more anger, fear, and suspicion. Our political leaders haven’t been trained in the art of helping to remove fear, anger, and suspicion. That is why we have to call for help from those of us who practice compassion and deep listening and who have had some success in transforming the fear, anger, and suspicion in ourselves.
We can use the First Mindfulness Training as a reminder to continue our practice of the Fourth Mindfulness Training (deep listening and loving speech) in order to reduce fear, anger and suspicion. If we do that as a big community, our insight will grow and that will bring more peace to the world.
The First Mindfulness Training reminds us to practice protecting life and not to kill. This is a practice that is intended to remind us of violence both small and large. As with each of the Mindfulness Trainings, it’s intended not to be an absolute but a path to walk on. It isn’t possible to avoid killing altogether. For example, you may say you’re going to be a vegetarian so that you’re less involved in the death of animals, but when you cook your vegetables to eat, many microorganisms die. So even your vegetarian diet isn’t entirely vegetarian. That’s okay. You’re working toward less suffering. It’s not that there’s no suffering. But you choose the way to minimise the suffering. We can reduce the suffering a little bit every time we act, every time we eat, every day.
In a world in which people use violence in the name of idealism, religion, or God, the First Mindfulness Training helps us transform our craving, anger, and ignorance. The Second Noble Truth reminds us that our suffering will continue as long as we hold wrong views. Our craving and anger arise from ignorance, so, with Right View, we’re no longer able to justify violence, and by practicing nonviolence we save and protect life, the First Mindfulness Training.
When we practice the First Mindfulness Training, we strengthen our eyes of interbeing. Our look has to be wide and open so that we can see without being caught in ideologies and dogmas. We can see that when we kill someone we kill ourselves. When we meet someone we think of as an enemy, we tend to think that we need to protect ourselves, and that hurting the other person will help keep us safe. But hurting another person doesn’t keep us safe. We may think the only way to be safe is to attack the other person. But hurting or killing the person we think of as our enemy will only make more enemies. We have to understand our own anger and suffering and help the person we think of as our enemy to alleviate his or her own suffering. Violence can’t end suffering. Only understanding and love can transform suffering.
We have to address the large amount of fear we have inside us. If there’s no fear, anger, or suspicion, then people aren’t going to use nuclear or any other kind of weapons. It’s not When you attempt to make nuclear weapons, it’s not truly because you want to destroy the other side, it’s because you’re fearful that they will attack you first. If you want to offer help anywhere in the world, whether it’s in the United States, North and South Korea, the Middle East, or anywhere, you can help to work on removing the fear, anger, and suspicion on both sides. Israelis and Palestinians, for example, both have the desire to survive as a nation and a people. Both are fearful that the other side will destroy them. Both are suspicious, because in the past what they’ve received from the other side has been violence. So to make true peace possible, you have to try to remove the fear, anger, and suspicion. It’s not just up to politicians. Can each of us act in such a way that we can lessen the huge amount of fear, anger, and suspicion that exists?
Many people buy guns because they’re afraid and they want to protect themselves. So the main, driving issue isn’t nuclear weapons or guns, it’s fear.
In a relationship, if reconciliation seems to be difficult, it’s usually not because the two people aren’t willing to reconcile, it’s because the amount of anger, fear, and suspicion in each person is already too big. We often say that it’s the other person’s fault; we want to reconcile, but they don’t. But that’s rarely the case. The other person may want to reconcile, but she or he still has a lot of anger, fear, and suspicion. Telling this to the other person won’t help. If you want to help someone reduce their fear, anger, and suspicion, you first have to practice to reduce the amount of fear, anger, and suspicion in yourself.
Prayer or good intention is not enough to change an angry or violent situation. The First Mindfulness Training is a reminder that you have to practice, to train yourself to lessen violence through understanding. You can do this by practicing mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness means that instead of reacting to whatever stimulus is around us or provokes us, we go back to our breathing, we calm our body, we stop our thinking, and we bring the mind home to the body in the present moment. We become more aware of our motivations, our thoughts, our actions and their consequences, and the way we speak to others. We understand ourselves better. We see our part in the situation and we see that we may be harboring misperceptions about the other person or group. With this clearer view, we see that the others are human beings like us with very much the same feelings, motivations, and concerns.
Unless we have the practice of understanding and compassion, even if we try to help in a situation in which there’s tension, we may not succeed. Suppose South Korea sends North Korea a large shipment of grain and other foods, saying that the North needs a lot of food for the poor people to survive. South Korea may be motivated by the good intention to prevent starvation in the North, but the North may see it as an attempt to discredit them, as though the South were saying that the North isn’t capable of feeding its own population.
Anything you do or say can be distorted and create more anger, fear, and suspicion. Our political leaders haven’t been trained in the art of helping to remove fear, anger, and suspicion. That is why we have to call for help from those of us who practice compassion and deep listening and who have had some success in transforming the fear, anger, and suspicion in ourselves.
We can use the First Mindfulness Training as a reminder to continue our practice of the Fourth Mindfulness Training (deep listening and loving speech) in order to reduce fear, anger and suspicion. If we do that as a big community, our insight will grow and that will bring more peace to the world.
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