"In this, there is that" Part II

Almost a year ago now I was introduced to this phrase “In this, there is that.” It was a line written in a book called One Buddha is Not Enough, and it has really impacted me in a profound way. It has been one of those experiences where for most of my life I didn’t notice something much at all, and now I see it everywhere. 

It is like after buying my metallic shade Rav 4 Toyota, I now see this particular SUV on nearly every drive I take. Or when I was first introduced to the Bowenian concept of interpersonal Triangulation in graduate school, I suddenly saw triangles in all my relationships. It’s like that.  And now, “In this, there is that” has become a type of mantra for me, which I truly do notice all the time, including, as with most things, in nature.

The first observation of this mantra came with the ‘ol acorn and the oak tree.  Do you know this one? I have always been drawn to this metaphor from nature which is of course the idea that within every small acorn seed is the possibility of a large oak tree. This metaphor has been used in literature for the imagery of how a character can develop into their full true self. I’ve also seen it used in Western Buddhist writing to depict the belief that all human beings have a Buddha nature within just waiting to be woken up to.  Just the other day though, the acorn to oak metaphor showed up in my life in the form of my friend.

I have a dear friend, who is also my son’s godmother, and she has recently transformed from acorn to oak because she saw a small seed of an idea all the way through to fruition.  It started well over a year ago when my friend had a fresh idea for a partnership between her non-profit organization and a large cooperate organization of the likes of which had not been tried before. And just yesterday the partnership was solidified in the form of a contractual agreement. I felt so proud of her, and who knows, what I’m calling an oak tree may just be the initial sapling for something larger. You just never know.

Sometimes though, nature has taught me the lesson “in this, there is that,” through pain and discomfort.  For example, two nights ago a terrible, hot, July thunderstorm swept through New England with high winds that left damage of tree limbs down and flooding. However, within minutes of the storm ending, I looked up to the sky to see a magnificent double rainbow shining down.

I think this dialectic can be more challenging than the acorn to oak because it encompasses the paradoxical reality that pain could be in the same box as beauty.  For those of us control freaks who like to engage our black and white thinking patterns in compulsive compartmentalizing behavior, this is a tough one to swallow because we don’t want to put the ugly and horrific sides of humanity in the same box as our highest prized virtue.

For instance, we don’t want to keep a masterpiece of art like the song “Strange Fruit” by jazz singer and songwriter Billie Holiday eternally in the same box as racial lynching.  Or to have Psychiatrist Victor Frankel’s historic book and corresponding psychotherapy Man’s Search for Meaning permanently alongside the Holocaust and Concentration Camps. Or more personally, to have the post-partum depression I experienced 6 years ago always associated with the spiritual awakening that immediately followed, and the alcoholic in my life being forever tied to all that has been helpful to me in AL-ANON.

It kind of kills me a little bit that to look at something awe inspiring, I have to be reminded of something awful, and I don’t think I’m alone here. that in life.  I’d much rather look at what is beautiful and avoid all of the ugly.  The problem is, to do that is to not acknowledge the confusing contradictory reality that some of the beauty in this earthly life is not only tied to the ugly, but born of the ugly. “In this, there is that.”

Please do not misunderstand me, I am in agreement with Unitarian Universalist author and minister Kate Braestrup, who much more eloquently wrote about this same topic in her book Here if You Need Me, that to acknowledge the dynamic relationship between pain and beauty is not the same as the trite saying: “everything happens for a reason.”  I, like Ms. Braestrup, do not believe that.

In her book she described how she received unexpected abundant love from her community following the loss of her first husband, who was the father of her 4 children, in a tragic car accident.  However, to recognize that there is a potential underbelly of grace during painful circumstances is not the same thing as approving of the tragedy with a knowing nod toward fate or destiny.

Terrible events do not become un-terrible just because the human soul and psyche has an awesome ability to transcend and transform- just because, for some, a phoenix does rise from the ashes. The ashes still remain.

This is why it is imperative to be mindful of how we talk about these dualities so as not to invalidate the real pain of ourselves and other.  So that when we talk about the emotional and physical pain that we experience in life, we are not suggesting approval in any way.  We are however, allowing for recognition of the fact that pain, like summer thunder storms, are sometimes, not one-sided (or maybe even two, or three-sided). “In this, there is that.”

Easier said than done, right? Where I continue to struggle to hold this dialectic in my own life is with my children. Sure it’s easy to think of the acorn to oak metaphor with all of my oh-so-important seeds of wisdom that I am implanting in them so that they can mature into confident and loving members of society.  But what about the thunderstorms to rainbows? Practicing acceptance of the pain my son and daughter will endure, while protecting them against it, is one of the toughest aspects of parenthood. And I gotta say, as far as my children are concerned, the fact that a few rainbows will follow some of this pain is just not a consolation. 

This is admittedly a blind-spot of mine, and by no means the only one. So for this, and other areas of life where I resist the natural laws of the universe as it concerns all that is precious to me, I will continue to chant my mantra: “In this, there is that.”

And when I need to, I will also turn to poetry- the natural language of the soul.

On Children
by  Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Where do you see examples of this duality in nature or your own life?

Praying for Acceptance

You know how there are some people who, when faced with adversity that is beyond their control, are super classy and elegant? They seem to just seamlessly move through the whole experience without a spot on them, and you think to yourself, how do they do it?

Well, I have a theory about those people because though I am not one of them, I’ve been watching them.  Not in a stalker kind of way, but more like a groupie.  I totally want to join their clique and be like them. It’s like junior high school all over again…but that is for another time. 

My theory is that these people whom I so admire do 3 steps really well when faced with a difficult situation that they cannot fix or change, and they do it in this order:

Step 1.) Surrender

Step 2.) Align with god 

(the universe, reality, the divine, mother earth, what have you)

Step 3.) Walk willingly.

Now, if you are familiar with twelve step programs and philosophy, you could argue that all I’ve done is outlined Steps 1, 3, and 12, and I’d have to agree with you.  But I say, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?  If you are not familiar with the 12 Steps, the three I’m talking about are:

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over [insert behavior here]- that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to [insert to whom], and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Although, I must footnote here, my third step, “walk willingly,” is actually a phrase I heard from an interview with an American Catholic Nun named Simone Campbell who is an author and Executive Director of NETWORK. I interpret this phrase as the decision to no longer drag my feet as I accept god’s will in my life.

It can be so challenging for me to accept what I do not like or believe to be fair or just. And unfortunately, this struggle with acceptance can lead me to continue to try to problem-solve my way out of the difficulty despite substantial evidence that I am dealing with something beyond my control.  There is nothing to “do” with this problem anymore, which leaves me with the ever-so-unsatisfying choice of “being” with the problem. (Yuck!) Or worse, considering the possibility of shifting my paradigm so greatly so as not to even view the situation as a “problem” anymore but rather something else entirely. (Impossible!)

I once read a quote in a blog by Tara Brach, a Buddhist teacher and author wholiterally wrote the book on Radical Acceptance, that said: “Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” Ms. Brach attributed these words to a Jesuit Priest named Anthony de Mello whom she described a modern day mystic.  I would think you’d have to be a mystic to be able to get to that deep level of trust and faith with god- which I’m sure is crucial for the 3 step practice I outlined above.

Mysticism fascinates me because whether it be in Judaism, Christianity or Islam, all faiths share the universal intimacy and privacy of the one on one relationship with god at its center in mysticism. Rather than focusing on the do’s and don’ts, the dogma or icon, it is the unconditionally loving grace of god that is foremost.

But how? How do we walk in the footsteps of mystics in order to “cooperate with the inevitable?”

I think one way might be to turn to prayer.

Author Anne Lamott wrote a book in 2012 called Help, Thanks,Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. I enjoyed this book, and all her others, but I got stuck on the “Help” prayer. 

“Help” certainly seems to be the prayer that would be the most appropriate and useful in my efforts to adapt myself to the laws of the universe (since the other way around doesn’t seem to be working). But the book left me contemplating the following: if I can only have 3 “essential” prayers for god, then can god only have 3 “essential” responses for me? And if so, what might they be to “Help?”

Then I remembered an interview I once saw between Oprah Winfrey and actress Kari Washington (the star of the television show Scandal) in which Ms. Washington said she subscribed to the belief that god only responds in 3 ways to our prayers:

1.)    Yes.

2.)    Not right now.

3.)    No, because I have another plan for you.

Well, if that is true, then I am back to square one again because now I’ve got to go back to Step One: Surrender.

So now I need a new prayer to help me accept the answers to my other prayers.  For this I turn to my own scrapbook of prayers (which is poetry, song lyrics and actually prayers) I’ve put together over the years. Here are a few:

“Serenity Prayer” by Reinhold Niebuhr

God 

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Prayer by Thomas Merton

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

“Radiance Sutras,” Translated by Lorin Roche in Tara Brach’s True Refuge

There is a place in the heart where everything meets.

Go there if you want to find me.

Mind, senses, soul, eternity, all are here.

Are you there?

Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.

Give yourself to it with total abandon…

Once you know the way

the nature of attention with call you

to return, again and again,

and be saturated with knowing,

“I belong here, I am at home here.”

“Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace,” Saint Francis Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

“Amazing Grace”, partial lyrics by John Newton 

'Twas grace that taught

my heart to fear

and grace that fear relieved

how precious did

that grace appear

the hour i first believed

through many dangers

toils and snares

i have already come

'twas grace that brought me

safely thus far

and grace will lead me home

Prayer by Sylvia Boorstein

Sweetheart,

I can see that you are in pain.

Relax.

Take a breath.

Notice what is happening.

We’ll get through this together.

I can’t think of any better way to end this blog entry than Ms. Boorstein’s words, so I’ll say it one more time, “We’ll get through this together.” Amen and may it be so.

What prayers do you turn to when problem solving no longer exists and radical acceptance of the inevitable is the wisest course of action to take now?

Cultivating Resiliency

As a psychotherapist by vocation, I give a lot of thought to the idea of resiliency.  I think about what protective factors have contributed to one person being able to tolerate the intolerable and the other person being destroyed by it.

Two women whom I admire greatly whose lives reflect this critical aspect of resiliency are the recently late author, poet, performer, and activist Dr. Maya Angelou and jazz singer and song writer Billie Holiday.

Dr. Angelou was born Marguerite (my great-grandmother’s first name too) Annie Johnson in 1928 and lived to the ripe ol’ age of 86. Ms. Holiday was born 13 years earlier in 1915 as Eleanora Fagan, but died at the young age of 44 due to consequences of many years of drug and alcohol abuse.  Ms. Holiday was actually handcuffed to her hospital bed at the time of her death due to legal charges.  Though both amazing women, the ending of each of their lives was drastically different, one ceremonious and honorable, the other tragic and sad.

However, the start of each woman’s life did have several similarities.  Both women were African American and lived during a time of potent and blatant racism in the United States and abroad.  Both were born to young mothers who were ill-equipped to care for young children.  Both women suffered sexual trauma as young girls, Dr. Angelou was 8 years-old and Ms. Holiday was 11.  Despite these challenges however, both women led extraordinary and creative lives full of numerous accomplishments that continued well after their lives ended.

They actually briefly met each other in the year 1957.  Dr. Angelou described this meeting in her autobiography The Heart of a Woman, which is the 4^th book in her six-part memoir, and Ms. Holiday died not long after this meeting.

I find it meaningful to consider the role of resiliency in each of these women’s lives because it strikes me as such a predictable indicator for quality of life, which for me is an aspect of the spiritual life.

There are many definitions of resiliency, this is the one that I like the most:  Resilience is the ability to work with adversity in such a way that one comes through it unharmed or even better for the experience.

A few years ago I was giving a lot of attention and intention to the cultivation of resiliency.  I was going through some difficult things in my personal life, and it seemed like a helpful strategy to engage in practices that might give me a thicker skin to help me maneuver through the challenges at the time.  I even went online and googled “How do I become more resilient?” And I found the list outlined below.  It was written in the context of a sermon by a Unitarian Universalist Minister Barbara Myers.

She said resilient people practice the following:

1. Suffering from loss or illness will happen in life; it is inevitable. Resilient people are able to manage strong feelings and impulses such losses engender.

2. Resilient people have empathy for others.

3. Resilient people cultivate relationships that create love and trust, provide role models, and offer encouragement and reassurance.

4. Resilient people can communicate their needs effectively.

5. Resilient people can ask for help; they can refrain from gossip, or harmful statements about others; they can listen to what others are saying to them.

6. Resilient people have developed self-discipline.

7. Resilient people have the capacity to make develop goals and realistic plans and take steps to carry them out.

8. Resilient people have problem solving skills.

9. Resilient people live an authentic life.

10. Resilient people believe in what they do for a living, and do it with joy. They don't say they believe one thing and do something entirely different every day at work.

11.  Resilient people have developed the art of setting boundaries.

12. Resilient people  know how to say "No" when they realize it would be unwise to do something that is asked of them.

13. Resilient people learn how to avoid repeating behavior that has negative outcomes. Some people call this "rewriting negative scripts."

14.  Resilient people maintain a hopeful outlook; In any situation, they see the glass half full.

15. Resilient people have the ability to make positive meanings out of experiences.

16. Resilient people avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems - change how they interpret them, looking for opportunities for self-discovery.

17. Resilient people have flexibility.

18. Resilient people accept that change is a part of living; They have an uncanny ability to improvise.

19. Resilient people can admit to having vulnerability; It is important to have a humble attitude toward life.

20. Resilient people have learned how to harness the saving grace of humor which can provide escape, relaxation, a change in perspective, and detachment from problems.

21. Resilient people have a positive view of themselves and confidence in their strengths, abilities, talent and creativity.

22. Resilient people have positive self-esteem.

23. Resilient people take care of their bodies.

24. Resilient people engage in activities that they enjoy and find relaxing. They exercise regularly. Taking care of oneself helps to keep one's mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience.

25. Resilient people have an active spiritual life.

26. Resilient people engage in a spiritual practice that has meaning for them: Maybe it is meditation, journaling, prayer, or ritual.

I have to tell you I love this list and have read it many times.  And finding it within a UU minister’s sermon was just a serendipitous bonus because I identify with this faith but had not even typed in “UU” as part of my internet search; it seems the virtual universe still provided me with a UU perspective on this spiritual topic.

To consider again the lives of Dr. Angelou and Ms. Holiday against this list of resiliency practices, it is not hard to see why biographies and narratives about each woman describe Dr. Angelou as joyful, hopeful and proud versus Ms. Holiday who is depicted as depressed, cynical and self-destructive.

I suppose from a Buddhist standpoint you might look at each woman’s resiliency from a karmic perspective, which quite simply is cause and effect.

Jack Kornfield says in his book A Path with Heart  “the law of karma describes the way that cause and effect govern the patterns that repeat themselves throughout all life. Karma means that nothing arises by itself. Thus our life is a series of interrelated patterns. The Buddhists say that understanding this is enough to live wisely in the world.”

If you think about the resiliency of Dr. Angelou and Ms. Holiday (or yours or mine) from this very simple but elegant perspective of cause and effect, you can’t help but say “of course.”

Of course Dr. Angelou found it healing to live with her grandmother for many years after being raped.  During that time she described being safe and  unconditionally loved.  Though she suffered from Selective Mutism (choosing not to speak) following the sexual trauma and separation from her mother, Dr. Angelou’s grandmother and teacher (who was the first to introduce her to poetry, Shakespeare and literature) met her just where she was with radical acceptance. I believe these relationships and experiences helped shape Dr. Angelou into an individual who believed she was what Social Researcher and Author Brene Brown calls “worthy of love and belonging,” which is a critical element to resiliency.

Ms. Holiday on the other hand had no such experience. After being sexually assaulted, possibly not for the first time, at age 11, Ms. Holiday was separated from all family and put in a Catholic Reform School for girls. This was her second time being placed in this reform school. When released, still at age 11 and being placed with extended family, she began to run errands for a brothel.  If we follow the universal laws of cause and effect, it is not surprising then to learn that by the time Ms. Holiday was not quite 14, she herself was prostituting her body in the same brothel where her mother was doing the same.  It seems Ms. Holiday was never able to escape the pattern of abuse and neglect, including of self.  Resiliency was not taught, modeled or cultivated in Ms. Holiday’s life, and therefore “of course” she did not bloom into a resilient person in later life. Cause and effect.

What makes me hopeful in reflecting on resiliency, karma, and these two magnificent women, is that biology and sociology are not luck or destiny.  Each of us is dealt a hand of cards, but we can be skillful later in life as adults as to how we play them.  We know now that neuroplasticity allows us to mold and shape our brains over the course of our lifetime. We know now that we can change our harmful behavior and distorted thought patterns at any time in our lives.  In other words, we can become more resilient people at any stage of the game. Let me hear an “Amen” to that!

So today, tomorrow, and the next day, I will keep leaning in towards Ms. Myers’ list of practices of the highly resilient.  How about you? How do you cultivate resiliency? 

Living Our Values

Though I admit I'm biased, I must say there is a lot I like and respect about Unitarian Universalism. Lately though, what I've been reflecting on most is the  slogan: "living our values."

My son recently graduated from Kindergarten. And in his classroom, right next to the noble placing of the American flag, was a poster of The Golden Rule.  Do you remember this one? It goes like this: "Treat others the way you wish to be treated." 

Most us know some version of this ethic of reciprocity because it is ancient and found in all the world's major religions, philosophies and cultures. Long before it was named "The Golden Rule" in 17th century Europe, peoples in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Roman Empire, among others, had some version of this virtuous way of being and living. 

To name a few:

Confucianism: Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. 

Christianity: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

Hinduism: One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self. 

Islam: As you would have people do to you, do to them, and what you dislike to be done to you, don't do to them.

Usually this one is a no-brainer for me because it is congruent with my values. But every so often, following The Golden Rule in my interactions with others is easier said than done. 

For example, when someone, consciously or unconsciously,  repeatedly treats me or others poorly. During moments like these it becomes increasingly difficult to stay the course with The Golden Rule.  In fact, it is surprisingly easy to dessert my own values in a moment of righteous indignation.  Because, though it is paradoxically also referred to the ethic of reciprocity, some of us can be selective about when and with whom to live our values through The Golden Rule. That way, when the other person or group is not reciprocating, it can feel oh-so-easy to say "well, if s/he is going to be cruel or mean, then s/he doesn't deserve my kindness or decency." Meritocracy trumps ethics in this case, and we tend to feel pretty righteous about it. 

Though as the seconds turn to minutes turn to hours, it starts to not to feel as good. And that is the exact moment that we call a particularly hot tempered friend who we then can tell our story to, and we know they will take "our side" and tell us how right we were- which is to say, how right we were to indulge our anger. 

But who am I? These are my difficulties living my values in a very blessed life that is without the direct impact of the horrors and atrocities of our shared human history of slavery, genocide, civil war, human trafficking, sexual violence, and the oppressive governments that restrict basic freedoms and human rights. Folks who have been victimized by these types of trauma could arguably have every reason to withhold their decency from those who have perpetrated the aggression and violence against them. 

But, miraculously, some don't. Or if they do, and they are anything like me, invariably, following these moments of ethical desertion they feel  depleted and disheartened. For me it is not because I am comparing my missed opportunities for compassionate action to those mountains above next to my mere molehills. Rather because, even though the short term rush of "I'm right!" can feel powerful and even good in the moment, it never feels good in the long term. Regret that I did not hold true to my Self (capital S) in the face of my self (lower case) does not make for a good night's rest.  Because when I choose to not live my values it becomes an abandonment of Self.  If I abandon my core essence or soul when the moment of crisis calls, it will never end well- no matter what behavior I am trying to rationalize or  justify in the angry or hurtful moment. 

Sometimes though, I can tell myself that I am living my values because I am standing tall and strong with integrity by outwardly not behaving defensively or in a hurtful manner to the other who is attacking or on the offensive, but really inside I am still clinging to my righteous stance by internally gnawing on all kinds of quiet judgments against them.  And I can tell you, the latter is just as unhelpful as the former. Sure, outwardly I might maintain my relationships and avoid burning bridges. But inwardly this is a sure fire way to build up layers upon layers of bitterness and resentment. Not exactly the way to serenity or enlightenment. 

But I don't think I'm alone here. How many of you have ever been in a yoga class or a church sermon and been challenged by the teacher or preacher to treat your exhusband or exwife with the same decency that one shows common strangers or fellow students and congregants? When you are pushed to maintain the same basic kindness for the jerk who just grabbed the parking spot you were about to pull into at the grocery store; the same one who even gave you the middle finger while they were doing it?  

 

I have a theory that  times such as these are the very reason the Dalai Lama says repeatedly "Kindness is my religion."  It's not because kindness is a soft or weak response to adversity.  As a refugee himself from Tibet, I think he might say that kindness, the very basis of The Golden Rule, is our greatest challenge or spiritual task, as individuals and as a human species.  One that has both personal and collective consequences if we cannot prioritize and master this task in the near future. 

This is why we need to take the path of the warrior. Read any book by American Buddhist nun and author Pema Chodron and you will learn a little bit about an idea in Tibetan Buddhism that refers to this kind of Golden-Rule-compassionate-mind-nonviolent-training as that of a "warrior."  I love this use of the word "warrior" because it reminds me of all the groups throughout history who have reclaimed, and thereby defused, words that had been previously meant to harm. 

Sometimes I can get down on myself when I am challenged by my urges to take the easier path of judgment and attacking rather than American poet Robert Frost's "road less traveled by." But then I remember the modern day all-star team of warriors like the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Gandhi, Rigoberta Menchu, Jean Vanier, Thich Nhat Hanh, Cesar Chavez, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King.  I remind myself that this compassionate warrior training stuff is hard core- by no means for the faint hearted or, to reclaim another word, "sissies." Being responsive rather than reactive in the face of "the enemy" (whoever or whatever that may be) requires some very heavy lifting which means daily weight and strength training is absolutely essential. 

I sometimes imagine it as the dramatic Navy Seals training as depicted in the Oh-So-Hollywood style of Demi Moore in the movie "G.I. Jane." To be sure the analogy of a buff body is totally concrete, but when I am standing strong in the asana Warrior II pose during my yoga practice I develop a body memory, a cellular memory, of the kind of compassionate warrior training that I want to nurture and cultivate so that when the time comes to practice The Golden Rule in one of those grocery-store-parking-lot-type moments, I am ready. 

Because let's face it, it can be hard out there. The reality is there are a number of people who are unkind and a handful who are downright cruel. And though we are told everything we need to know in life we learned in kindergarten, including The Golden Rule, I find if we don't use it, we lose it. So to maintain a nonviolent warrior stance in all of  our activities requires daily compassionate mind training which for me includes one or more of the following practices: prayer, yoga, meditation, spiritual reading, soulful music, sermons, dharma talks, surrounding myself with inspiring men, women and children, and play. 

And so I wonder, how do you hold fast to live your values in the face of aggression? How do you maintain a nonviolent stance?