Cowardice

Nonviolence and universal human justice take great courage and sacrifice. Cowardice is taking the easy, most conventional course against one's higher instincts and ethics.

Why is an American president with unusually high popular approval and international enthusiasm waffling on bringing an end to our wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq? Where is his loyalty based? Is it based in the people who elected him? Or is it based in the political class to which he belongs? The same questions can be asked of the Congress and all politicians in America.

Why is America rated 13th in international quality-of-life polls? Why is the American middle class being reduced to poverty and high debt to the wealthy who are 10% of the population? Why does the American government refuse to provide affordable health care to all its citizens?

Look to the banks. Look to the insurance companies. Look to the corporations in the energy and military-supply sectors. Look to the private contractors in the war zones.

Has cowardice led the leaders of America to bow to greed and corruption?

Practice?

What is practice? My answer to that question is this: Practice is moment-by-moment, mindful, intentional and purposeful thought and behavior, guided by an informed, personal, ethical standard, based in love, compassion and peace.

Practice is awakened living. Practice is attempting to live every moment as a whole, human, conscious, peaceful being. I could go on, but I think I have made myself clear on my ideal concept of practice.

Practice goes beyond thought or belief or intention. Believing in ethics, believing in peace, believing in truth and justice is not enough. Practice is behavior, joined with these ideals. Right action with right thought in every situation from awakening to going to sleep.

I strongly believe that Christian practice, Buddhist practice, Jewish practice and Muslim practice, if motivated by compassion and peace, supersede their religious ideologies. In other words, practice supersedes dogma as a form of human growth and the promotion of general human well-being.

Secular humanist, or ethical humanist, practice is entirely harmonious with religious practice, when motivated by compassion and peace. Dogma is often the enemy, for dogma seeks to control human behavior and thought through ritualized and codified prescriptions.

The practitioner of peace and compassion needs no dogma. There are no magical ceremonies which can truly enhance the practice of mindfulness, truthfulness, compassion and nonviolence. Dogma divides. Compassion and nonviolence bring together. Practice is that simple, but it is also that difficult.

Nonviolence

I have learned a great deal from Asian philosophy and culture. I have not practiced martial arts, but I have studied their basic philosophy. Unfortunately, the Western interpretation and mutation of martial arts often blurs the lines between self defense to immobilize or fend off an aggressor and intentional or lethal harm to an aggressor.

There is power in living nonviolently, in my opinion. To firmly root oneself in nonviolent thought and nonviolent action takes practice. More practice for some than for others. Playing violent video games is not consistent with nonviolent practice. Supporting blood sports is not nonviolent practice. Joining the military is not nonviolent practice. Engaging in threatening speech or action is not nonviolent practice.

The key to nonviolent practice is the bridling of instinctive anger and conditioned anger. First, one must acknowledge the presence of anger in the moment. Then one must develop ways to deal with the anger immediately and consciously in the moment. Suppressing or repressing anger is not nonviolent practice. Acknowledging and channeling anger consciously and consistently is nonviolent practice. Exposing one's anger for what it is, accepting it and understanding its stimulus are essential conscious actions.

Many of us go through life experiencing habitual anger with roots in bad relationships in our pasts. This anger, if unexposed and left unattended to, will be an obstacle to many relationships. It will also inhibit personal growth.

Practice encompasses making conscious all the senses and all the emotions in our bodies. Then, moment by moment, mindful experience and channeling of our emotions builds a practice for personal growth. This is the central healing relationship we must build within ourselves before we can truthfully benefit the world around us in our practice as mindful, compassionate human beings in society.

Military

The problem with the military mind is its lack of ability to see its narcissism. It can only see war as necessity to justify its oppression and brutality. Peace keeping, another term for oppression of demands for human and economic rights by the poor and undereducated, in the 21st century can be achieved without hundreds of thousands of exploited underclass citizens being amed with lethal weapons.

The military-industrial (corporate) complex needs to process these underclass men and women to control them, disable them or route them into underclass jobs after their service. If they were not controlled in this fashion, they might well form an army of revolution against the status quo.

This is the old reality behind armies and wars.

If wealth were not hoarded and passed on by the rich, there would be ample financial resources to spread peace, rather than just keep it. Schools, clean water, healthy housing and more could be afforded to the poorest of our brothers and sisters worldwide. Armies guard the rich at the expense of the poor. Armies, like the violence they perpetrate, are evil without exception.