Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com), March 13, 2024, edited by Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
Please join Mandy Kahn Wednesday nights at 6:00 pm (Pacific) for Peace Class. Simply click the link to attend; no signup is required.
The following is the text of the talk delivered during last week's class:
THE SEEDS OF WAR,
THE SEEDS OF PEACE
What does war sound like, when it is beginning? It sounds like the phrase "those people."
Those people. Those people that did not vote the way I did.
Those people who aren't like me. Those people who are wrong-headed. Those people “over there.”
That's the beginning of war.
Why? Because that kind of judgment, in a way that blurs people into one lump, a group, rather than encountering each individual with an open mind — that's fuel necessary for war.
So the next war, the war that hasn't begun yet — how do we know where it is? How do we find that seed?
The seed is the phrase "those people." The seed is the act of lumping people and pre-judging them critically and harshly at a distance.
It is that harshness of judgment, it is that hardness of thought, that is the beginning of war, long before it is a hardness of action.
We know that we are stepping away from the cycle of belligerence when we no longer find ourselves saying the phrase "those people" with judgment.
This is because instead, what we hear in our own minds are phrases like, "I hold openness now." "I look forward to meeting that individual person and experiencing their uniqueness."
When we encounter the world individual by individual, with an open mind, we see reasons for compassion everywhere, and our natural compassion effortlessly steps forward.
When we stand in front of one person, with our eyes open, with openness in the self, that is when we will see the thing in them that brings forth our natural compassion.
So what does the beginning of the end of all wars look like?
It looks like individuals who hold openness rather than hardness. There is an openness to learning about each other. There is no fixed idea about others “at a distance.” There is openness to the person who is present, and compassion for those at a distance.
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If the phrase "those people" is the genesis of war, the counterbalance is this:
I see you. I witness you with an open mind. I witness you with an open heart.
Notice that this is directed at one person; this phrase does not lump people together.
Only when we are far from people, and we lump them with a phrase like "those people," can we forget the compassion that is natural to us.
At a distance, we tend to abstract people. We don't witness their humanity, because they aren't there. And in their absence, we abstract them.
Only at a distance, where we judge people abstractly with phrases like "I've heard those people are like this" and “I saw on TV that those people are like that," do we step away from an experience of our own true selfhood, our own compassion.
We are, under everything else, beings of peace. Compassion is what is most natural to us.
When we allow a mental abstraction, which is what an idea of “those people” is, in contrast to an experience of one unique person, we lose ourselves.
We forget ourselves.
The phrase "those people" indicates that we are in the place of the lower mind, where we can have abstraction and extrapolation and assumptions.
On the other hand, when I stand before a person with an open mind, I witness them, and I put myself in a position to experience my higher mind, my authentic self. I put myself in a position to experience that which I am, which is a being of peace.
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What does world peace look like when it starts to arrive? It looks like a little bit more openness in the minds of a few more people.
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When we encounter the phrase “those people” paired with harsh judgment, we can simply balance that out with its opposite: an open and compassionate attitude towards one person.
We might choose to employ the phrase, "I am willing to witness this person's humanity. I am open to discovering the unique qualities of this individual. I am open."
It might be more comfortable to think of war happening “over there” — in another country, perhaps — than to realize that the seeds of war begin in day-to-day life, in how we think of each other, how we speak to each other in the marketplace.
But that's where war begins, and it's also where peace begins. Knowing this empowers the individual. You are the point of power when it comes to new war, the next war, because you are the one who decides what you think, and you get to choose how you will think about others, and about yourself.
You get to choose, and war cannot begin without enough people thinking in the way that war requires — thinking in phrases like “those people.” Without enough people willing to think in “those people” terms, war cannot begin.
So you, the individual, with your free and independent mind, with the ability to choose your own thoughts, are at the point of power.
And when I say war, I do not only mean war between countries. I also mean belligerence in general.
We are the point of power.
We seed what is first in our thoughts, and then in our words, and in our ways of relating with others.
When no one is looking, when you are alone with your thoughts, you can seed peace.
When you are asked to group people together in harsh judgment, you can make another choice. You can think, I'm open to witnessing each individual's humanity.
You can think, I carry compassion for all beings.
You can think, I am a place of compassion and a being of peace.
You can think these things, and when you do, war cannot begin in you.
When you fill with compassion, and then flow what you are into the collective consciousness, what you are will balance out the seeds of war that are there, so they cannot begin to sprout.
Whether war begins is simply a matter of what our collective consciousness is primarily comprised of.
You are an important contributor to that collective consciousness, and so you are a major factor in what is there.
You build what is there with your thoughts.
You get to choose what you think.
When you see many around you speaking one way, you can speak another way: you can speak the seeds of peace.
When you see many encouragements to think of people as groups rather than individuals, you can think in the way that seeds peace: you can think with compassion, and with an openness to the individual.
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The point of power is always the self.
We step out of our power when we say, “I want them to change what they are doing over there.”
We step into our power when we say, I choose to think compassionate thoughts now, and when I do so, I affect what is happening here and what is happening everywhere, including over there.
I am a great contributor, with my thoughts and with my actions. I choose compassionate thoughts now, and I choose compassionate actions now.
War cannot begin without the consent of many. We consent with our thoughts. We must consent by lumping people together, and by being willing to judge harshly.
If enough of us are not willing to give that consent, war cannot begin.
If too many of us say, I carry compassion for all beings, there is not enough energy to grow the seeds of war into the experience of war.
It takes the consent of many to do so.
Your seeds of peace build a world in which there is never the ability to gather enough consent for war.
You seed peace in your thoughts—in your private moments. You seed peace by how you think of others.
Think of them with compassion and you build a world in which war cannot begin. (
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