Telling the Truth to Create Intimacy

by Miki Kashtan

I have a close friend I walk with every week. We have been doing it regularly for about three years now. The walking and the friendship are mutually reinforcing, and as far as I am concerned, this practice could continue indefinitely.

So I was shocked when, one evening a few months ago, I got an email letting me know that my friend would be taking a break from walking with me, at least for a while, starting the next day. My friend, let’s call her Nancy, asked to know my response to her message, affirmed her sense of connection with me, explained what the reason for the break was (she needed her energy for some major projects in her life, which made total sense to me), and proposed other ways of staying in touch. 

As I sat down to write an email response to Nancy, I connected to a deep well of sadness. I knew that the “right” answer was to express my understanding and acceptance and to let it go. Instead, I chose to express the full truth – without holding back, without losing care for Nancy. In the depth of sadness and loss that I was at, this was no small task. I was particularly upset about the unilateral decision she made instead of bringing the issues to joint holding, so we could figure out something together. 

This started a couple of rounds of emails, followed by a one-time walk we scheduled to have an in-person conversation about it, which spilled into a second walk, and resulted in a reaffirmation of our shared commitment to the walks. They have since become even more satisfying for both of us. 

This seeming miracle resulted from bringing to the light of day everything that had not been said before. Nancy, it turns out, had been trained, like so many of us, to withhold anything that might be unpleasant or charged for the other person to hear. Although her love for me and appreciation for our friendship and time together were absolutely deep and genuine, there were things she didn’t feel able to tell me about ways of acting on my part that were mildly distressing for her. Mild enough in the moment so as to be able to tell herself that she could let go. And yet, over time, bothersome enough that interacting with me required some slight ongoing effort, and made our walks, despite how nourishing they were, feel like “work.” On top of that, she was raised with a strong sense of responsibility, and didn’t feel at ease about canceling if and when she didn’t have the energy for a walk. She pushed herself so hard inside, that she finally lost her ability to hold me with care, and thus came the abrupt unilateral decision.

At different times in our conversation one or the other of us cried as we reached for deeper places in our hearts. Nancy finally got to a place of feeling freer than ever, because she was able to tell me everything, and because we came to an agreement that gave her explicit room to cancel on any given week. I, on the other hand, was finally given priceless feedback I am always so hungry for. I was able to learn something about how my challenge around humility affected both Nancy and some other people I came in contact with through her. It’s no secret to me that some of my ways of being are challenging for others, and I can’t think of a better way of learning than through the experience of someone I care about and trust as much as I trust Nancy.  

On another occasion, with another friend, whom I will call Lorraine, I learned that when she is not doing well she is likely to choose to withdraw rather than ask for support. As we talked about what leads her to this choice, we discovered together that in some fashion she has a habit of acting within her relationships as if the well-being of the other person is more important than her own, which takes some effort. When she is not doing well, she simply doesn’t have the energy to expend on that effort. The result, a somewhat one-sided friendship, doesn’t actually work for me, because I want a friendship that nourishes both of us. To put it somewhat bluntly: a friendship that’s designed to work only for me doesn’t really work for me. While we didn’t come to some epiphany or clear resolution, the mere talking about this dilemma, and the holding of it together, brought us to a place of more appreciation for what we bring to each other, and a clearer sense of intimacy.

I see a striking similarity between these two unrelated situations, and a lot to learn about what makes relationships thrive. However scary it can sometimes be, telling the truth creates more intimacy. Instead of believing that we have to sort things out on our own, we can bring our incomplete process to each other and be together in the uncertainty of life.

Navigating what comes up may take some skill and a willingness to experience discomfort and step into unknown territory. This is probably why so many of us avoid it so much of the time. We tell ourselves we can let go, and yet we build resentment. We stretch to hold the other person with care, and don’t notice that we are giving up on ourselves in some subtle way. We prioritize harmony, and we lose depth and authenticity. Ultimately the source of the difficulty is about seeing honesty and care as mutually exclusive instead of recognizing the extraordinary possibilities that arise when we bring our dilemmas, our sorrows and doubts, and our less-then-together selves to each other at the same time as our love, empathy, and understanding. The result is nothing short of resilient and graceful intimacy, the kind we all desire.

These principles apply in all relationships, and most especially in intimate partnerships. If you would like to know more about telling truth to create intimacy, and other ways to make your relationships work, I would like to invite you to a workshop I am facilitating called "Peace Starts at Home". It's primarily designed for couples, and is open to anyone who wants to explore dialogue as a way of life.

Power and Humility - Part 1

by Miki Kashtan

Some time ago I wrote about submission and rebellion, the two poles that we have inherited as traditional responses to another’s power. Today I want to return to this topic from a different angle, which is whether and how we can transform power dynamics, so that the statement that “power corrupts” no longer appears so completely like a truism. Another way of asking this question: what does it take for any of us to become “incorruptible,” meaning being so strong in our inner practice that we can withstand the allure of power? I want to believe that we can operate in a way that diminishes and eventually makes obsolete the responses of submission and rebellion.

I am a relatively small fish in the large order of things. I have less than 400 subscribers to this blog, for example. The organization I co-founded has about 10 employees, and I have at most a few hundred former and current students who look to me actively as their teacher. Nonetheless, I am quite aware of at least some of the dynamics of power within which I operate, and have intimate knowledge, even on the small scale at which I operate, of the dilemmas and complexities that come with power.

The Challenge of Structural Power 

In blunt terms, having structural power means having the option of attending to my needs without including others’ needs. Structural power means access to resources based on my position within a structure, not based on relationship or personal resources. Here are some personal examples:

* As a boss (which I mostly am not), I  can fire someone. They cannot
   fire me.
* As a program leader, I can choose not to give someone access to the
   program, they cannot restrict my access in the same way.
* When I sit in a room and speak, people listen to me and are likely to go along
   with what I want much more often than when someone else, who is not a
   “designated” leader, speaks into the same group.

I find it extraordinarily challenging to know this and to have any clarity about how to operate in integrity. I am so committed to moving forward in a way that honors everyone’s integrity, dignity, and autonomy that I sometimes act with less than my full personal power in certain moments as a way to avoid imposing anything on anyone. I know enough to know I want to transform this habit, and am chipping away at it. I am not yet where I want to be. This is a learning edge for me.

The Temptation

I hold a very large vision for the world, and my life is completely mobilized for the foreseeable future to do all I know to do to increase the likelihood of a livable future. This is a lot of work, a huge amount of effort. I teach, I write, I am a key leader in BayNVC, I created and continue to offer leadership to the Consciousness Transformation Community, I am part of several collaborations, and I receive a steady stream of requests from former students, colleagues, and others. That in itself is more than a full life.

I also have a sister, Inbal, that I love beyond words and who is living with cancer. I am a major and active part of her support and care network. This is a journey full of uncertainty and immense beauty, as my two sisters are the biggest joy of my life. (Inbal is doing well at present, in case you are worried, and that’s not always been the case in the last four years and may not continue.)

If that’s not enough, I myself had cancer in 1997 and want to do all I can to minimize the risk of having another one (cancer runs deeply in my family, on both sides), I am very committed to attending to my own body and self-care, and to do things that nourish me.

Between these three primary commitments, my life is essentially unmanageable. The metaphor of a blanket that’s too short seems very apt to me. And, on top of that, I am a person with many sensitivities, physical, emotional, and social, and I find daily living often challenging.

I crave ease in the midst of so many commitments and challenges.

I know I am far from the only one who is challenged by life. Many many people are craving ease in the midst of challenging lives, all over the world. Most of them will never have enough ease and relief. I can’t not be aware of that truth. I also know that I do have enough power to arrange for some ease in my life if I want to use my power in this way.

Because I am so mobilized and putting so much of my energy towards service, I can easily “justify” using my power to create ease for myself. I feel that pull. I also know, and trust this insight, that it’s not going to serve the world for me to resist the pull and do nothing to create ease in my life, because it would result in my being less effective. At the same time I want to stay clear of slipping into more and more ways of creating ease that are less and less aligned with my values. Like many, this is a very complex line to walk.

For example, I like the outcome of my own decisions and how I do things better than most people most of the time. Full ease would mean making all the decisions and telling other people what to do to support me. That is too far, too similar to old models, and in that way ultimately not serving my vision. It’s also not doable for me emotionally, because I have a visceral aversion to imposing my will on others. I am still learning about when and how to involve other people in decisions and in the doing to maximize effectiveness, connection, collaboration, and empowerment for all of us. Like many things, this is a tall order.

Full ease would also mean working only with people who are fully empowered in their relationship with me, able to transcend the submit/rebel paradigm and make choices based on their full sense of inner power, and easily aligned with my vision and direction. This would mean people who can say “no” to me when I ask them to do something, who would give me divergent opinions when I offer mine, and who would be relaxed and comfortable shifting through dialogue with me. It would mean people who can speak clearly and articulate what’s important to them even when there is tension, as well as able to hear me and open their hearts to me without much effort. That’s a lot to ask for. If I don’t have it with someone, then I am at a loss about how to tend to the relationship with integrity, how to use my power with people, when it could take so much effort and open spaces in my schedule to do so. How can I do it? How can I not?

As often, I have more to say than fits in one entry. Stay tuned for the continuation of this topic in the coming days.

Understanding Everyone: Empathic Reflections about Osama Bin-Laden’s Killing - Part 2

by Miki Kashtan

 

This is part 2 of a post I started a couple of weeks ago. At that time I was offering my understanding to the people who are celebrating Osama Bin-Laden’s death, as well as to those who judge the celebration.

Today I want to explore in a similar manner other positions that people have within the range of responses to his killing that I am aware of. However, before doing that I want to respond to some comments on the previous post.

Vengeance

First, to an anonymous person who said this:

“I think you missed a vital point while trying to walk in someone else's shoes, and that is that some people seemed to be celebrating because they believe in vengeance. … They are celebrating because it's a video game, because they believe in an eye for an eye, because he's the bad guy and we're the good guys, and because they don't see him as a real human being. … it's much more of a challenge to empathise with someone who believes in the justness of the killing (murder, actually), and think they would be happy to do it themselves, given half a chance.”

I am appreciating the invitation to stretch even further into the experiential gap with those who are different from us. Initially it seems next to impossible. How can I truly enter the experience of believing in vengeance, of wishing I could be the one to kill, or seeing him as not really human? I feel in me the recoiling, the visceral level distance. And so I walk slowly towards it, as far as I can, to make emotional sense of it. I know enough to know that connection is not made at the level of beliefs. If I only put my attention on someone’s beliefs I am unlikely to get anywhere. And so I shift my focus, I try to ask: What is at the heart of the belief that someone is bad, that someone could be less than human? What is at the heart of the belief that it’s OK to get rid of some people because they are bad? I want to remain curious about the answer, open to discovering it, letting it emerge from practice.

Why is it that some of us want vengeance, that some of us think of killing someone as justice, so much so that we can even derive pleasure from doing it? Thinking of someone as less than human is familiar to me. I have done it plenty of times over the course of my life, and can still feel the pull to go there with regards, ironically, to those who might be making someone else less than human. Irony, and no surprise. Beholding such a gap and remaining open-hearted is such intense pain and confusion. I can see wanting to close the heart.

This is not the end. There is more. There is the delight in someone’s death, the belief that it’s the right thing, the just thing, the only way to go. What is the fundamental human need that’s leading someone to believe in “an eye for an eye?” If I truly embrace the core assumption at the very heart of Nonviolent Communication – that every human action is an attempt to meet a need – then I must find a need that could give rise to this belief. I am struggling to connect the dots in full, because I have no emotional reference point. I still find immense value in the effort to understand, even if I never get there in full. It is a human phenomenon, it’s happened since time immemorial, and I want to understand it. My faith tells me it’s a human experience emerging from needs that are no different from my own. I can name them, and have no emotional vibrancy to them. That’s how far I can go. Perhaps I need to role play this person in order to make contact. For now, I imagine that this kind of belief creates an enormous relief with regards to order in the universe. A sense of belonging in a human family now purified. I do, still, believe that deeper down is fear, and the desire to protect what is dear, and that the delight is in the success itself. And the journey is incomplete. I hope to keep learning this one for as long as I live.

Violation

I am imagining myself living in Pakistan, being a Moslem, and having the experience of violation of my national sovereignty and social dignity as the army of a foreign and ill-liked country proceeds to do whatever they wish on my soil. I imagine feeling infuriated and helpless, humiliated.

I am curious why I find so much more ease in relating to this experience, even though it’s also not one I have experienced myself? I guess it’s because I do have an emotional reference point. It’s quite completely different, and yet I sense the affinity. I’ve had the experience of non-consensual sex, with someone I knew, to boot, and more than once. That experience provides a window through which the helplessness and anguish are clear as day. I can sense the depth of the wish to be able to protect what is dear, to maintain the integrity and dignity of identity, of body, of borders, to have a say in what happens to me, to us, on our land. It blends easily with my experience. Even though I have never felt the fury and rage that often come in such moments, I can completely see it. It’s not difficult for me to imagine how much of a fertile ground this experience is for future generations of people set on destroying the people who caused such harm.

And now, through this, I can loop back to the celebrators, united across their opposing positions. I imagine this was my missing link: that the vengeance, the eye for an eye, the celebration of the killing in different moments in different groups, points to the assault on the soul that is at the heart of loss of dignity. I can now imagine that the people who wanted Osama dead, who wanted to kill him themselves if they could, experienced previous actions by Osama as an assault on their dignity and humanity, and that the vengeance is a response to that level of humiliation and helplessness, more so than to safety. I still don’t have a way of knowing. It just feels a little more true, a little more humanly rich, and closer to them as fellow humans.

I don’t feel done quite yet, so I may very well come back to this topic one more time. Still open to new perspectives and players to understand, please send my way.

Nonviolence and Killing

by Miki Kashtan

In the wake of Osama Bin-Laden’s killing a very active discussion emerged on the email forum used by the community of trainers certified with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. One thread of this conversation has been about responses to the particular event, and especially how to relate to the people celebrating Bin-Laden’s death. This exploration was the primary inspiration for my previous entry (to which I still intend to come back). Another thread has focused on a more general question: can killing in any way be compatible with nonviolence?

This is by far not a new dilemma in human affairs. The Dalai Lama, one of the living icons of nonviolence, also engaged with this same question, citing a Buddhist scripture that suggests killing may sometimes be necessary, so long as it’s done with utmost compassion and in extreme and rare circumstances. Whether or not the stringent criteria implicit in the story were met in this circumstance, the Dalai Lama’s essential claim is that Buddhism, in principle, is not categorically opposed to killing.

Others, including Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist leader who is also deeply associated with peace and nonviolence, and others who embrace a consciousness of nonviolence, are suggesting that killing is never to be done. For some, true nonviolence entails the willingness to die rather than to kill.

Earlier today an NVC trainer from Germany who is also a Sikh posted on the email forum, and included this sentence: “Killing seems to be part of nature – the question to me really is, what is the consciousness behind it.”

With some significant changes and additions, I am posting here my response to this post. This is an invitation to engage with this question, with all questions, with complexity and with love. In our times, with what we are facing, I don’t believe that simple one-dimensional answers will do. I sense that paradox and complexity are essential for our survival.

I was reminded of a very complex process I went through when I had cancer in 1997. At that time I was part of the Thich Nhat Hanh community, and, specifically, had taken the five precepts, the first of which is no killing and no condoning of killing. This was the background against which I was presented with the prevalent image of "war" against the cancer. I was deeply troubled, because I had complete clarity that these cells, no matter what else was true of them, were part of me, and were alive. I had a lot of difficulty embracing the idea of killing them.

What helped me were two insights, both of which seem relevant to this essential question.

The first was coming to understand that life depends on killing, at all levels. For example, if our immune system stops killing invading germs we will all die in short order. That realization was shocking, disturbing, and also expansive in terms of my understanding of life.

The second was that cancer is an unsustainable life form. It has no way to survive because of the indefinite growth that consumes more and more resources and will, eventually, kill the person whose cancer it is. My choice, as someone with cancer, was to do all I could so that the cancer would die faster and therefore I would stay alive.

In this moment it appears to me that most of the killing that happens in life is interwoven with the ongoing processes of living, eating, shelter, and other such basics. And then there are times when the option of killing happens as an active, conscious decision. I see the example of my cancer as a metaphor for one of the criteria about when killing is harmonious with life.

In a movie I saw many years ago I remember some people who were asking forgiveness of animals before killing them for food. In that act I saw recognition of the inevitability, as well as understanding of the grief and anguish of the necessity, of killing.

When it comes to killing humans I imagine that process being extraordinarily difficult. I have serious doubt that most of the killing that happens amongst humans receives that quality of immense care and attention.

Subsequent to my cancer experience, I lost my capacity to see “no killing” as a vow I could accept. I haven't yet found an elegant way to come up with a simple and tight set of criteria to use in deciding about killing. Nothing that is useful enough to share with others. It has been evident to me that the hermetic and single-focused “no killing” is in most instances easier to observe than the agonizing process of becoming conscious each time and deciding in the absence of clarity. I dropped out of the community, because I didn’t see that I could find companionship in the excruciating work of disentangling the complexity. So I wrestled by myself. Do I kill the ants that one day swarmed into my house in the many hundreds? I did kill them. Was it necessary? I doubt it. They were not threatening my survival in any way, only my comfort. Was the killing done with compassion? Hardly. I was frantic and shaking all over in primal disgust, and didn’t have any sense of presence of mind while spraying them.

Ants are not human, and I still also believe that I myself would not be able to kill another person even in very difficult circumstances. I hope very much that I don’t find myself in such circumstances, because whatever happens will no doubt be deeply traumatic for me.

Whatever else is true, I am confident that the more we can all learn and integrate into our body, mind, and soul the options of dialogue and nonviolent resistance the less likely it is that we would find killing the only option in any given circumstance. In addition to courage and love, I know I want to cultivate creativity so as to be able to find the nonviolent options: the magic of dialogue, the energy of nonviolent resistance, and the vision of love that grounds them both. I want all of us to walk beyond the constraining visions we have inherited, so we can truly see the possibility of transcending either/or thinking and develop trust that we can create outcomes that ultimately benefit everyone.

Understanding Everyone: Empathic Reflections about Osama Bin-Laden’s Killing

by Miki Kashtan

I have had a dream for many years now to be able to provide an empathic response to the news, whatever they are, so that everyone is seen as fully human. I see this situation as just the right time to explore this approach. There are so many ways in which people have participated in or responded to this event, and I want to capture the humanity of all of them. Some are rejoicing, some are horrified, some are skeptical, some are apathetic, and all are fellow humans. As tough as it sometimes is to really feel that commonality, that is what I most want to do.

People Celebrating Bin-Laden’s Death

I confess that this one is particularly challenging for me. Then I remind myself: the more challenging it is to viscerally step into the experience of another, the more necessary it is for me to do so in order to mend the separation. Whatever else is true, what is foreign to me, what is challenging, what is frightening, what I may judge, is also part of life. By distancing myself from it, I remain closed to some aspect of life. When I can truly get into those different experiences, then I embrace life, then I am in flow, without resistance, without claiming to know, and certainly without claiming to control any outcomes. Certainly a tall order.

And so I try to imagine myself being so happy that someone is dead. Why would I be happy that someone is dead? What could possibly be the experience that would lead me to wish for someone’s death? I don’t have to go very far. While I never wanted to kill anyone, I did have a few experiences in my life of reaching such a degree of helplessness and despair in a relationship, that I fantasized about the possibility that a particular person would die, somehow, and relieve me of my immense suffering. I also remember twice in my life when someone died and the primary feeling I had was one of relief. Now I can use these experiences as entry points. I can imagine having so much fear, so much helplessness about the basic, primal sense of safety for me and for the people I care about, both individually and collectively, that I would just be consumed with thoughts about how to get rid of this individual I see as the direct cause of my suffering. Of course, my fear, if I am this person, is likely fed by the media. That doesn’t make my experience one bit less real. I am rejoicing because, for a moment, I actually believe that the source of my troubles is removed.

And what’s the effect on me of having done this exploration? Twofold. First, I feel much less separate. For as long as I held the people celebrating Bin-Laden’s death as “other,” I didn’t even have the memory of my own experiences of extreme helplessness. Now I have more tenderness, for them, and for me. Something feels soft, and in that softness I relax into such immense anguish, and I have tears streaming down my face, and they are the first since I heard the news. My reaching across the divide to understand has opened me to me more fully to my own fallible humanity, as well as to my passion and dreams for how I want the world to be. I know I want different responses, and now I can stand within that dream more fully. I am soft, and I am committed to do what I can.

People Judging the Killing and the Celebration

I have a different challenge altogether in opening my heart here. As is likely evident already, I, too, responded with shock and despair when I heard about people celebrating. On that level it’s so much easier for me to understand the experience that leads to the judgment. At the same time I can also easily access disappointment that people who speak about nonviolent solutions, especially those who have been steeped in the study and practice of nonviolence, respond with distance and judgment. I can easily tell myself that they are reaffirming the very kind of thinking that perpetuates the structures and practices we have in the world. In moments of unconscious righteousness I can be pulled to minimize the differences between the celebrators and the judgers of the celebration.

I wake up from such moments through remembering that my own judging of the judgers is no different, either. Once I remember, the full openness is right there. Why do they judge, why do I judge? Time and again I have come back to the same clarity: when I judge, I am protected in some way. I don’t have to feel whatever is going on in its fullness. I have done that so many times, and continue to do it. Most of the time only for brief seconds, because I so prefer the open-hearted state that I easily choose to unfurl my protection and enter into the experience underneath. Not all the time. In some areas my judgments have not yet been dissolved. Those are the ones that are most likely to help me understand those who judge others. It’s not my agreement with their fundamental perspective. Agreement does not easily lead to empathy, because agreement keeps us at the level of content, and empathy arises at a different level of meaning, closer to the core of our shared human experience of responding to life, moment by moment.

As I keep asking, I see my judgment arising from the depth of my care, and in those places where I least know how to contribute to transformation. I judge, most easily, any time I view someone else as not caring, or not caring enough, and taking actions that I see as potentially harmful. I know that believing there’s lack of care on anyone’s part, whether small or large, frightens me deeply. So I judge as a way to have hope, perhaps. Because the judgment has some strength to it, some conviction. Even after so many years of study and practice, I still don’t have sufficient visceral trust in the power of just being with my own depth of experience, with my own needs, and dreams, and visions. I have seen time and again that the willingness to be with my experience, and to open my heart to another’s, has created breakthrough outcomes. How very sad that this is so. And how very human, given the thousands of years of being taught separation, distance, and creating order through enforecement.

Now the cycle is complete. I can now experience that blessed tenderness, that essential compassion, for the judgers, too. Because, once again, I am not separate. I am, once again, in the flow of life, open to all of us, regardless of where we are.

More to Come

This piece is only the beginning, as there are so many more players. I had, truly, no idea of where this writing would take me. This has been a personal exploration. Without quite planning to do so, the internal integrity or following truth led me to delve into the one-person experience that I have in trying to imagine how all the players are human like me. I am amazed, moved, and grateful for the many years of practice that allow me to share with such vulnerability, and through that experience such connection with life. As I am about to post this piece, I now imagine you reading it, and I feel the stretching into the vulnerability extending further. So many of you I don’t even know. Will you accept me? I see, vividly, that my own relaxed and complete acceptance of myself is what makes it possible to post this. I share this, because I am longing to inspire you all to embrace who you are more and more, so you can be stronger and stronger.

In the coming days I plan to come back and explore additional perspectives. You can help me with this by letting me know through your comments about anyone whose response is challenging for you to understand. Depending on how many such comments I receive, I may or may not find ways to explore them all. I am also inviting you to engage in the same way I did, or in any other way that would support you in seeing the humanity of all.

Dialogue and Nonviolence

by Miki Kashtan

I have often reminded others (and myself in the process) that our commitment to nonviolence is only tested when people do things we don’t like. How are we going to respond when we see an individual, a leader, a group, or even a nation, acting in ways that are not aligned with what we want to see happen in the world?

Nonviolence gets its power from love, from breaking down the barriers of separation and cultivating compassion for everyone, from the courage to face consequences to our actions, from the willingness to stand for truth, from the fierce commitment to overcome fear and act in integrity.

Responding nonviolently to what we don’t like, then, invites us to find ways of bringing love, courage, and truth to the situation even while we are trying to transform it.

Nonviolent Resistance and Dialogue

What can our actions look like when we come from this perspective? We either engage in dialogue, when such is available, or we engage in nonviolent resistance. Nonviolent resistance can be seen as an escalation of dialogue just as much as war can be seen as an escalation of diplomatic fear-based negotiations. In nonviolent resistance we bring to bear resources to increase engagement, to make visible our plight, to appeal to the humanity of those whose actions we want to change, or simply to reduce their ability to keep doing their actions without cost so as to invite more consideration of other options. Nonviolent resistance was the quintessential method of Gandhi, MLK, and many other movements, including the recent ones in the Arab world.

Truly nonviolent resistance aims to create an outcome that works for everyone through the recognition that only solutions that work for everyone are sustainable. Any solution that is forced on another person, group, or nation simply has too much potential to breed resentment, even hatred, and therefore to backfire at the soonest opportunity of the forced party to seize power again.

This deep commitment to an outcome that works for everyone is the connecting link between nonviolent resistance and dialogue. Dialogue, unlike nonviolent resistance, requires two (or more) people or groups that are in agreement to talk with each other. However, dialogue doesn’t require both parties to agree to be in dialogue, only to agree to talk. The discipline of dialogue, at its heart, is a commitment to make dialogue possible, to continue to pursue the goal of an outcome that truly works for everyone even when others are only looking out for their own interest.

Dialogue and Conversation

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.” -- Margaret Millar

“Dialogue is a conversation … the outcome of which is unknown.”  -- Martin Buber

While every dialogue is a conversation, not every conversation is a dialogue. What are the features that distinguish dialogue from other forms of conversation? If we accept Buber’s characterization of dialogue, what makes it possible for the outcome to be unknown?

Listening: I know I have embraced dialogue when I recognize in me a sense of openness to the other person’s experience. Part of what makes so many conversations different from the true magic of dialogue is that so often we use the time during which others are speaking to think about the next thing we are going to say, without giving our ears and hearts to the person speaking. This is even more pronounced when whoever is speaking is someone whose actions, words, or opinions we are opposing. This, after all, is the context for this exploration: dialogue as a response to a situation we don’t like.

Openness to change: An unknown outcome means that something along the way has changed from whatever it was that could have been predicted as an outcome. Especially if we are unhappy with how things are, this willingness takes active dedication and commitment. Without it, I don’t trust my own integrity. If I am unwilling to change, to be affected by what I hear sufficiently to consider options which are new to me, on what grounds am I expecting the other person to change?

Holding everyone’s needs: At bottom, embracing the spirit of dialogue is a commitment to caring for everyone who is part of the dialogue, even if they have taken actions that deeply concern me. I love what I see as the radical gift of this commitment. Without it I could so easily be tempted to impose solutions on a less-than-willing person just because I believe they address my own needs better. With this commitment in place I work for an inclusive solution even when the other person may still be advocating for their needs only. This, to me, is where the strength of the commitment to nonviolence gets tested: I want to be able to hold enough love and trust, both in myself and in the humanity of the other parties, that I will stay the course until we are connected, until we have some solution with which we can all live. I have seen it happen on a small scale, and I continue to have faith that such dialogue is possible at all levels.

Honoring Our Limits

The commitment to dialogue may appear to ask of us to have infinite capacity. Always be open to dialogue? With anyone? About anything? Any time they want it?

I have wrestled with this question for years in various contexts, and just recently I reached some clarity that has helped me put it to rest, at least in part. Key to my peace was the distinction between the openness to shifting through dialogue and the act of having an actual conversation with a particular person. Inner and outer aspects.

As to the act of being in conversation with another, that act happens on the material plane, and is therefore subject to finitude in a way that willingness is not. Willingness, like any inner state, has not limits. Our capacity to schedule, mobilize resources, and create the conditions for dialogue to occur, is humanly limited. I have often seen many of us get so confused by material limitations that we close ourselves down and disengage. If I am going to say “no” to participating in a dialogue, I want absolute honesty with myself that my choice is based on clear assessment of my resources rather than a subtle form of avoidance, closed-heartedness, or any other form of putting a barrier between me and another person.

I have found repeatedly that the experience of openness to dialogue in and of itself is transformative. I can tell the difference, sometimes in a very visceral way, in my body itself, when I am or am not open in that way. I know how attachment feels because I have had so many times now the experience of not having it, and the immense freedom that comes with that. It’s not about not wanting, even wanting passionately; it’s not about not having opinions, even strong ones; it’s not about going along with anything or anyone. It’s simply about the willingness to be affected by what I hear, or even by my own imagination about another’s needs or perspective. It’s about allowing connection with needs, my own and another’s, to be the moving force of life, the source of creative strategies.

Why Would I Want to Understand?

by Miki Kashtan

I recently wrote an article linking NVC to the legacy of Gandhi in which I identified seven principles that are common to both. I consider the third principle - seeing others’ humanity – as core to the practice of nonviolence, and at the same time as profoundly demanding. It is so much easier, on so many levels, to only “grant” full humanity to some people and not others.

NVC provides a practical method for cultivating this capacity to see others’ humanity, based on the principle that every human action, no matter how destructive or abhorrent to us, is an expression of basic human needs that are shared by all of us.

When I express the full extent and radical ramifications of this principle, very often people raise the example of Hitler. Isn’t he, ultimately, beyond the pale? To me, nothing is. As I wrote the article, I was amazed to learn that Gandhi wrote to Hitler, and addressed him as “Dear Friend.” I know that Marshall Rosenberg dedicated significant research and personal reflection to studying Hitler’s life so he could see and understand his humanity. I know it’s possible. And so I included a paragraph in which I explored what could possibly be some basic human needs that could possibly be hidden deep underneath the choices that led him to such extremes. The paradox is astonishing to me. The choices themselves are so beyond comprehension to me that I can barely breathe when I truly attempt to take them in, and yet the needs I could imagine are fully and easily understandable to me. Here’s what I identified: “I can easily see, and often experience, being only with people similar to us as one strategy for the human needs to belong, to have ease in relating, and to have a sense of meaning and connection. Seeing this, I can resonate with Hitler’s underlying needs, and thus make human sense of Hitler despite of and independently of his actions.” (If you are curious about why acting on these needs would take the form of such unimaginable actions, I highly recommend James Gilligan’s book Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. Gilligan discusses, in particular, the role of shame in leading to violence and cruelty.)

From Emotional Protection to Open-Hearted Grief

For some people it seems virtually impossible to fathom the possibility of such compassion. They want to protect themselves from the excruciating pain that the specter of the actions raises for them. As one reader wrote after the article was posted: “It is so painful for me to ponder what needs of his he was trying to meet by his actions. I have a preference to stay away from people or things that are just so "needy" and require so much work on my part to not judge or condemn.”

On the most personal level, my own main reason for wanting to extend understanding is the profound effect it has on me. I believe it was Martin Luther King who said that the practice of nonviolence first of all affects the person who practices it, before it affects anyone else.

From the moment I understood the revolutionary depth of this principle, I have been working systematically to integrate it and make it available to me in more and more circumstances. Sometimes I have taken days and weeks to reflect on what could possibly be the human needs of someone whose actions I could not comprehend, whether someone I know personally or a public figure. I have also been in dialogue with people very different from me and focused on understanding, really trying to make sense of their actions from within their own frame of reference, and get a visceral feel for their needs. Many times I have taken on very difficult roles as part of my work with people, and have always found a human nugget at the heart of sometimes extreme actions. Each time this happens, I feel bigger and stronger as a human being. Most of the time, these days, I no longer need to reflect much; the experience of entering another person’s reality is now fairly easily available to me, and I consider that a blessing.

I am not without pain. I would never trade that pain for what I felt before. I have so much less fear these days, so much more room to be, to explore, to experiment. I am so much more at one with the whole of humanity, without separation, without enemies. My world feels safer and bigger when everyone is essentially human like me.

From Moral Indignation to Compassionate Determination

A more common concern I have heard often is that compassion is somehow the same as making the actions OK. In particular, I have heard many express the fear that with compassion we would do nothing to stop actions that are harmful. Because of the millennia of training to see everything as either right or wrong, if I don’t call something “wrong” it’s easy to see me as saying that it’s “right.” Understanding, for me, is entirely different from agreement or acceptance. It’s an entirely different orientation. I do not have to hate or condemn someone in order to do everything in my power to stop their actions. I can do it with compassion, and I can have just as much intensity, determination, and passion for what matter to me. I can act with as much conviction and decisiveness while still having care for the person whose actions I am trying to stop. Gandhi, again, comes to mind. He didn’t hate the British officers. He stood up to them, resisted, mobilized millions, and all the while maintained a sense of full respect for their humanity. In fact, he fully believed it was to their benefit to leave India.

Compassion and Nonviolence

What many people don’t know is that nonviolence was used, and successfully so, even during WWII. (See Michael Nagler’s book The Search for a Nonviolent Future for examples.) As our capacity to destroy increases, and our collective global willingness to use that capacity remains high, I am more and more eager to see the nonviolent alternatives. I have complete faith that nonviolence can be a primary approach to resolving international conflict. I don’t believe we can get there without learning to see others’ humanity no matter the circumstances.