Showing posts with label brahma viharas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brahma viharas. Show all posts

Friday, July 3, 2026

Mandy Kahn: Peace Class: anger vs. hate

 
The Difference Between Anger and Hate
This is the text of last week's Peace Class
What is the difference between anger and hate? These are passionate times, and we might find many emotions flowing through us. Every emotion is a part of us, calling to be felt and seen.
 
When we choose to feel our emotions fully, when we choose to lean into our emotions with self-witnessing, self-kindness, self-gentleness, and self-love, while wrapping the deeper self, the inner self, the childlike self with our compassion, we complete the experience of that emotion and return to a zero point.
 
We can, at that zero point, consciously choose our actions. If we want, we can choose actions that build a peaceful world.
 
We can do this because we have held ourselves with kindness and support, and we have honored and experienced our emotions, and we have returned to our own center, healed and loved and empowered.
 
We build with our point of focus. We build with our beliefs. We build with our thoughts, with what we focus on. That's how we build the future.
 
We can experience the whole range of challenging emotions—anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration—and we can do it with profound self-love and self-kindness and self-gratitude. And when we do, we complete that experience and step into our power.
 
Building peace is about understanding that there is nothing more powerful than the individual because the individual builds the world by way of its point of focus. What is a powerful group but many powerful individuals all sharing focus at once?
 
We are more powerful than any collective force around us. The world is built by way of the individual: by us. Nothing is more powerful in our system than the focal-point of an individual. There is nothing more powerful than us. We get to choose whether we focus a more peaceful world into being.  
 
What is the full range of emotions? We can go through challenging emotions, like anger and disappointment and frustration, and we can stay in our power by experiencing these emotions lovingly, embracing self while experiencing feelings.
 
We can get to a zero point, then choose consciously. The other option is to let these emotions carry us like trains that we are not consciously directing into something like hate.
 
What is hate?

How do I begin a journey of peace, Mandy?
Hate is not an emotion; it is an action. Hate builds a warring future. It builds powerfully, whether or not our hate was chosen consciously. It builds a violent future through us.
 
There is a profound difference between anger and hate. Anger is an emotion indicating that there is a part of the self calling to be felt, calling to be loved, calling to be witnessed. Therefore, anger -- like all emotions -- is holy. Anger, like all emotions, is natural. We can respond to its call for self-love by supplying it with self-love. Then that anger has done its job.
 
Anger is the baby of the self loudly crying out. Just like a baby cries when it needs to be fed, or have its diaper changed, or to be held, anger is the inner self calling for our own self-soothing, our own self-compassion, our own self-love.
 
When we feel anger, we are being asked to supply that unconditional love to the self at that moment. And when we do, we heal the self. We prove to the self that our love is there.
 
Just as a caring parent who responds to a crying baby proves it is there to care for that baby, we can respond to the crying baby of the self with love, and we can heal and soothe that self.
 
We can show the self we are loved-without-end. That is the opportunity of anger.
 
If we do not respond to that anger with self-love, it can become a train-car that carries us towards hate. Hatred builds future violence, and future war, when it enters the collective consciousness. If we want to build a world with more violence in it, hate is the tool to use.
 
But if we want to build a peaceful world and a compassionate world and a loving world, then listen to emotions. Listen to the self calling out for love, and supply that love. Be the loving parent to the holy self. Supply that love and soothe that self.
 
Every challenging emotion is simply an invitation for self-love. We can deliver that self-love. When we do, we complete the emotion's cycle, step into our empowerment, and then we can say, "Great, I've had that emotion, and I've responded with self-love. I've completed that cycle. Now, what do I want to build with my power?"
 
If we want to build a peaceful world, compassion-for-all-beings will get us there. Love-for-all-beings will get us there. A peaceful mind, an empty mind, an open mind, a silent mind will get us there. Love of nature will get us there.

 
Hate unites us (with other haters)
Remember, hate is an action, not an emotion, and it builds something. It builds future violence. Carrying hate is a choice. Harsh judgment of others is a choice.
 
If we engage hate, let's be aware of what we are building. If we engage in cruel judgments of others, let's know what we're building. If we know our tools and choose consciously what we want, that's what we are working to build consciously. (Otherwise, we're building something quite unconsciously).
 
We are here to exercise freewill. And we are observed by way of the universe with compassion and love and non-judgment. We are safe to choose, and we are free to choose. We can build a compassionate world by carrying compassion, and we can build a peaceful world by carrying peace. We can build a compassionate world by ogling the ocean, by looking at the soil, by witnessing a stand of trees. Just gazing at a forest with love builds a loving future.
 
If today is a hard day, sit under a tree and let that tree offer its support. Mother Nature is love-without-end. We are so loved in all our emotions. Emotions are natural.
 
It is natural that there is a part of us that is calling for love, and it is natural that there are parts of our neighbors that are calling for love. If we answer this moment with compassion-for-all-beings, we build a compassionate world.
 
A moment of division is the most potent and possible time for peacebuilding because it allows the largest opportunity for change.
 
If we are interested in building a peaceful future, consider planting compassion-for-all-beings into this moment of division. Consider carrying compassion-for-all-beings within, even as many around us carry something quite different.

  • The Buddha taught peace? - Yes!
    The Buddha often gave his closest disciples (nuns and monks) a reflection: We will be love in a world of hate, we will be honest in a world of lies (dishonesty), we will be gathered and still in a world of scattering and distraction. He used nicer words, but this is the gist of it.
This historic moment is fertile soil for worldbuilding, for peacebuilding, for compassion-building, for loving change.
 
Even in challenging times, we can hold the self in love, and we can hold our neighbors in compassion. When we do that consciously, we choose our future consciously. And we do it with our full power.

Peace Class, which normally meets Wednesdays at 6:00 pm (Pacific) is now on summer break until September. To join us, click on Zoom link when we return. Until then, be in peace.
  • Smile? Why bother? What'll that change?
    Peace Class
  • Wednesdays at 6:00 pm (Pacific Time)
  • Join Zoom Meeting: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
  • Meeting ID: 821 5047 2713
  • Feel free to share link with friends because all are welcome at Peace Class.
Every year, Peace Class goes on hiatus from July through September. Last week was the final class before our summer break.
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Thursday, June 18, 2026

Peace breaks out in Iran (Mandy Kahn)

Look, if we do nothing else this summer, let's meditate to evolve towards peace and metta

 
Friends, Peace Class meets Wednesday nights. Join us on Zoom. Start time 6:00 pm (Pacific):
Every year, Peace Class goes on hiatus from July through September. There is this meeting tonight and again next week (June 24th), then summer hiatus begins. Join me for final two classes of this cycle. This is the text of the peace talk delivered last week:

This is Revelation
Yin (softness) Yang (strength) are in balance.
When all beings can clearly see everything-that-is, all beings will choose to live in peace, in harmonious coexistence with one another.

Harmony (akin to kshanti) happens effortlessly when everyone has access to all-that-is. Harmony is what happens when everyone is engaging their full intuitive powers, seeing with clarity, gazing at the world through their higher consciousness, through their Peace Minds.

Harmony happens effortlessly when all is known by all. But we aren't there yet.
 
We are at the end of the age that precedes all beings knowing all. We are at the beginning of the time of revelation that bridges two ages. We are at the beginning of the revelation that gets us from not-knowing to knowing.

Jane Fonda on future of the USA
 
Harmony is peaceful coexistence for all.
What does this transition period look like? What does it feel like? Imagine that all-that-is-true were shown to us as a huge sweeping picture, a massive wall-sized image, one enormous scene.
 
Then imagine that wall-sized picture sliced up into 10,000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Yes, one would be able to reassemble the full picture, if one had all of the puzzle pieces.
 
What's happening during this time of revelation is that some people are receiving some of the pieces of what-really-is, whereas most people hold just a handful of the pieces. And rarely do two people hold the same pieces.

But we aren't finished colonizing yet!
 
Strength in diversity and cooperation
That means we might hold a few puzzle pieces of what-really-is, and our neighbor might hold a few pieces, and those pieces could be from different quadrants of the picture. Those assembled pieces could show entirely different things.  
 
Our neighbor might hold three pieces that seem to be part of a barn and might say, "I've seen what is, and we're in the countryside."
 
We might hold a few pieces that seem to make a skyscraper and might say, "I've seen what is, and we're in downtown."
 
A third neighbor might be holding pieces that show part of a cloud and might say, "We're in the clouds—not touching ground at all!"

All three of these neighbors might have glimpsed some aspect of what-really-is yet not understand how those things fit together. So they might be tempted to turn to each other and say, "You're wrong!"  
 
They might even be in despair wondering, "How can so many people think that this is an image of clouds we're in when I know it's a picture of a barn?"
 
This is what the Time of Revelation feels like, especially in the beginning. It feels to many like deep confusion. And such confusion can lead to despair.
 
But when we realize what's really going on, which is that all-that-is is being revealed, slowly, we can cross this bridge and transit this period with grace.
 
We can hold compassion for ourselves, knowing we are all undergoing a process that takes time. We can hold compassion for our neighbors, benighted as they seem. We can hold compassion for ALL beings.
 
Kill Iran so we can build up Israel. - OK, Bibi.
These are not easy times to transit. Our politics are polarized. Many of us look at our neighbors and say, "How can you believe that? How can you possibly see things that way?!"

What's happening is a literal difference of seeing, not a figurative one. This is not just a duel of differing opinions. Some have seen what's-really-happening by way of direct exposure or spiritual revelation, and others have not. Some have seen one slice of what's-really-happening, and others have seen a slice of a different portion.
 
We are stepping into knowing-what-really-is at vastly different rates. And this is exactly as things are meant to happen. What-really-is is that we're a group of beings evolving towards discovery and an expression of our own peaceful and loving truest nature. That's what's really happening!
 
We are evolving forwards. And eventually, we will know who we are. We are beings of peace. And eventually, we will feel as we are. We will feel the urge to choose to live peacefully, to express compassion-for-all.

We will choose to fully express our unique selves and selfhood, while creating space for others to express themselves fully. We will choose compassionate coexistence.

The trees have been waiting patiently in peace.
We will choose harmony with others, harmony with the waters and the forests and the soil and the air, harmony with the animals of this planet.

We will choose selfhood, and we will choose harmony. But we have a ways yet before arriving there. We are departing from one shore, sailing towards another.
 
We are departing the shore of believing our community is dog-eat-dog, that the rules are an-eye-for-an-eye. That's the shore we're leaving.

I like it better when we ALL get along in peace.
We'll arrive at the shore of dog-celebrate-dog, dog-help-dog. That's where we'll land.
 
Revelation is the time to discover who we truly are as a species. This is the time to learn, not later in peace. Right now, we can learn that dog-eat-dog was never our true nature. We were living through a dog-eat-dog phase, just as people, while they're babies, are living through growing pains in a diaper phase. A child grows out of using a diaper: A child becomes a grownup. We are now growing into dog-celebrate-dog.
 

Higher we rise, easier to see the big picture
We get from one shore to another by learning the truth about who we are. Now, there's a lot to know. The full picture of who we are as beings is a lot to take in. The full picture of what our planet is, how it fits into the greater universe, is a lot to take in.

The full picture of what's been happening in our societies, what's been happening of which we have been unaware, is a lot to take in. A lot.
 
Revelation arrives in pieces. It arrives as different pieces that are in the hands of different people fall into place at different rates. Eventually, all will know all. As for now, some know some.
 
So when we look at our neighbor and think, "How can that [bleep] think that way?" we must understand that our confusion is natural and know that our neighbor will eventually see everything. And so will we.
 
All will eventually see all.

In the beginning
The light slowly began to dawn.
What does revelation look like at its beginning? It can look like deep differences between how we see the world and how our family members, partners, children, and those pesky neighbors see the world.

If we choose to walk with compassion, we will understand that the children of earth are doing the work of waking up and becoming enlightened in perfect pace, with appropriate timing for everyone, at the right rate for each individual.  
 
Everyone has the right to choose how quickly to evolve. Some will choose to cling to the dog-eat-dog way-of-being, and some will let go of such thinking, feeling, and being.
 
What happens when a person sees the completed puzzle, the full image of all-that-is? That person knows and chooses peacefulness, one's own peaceful way of being in peace. And what one feels for others at that moment is compassion-without-end.

Once we understand that all who can see the full puzzle will carry peacefulness, and once we understand that the puzzle pieces are arriving into the hands and lives of most people we know, at varying rates, this era of revelation begins to make sense.


I never saw it that way! It makes sense now.
This is what revelation looks like: It looks like a few more puzzle pieces arriving into the hands of a few more individuals.

Revelation happens in stages, dependent on an individual's desire to know more. And individual who really wants to know more creates space within oneself.

Entitled feminist racism?/Absurd nihilism?
#whiteprivilege? #implicitbias #feminism - Live anyway and get used to it (1955)
 
If we create openness in mind, if we cultivate compassion in heart, with non-judgment and non-attachment (letting go), more puzzle pieces will begin to fall into our hands.

I'm starting to see, but my eyes are blurry.
It may take five or 10 or 20 years to have enough puzzle pieces to get a full sense of what's really going on, but we are so loved. Every human alive is so loved through this process, so loved by the divine, so loved by our ancestors, so loved in all phases of self-discovery and self-actualization. All who walk this process do it perfectly.
 
This summer, we might spend time with family members whose puzzle pieces imply a completely different picture than ours, and if we allow the lower mind to run the show, we are very likely experience, at best, frustration being around them, at worst, anger and hate, at very worst, expulsion of others from own compassionate heart because they're holding different pieces of the puzzle and they imagine that the shape of the puzzle is different than what we imagine it to be!

How we label it is how it is for us
 
We get to choose how we walk this moment of revelation. We can do it with compassion, we can do it with grace, or... Walk in the way that builds the world you want. When you see all, you will know your own peace, and you will choose your own peacefulness.
 
If we choose peace now, even before we see all, we will walk through challenging times with the most possible ease. And our presence here, among those of earth, will be a living slice of grace.

Remember, there are only two Zoom Peace Classes left before summer hiatus: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713. Convert it 6:00 pm (Pacific) meeting time to any time zone at: dateful.com/time-zone-converter. Stay in touch through my mailing list: mandykahn.com.
 
Learn more about Peace Class and sign up for future sessions at: eventbrite.com.
 
 In peace, Mandy (Facebook, Instagram)
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Thursday, June 11, 2026

Always 2 wars, never 1 (Peace Class)

Friends, this is the talk I gave last week presented here edited by Wisdom Quarterly:
.
The War of Opinions

Should I write DC a strongly-worded letter?
When we are belligerent and violent, there are always two wars happening simultaneously, the War of Bombs and the War of Opinions.
 
The War of Bombs requires the War of Opinions as its fuel. If we end the War of Opinions, we simultaneously end the War of Bombs.
 
Is this what John Lennon and Yoko Ono meant?
We are all responsible for the War of Opinions, so we can end it at any time. The way we end the War of Opinions is by thinking then saying this: "Whatever opinion you hold, I have compassion for you, and whatever opinion I hold, I have compassion for myself."
 
If we choose these mental positions, we will never have to agree with each other to see the end of belligerence, violence, war, disputes, arguments, and doing harm.

First we disagree then we go to war
(Maron in the Garage) I can no longer talk to my Trump voter friends
 
Talking is easy; doing is a little harder.
The true cause of violence is not disagreement; it is how we think about each other and feel about each other when we disagree with each other.
 
Violence can only happen if it is acceptable for us to withhold compassion from those with whom we disagree. This is the cause of war.
 
Our differences of opinion do not cause violence. What causes violence is that we are willing to withhold compassion from others, any others, because of their opinions.

Jewish Pres. Bernie wants war
 
As soon as we become unwilling to withhold compassion from anyone, we will see the end of violence, immediately, at that exact moment.
 
When our compassion ends nowhere, there will be peace on earth.
 
Opinions (holding views)
It's you, Bibi. - No, Donny, you're the War Prez
We are taught to use the opinions of others to justify withholding compassion from them.
There is only one reason to withhold compassion from anyone: to actively build more violence on this planet. That's what our withheld compassion does.
 
If we are trying to accomplish something other than that by withholding compassion, then we are using the wrong tool. If we want to build peace, the tool that will build it is compassion-for-all.

 
These times
Peace Class meets Wednesdays on Zoom at 6:00 pm (PT) Zoom ID: 821 5047 2713. 

.
It's a dog's life these days.
The trouble with these times [is that they aren't a-changin' enough] is that many are trying to build peace by withholding compassion from those who disagree with them. That action builds war. So they are trying to build peace with that which only builds war.
 
That is like saying, "I'd like to build a house to sleep in, a good strong dwelling, so I'm going to build it out of water." [What do we think we are, fish, mermaids, aquatic plants?]


Man builds Water House, uses wood
 
Now if we could just nail into sheet water.
Water is useful for many things, but we can't cut it into blocks and build shelters with it. [What if we freeze it first? Igloo ice, sure, but this is water we're talking about, not permafrost ice in the arctic.]
 
Our misunderstandings are so basic to our belief system that we do not see that we are trying to build a house with something we cannot build a house with. That's how elemental our misunderstandings are. But that's also how powerful our opportunities are.
 
All we need to do is say, "Now that I can see that I've been trying to build a house with blocks of water, let me try again, but with blocks of wood, and see what happens." Voila: a beautiful, solid house.

A house made of water would not be nearly so nice or durable...or livable at all.
 
Not by hatred but by...this is an eternal law.
And so it is with peace. We can say, "Let me try using compassion-for-all to build peace, and see if that works any better than withholding compassion." And it will work every time. That is an eternal and universal law.

One can't build walls with wet fluid water; one can't build true and lasting peace with hatred of the people who disagree with us.
 
I had a water house once, called the Sea
Our hatred builds something: It builds more of the Era of Belligerence.

It does not build peace in the world. It also does not build peace for us personally — in our day-to-day experience, our family and circle of friends, our workplace and our minds/hearts.
 
What builds peace for us, in our personal experience, is to say this: "I disagree with that point of view yet still have compassion for the person who holds it."
 
That builds the kind of deep peace that makes it easier for us to do everything we have to do throughout the day. It makes it easier to be a parent, easier to be a friend, easier to be a whatever.

.
A war brings these forces to our attention, but they are always at play, in smaller ways, within our lives. Disagreements break out in the home and the workplace. And we always make more peace for ourselves when we feel and think this:
 
"I disagree with the way my boss (spouse, child, friend, whoever) sees this situation. Still, I hold deep compassion for this person."

The War of Bombs
Pentagon lies, manipulates U.S. press

That'll teach 'em to disagree with us, eh, John?
The War of Bombs requires the War of Opinions to exist. Without our War of Opinions, their War of Bombs will very quickly lose steam and peter out.
 
A fire requires fuel -- such as wood and oxygen, plus certain conditions, like heat and the absence of rain.
 
War is a Racket. Just ask Fatty Fatpants
Similarly, the fire of war requires certain conditions to ignite and burn and grow.

Remove the War of Opinions and, no matter how many lit matches are thrown onto the fire of war, it will not ignite.
 
Compassion-for-all is like soaking fuel used in the fire of war. No matter how many flames are dropped on wet wood, it won't catch on fire. Our compassion-for-all ends this war and every war.
 
I serve my king with no question, Sir. - Good boy
When our compassion ends nowhere, there will be peace on earth. When our compassion goes everywhere, there is no ready fuel for war.
 
What will happen when we start to pair compassion-for-all with whatever opinion (view) we hold?

 
Could we eat our way to peace, Will Tuttle?
What will happen is that we will spend more time in our Peace Mind, which is the higher portion of our consciousness. And when we do this, we'll see new solutions—solutions that already exist, except that we cannot see them yet because they can only be seen from the more loving portion of consciousness.
 
When we have compassion for others, we free them from our hatred, vitriol, animosity, belligerence, so they visit their Peace Minds more often, too.
 

Republican gals love soldiers who kill for God.
And when we are all in our Peace Minds, new solutions will be so easy to see that we almost won't be able to comprehend how we ever stayed at war or disagreeing for so long.
 
Solutions to our problems already exist. Whether we can see them yet depends on our perspective. Where are we placing conscious attention in our own consciousness? Is it our Peace Mind?
 
It's not that this conflict, or any conflict, is based on an unsolvable problem. It's that we cannot yet see a solution that will resolve this issue from our current perspective.
 
Move our perspective, and the preexisting solution becomes apparent.
 
What's the one thing we can do to serve the world? We can learn to transition our own perspective upwards so we can see more solutions and bring more innovations to humanity.
 
What's another thing we can do? We can pair compassion with everything we think and feel. Compassion can be added to any thought, like this:
 
"I greatly disagree with what that leader has done, and I have compassion for everyone who lives in that country, even for the leader herself," or "I think that's a terrible thing to do, and I have compassion for the person who has done it." Just add one in.

I love you, Yoko. - STFU, John. (Peace❤️Truth)
No consensus of opinion needs to be reached to end the War of Opinions. We can end war without a single opinion ever changing.
 
We end it by adding our compassion-for-everyone to any opinion we have.
 
That ends the war, because now it's not a War of Opinions that we're seated within—it's simply a landscape of opinions that are allowed to exist.
 
It's not a War of Opinions when there is compassion-for-all present. Now it's a community of unique human individuals who compassionately respect each other. We came here to be unique.
 
We did not come here to create a consensus of opinion. We came here to be in a vibrant (lively and diverse) community of original thinkers, coexisting, more than tolerating but appreciating differences.

Peace Class, free, Wednesdays on Zoom
We came here to learn how to do that in peace.
 
What makes that possible is this phrase: Regardless of how we see things, we have compassion for one another. That choice-of-thought builds the kind of peace we came here to build.

In peace, Mandy
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