Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Training in nonviolence


We need training in nonviolence if we're to offer an alternative to war. Sadly, many people don't know that this exists. Try Googling "training in nonviolence" and see what you get. It's amazing the training opportunities that are out there.

This morning, I found the following (that, of course, gladdens my heart as a meditation teacher):

Gandhi talks about meditation being as important to the nonviolent soldier as drill practice is to the conventional soldier. Nonviolence doesn't just happen. You don't just suddenly walk into the middle of conflict and know what to do. I've discovered that the people who impress me with their nonviolent behavior in violent situations are inevitably people who have trained themselves and been involved in nonviolent strategies for a while. You can't do it in a weekend workshop...one must accept nonviolence as a form of fighting, and that's very hard for people to understand. However, compassion and joy can be as contagious as war fever.

-- Joan Baez


I'd like to recommend the article entitled Practicing Nonviolence by Joanne Sheehan as a beginning overview of what nonviolence training is all about.

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