Making Peace with Today’s World of Divisiveness, Part 2: Developing Deep Understanding and Compassion

 

 

                In the previous post we examined widespread divisiveness  and  the stress and suffering that dealing with it creates at the personal level.  As always, almost all of our suffering is caused by our response to divisiveness, rather than the fact of divisiveness.  The teachings for responding to divisiveness more skillfully that we examined previously were letting go of personal identities and looking for the places that we touch.  There are other useful Buddhist teachings as well. 

 A Sea Pirate Story   

                One very powerful practice is to work to develop compassion for others by reflecting deeply on the question:    “What caused people who do harmful things to be the way they are?”  Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story about receiving a letter telling about a twelve year old girl on a small refugee boat who was raped by a Thai sea pirate, and then jumped into the ocean and drowned herself. 

                All of us are shocked and horrified by this story.  We may want to kill the pirate.  What kind of a person could do something like this?  But it doesn’t often occur to us that this is an excellent question to meditate on.  When Thich Nhat Hanh did this he saw in his meditation that “if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was…There is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate.  I cannot condemn myself so easily.”  [Being Peace, Parallax Press, 1987, pp. 61-64.]

                And in a less drastic situation, if I were born elsewhere to different parents, I certainly could have very different views about government, abortion, race and ethnicity, and climate change than what I have now.  I myself could be what I now call “the other” and “bad.”  When I see that clearly, it is not so easy to cast others out of my heart and view “them” as stupid and evil.  It is still important to do what we can to stop harmful behavior, but the hatred can be replaced by compassion.  The hatred doesn’t help anyone to behave better, and it is a heavy burden to carry around inside us. 

Deep Listening and Looking for Misperceptions

                In discussing how to work with terrorists after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Thich Nhat Hanh suggests a second practice which could be used for working with divisiveness.  This practice consists of four steps:  calming down, asking why, deep listening, and discovering misperceptions. ["There Is No Path to Peace;  The Path Is  Peace,"  Shambhala Sun, Volume 12, Number 6, July 2004, pp.43-68.]

                First, because we are agitated and afraid, we need to breathe mindfully and calm down so we can make conscious choices about how to respond.  Second, we need to calmly ask the terrorists why they have attacked us:  What have we done to you that has caused you to want to harm us?  Have we done something that has led you to believe that we are a threat to you and your way of life?  Will you please tell us about your suffering and fears?

                Third, and this can be very difficult, we need to listen deeply to what they say.  We must hear what they say without arguing with it, getting defensive or making accusations.  We must listen without the feeling of waiting to pounce on what we feel is wrong in what we are hearing.  If we can truly listen with curiosity and interest, we may discover that many people in middle Eastern countries fear that American exportation of a very materialistic and highly sexualized culture is a threat to their traditional religious way of life.  They may also feel threatened by the existence of U.S. military bases in their part of the world and that the U.S. is only there to extract their oil. We must do our best to listen solely to understand, even if we believe that not everything we hear is true.

                Fourth, we try to discover misperceptions in what we hear.  We can tell them that we now see how they might feel threatened, but that our intention is not to harm them but to satisfy our need for energy to run our cars and businesses.  In this dialogue, we also discover some of our own misperceptions.  Perhaps we learn that our presence in their world really is a threat to their way of life and their independence, and that we need to change our behavior.  When everyone is there to listen and understand, things will begin to shift toward resolution and cooperation.

                In practicing deep listening, it is crucial to listen for underlying feelings and deep seated needs that exist beneath the dug-in positions that are on the surface.  In the classic example from Ury and Fischer’s Getting to Yes, two students in a library are in conflict over whether the window in the room should be open or closed.  Their wants are incompatible, and they seem to be stuck in a hopeless conflict.  But if we go deeper and ask why they want what they want, we find that one student wants the window open for fresh air and the other student wants it closed so as not to be sitting in a cold draft.  Once the deeper need has been identified, they hit upon the solution of opening a window in an adjoining room—this gives them fresh air and avoids the cold draft.

                This same four step process can be used to heal our political divisiveness and acrimony within our own country.  So… a Republican sympathizer might want to say to a Democratic sympathizer:  Why do you want to take our guns away?  Or perhaps: why do you want to make it legal for women to have abortions?     And a Democratic supporter might want to ask a Republican supporter:  Why do you want to make it harder for people to vote?    Or: Why do you not support efforts to confront climate change?

                In order to be effective these questions must be coming from a genuine desire to understand the perspective of the other person.  They cannot sound like accusations or demands to defend a point of view only to be attacked and picked apart with counter arguments later.  And in listening to the answers that come, a strong desire to correct misinformation and defend our own view will likely arise.  Our job then is to be vigilant for this desire, notice it when it arises, and then choose not to act on it and just continue to listen with the intention of understanding a different viewpoint.

                Perhaps if Democratic supporters were to ask “Why do you resist so many of our efforts to address our country’s main problems?” they might learn that “liberals” are seen as wanting to take away the America that “conservatives” love.  And that is a country based on Christian values, and traditional marriages based on traditional gender roles and heterosexuality; a country based on being able to keep yourself and family safe by having free access to firearms, and limiting entry of people from other countries who will take our jobs and be a drain on our social support systems; a country based on the idea that creating new human life is sacred and should be cared for and not murdered.  So from this perspective, the “liberal agenda” is seen as an attack on and a threat to a whole way of life that is perceived as having been with us in this country for hundreds of years.  There is a great deal of fear present and a strong desire to fight back by any means necessary.  Once the “conservative” view is better understood, it then becomes possible to correct any misperceptions contained in it and also for “liberals” to correct their own misperceptions (and/or misconduct) and then change their approach to things so that it no longer appears so threatening to “conservatives.”   None of this is easy to do and there is no guarantee of success, but what we have been doing so far simply has not worked and probably never will.

No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.  If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.  [Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, Bantam, 1993, p. 203]

Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 7 to 14 days. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold.