​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Individual Responsibility for Transforming Violence
Each of us could choose to organize our life in such a way that we have the time to be in the here and the now, to touch reality deeply, to get understanding and insight.
 
Insight is nourishment for our life. It is also a contribution to our society.
 
The collective insight that we will offer will serve as the light to lead.
 
Every day we can do something to reduce the level of violence, that knowledge can bring us a lot of comfort and healing.
 
When you calm your own emotions, you’re making a difference and transforming violence.
 
Hold your anger peacefully so that it doesn’t explode into angry words, angry thinking, and angry action, that is an act of compassion that can help bring the level of violence down.
 
Every time you say something to calm the person in front of you, to make them smile, to help them see things more clearly, that is an act that can help bring down the level of violence. (think about all the areas in your life you could help transform, simply by doing this).

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Violence Suppression or Transformation and Healing?
Are we trying to suppress violence or are we looking at transformation and healing?
Violence cannot be suppressed. It will come up in many other ways in our relationships.
 
We cannot do this if we don’t know how to handle the violence within ourselves. Violence is a manifestation of fear, depression, loneliness. The person in charge of suppressing violence may have a lot of hatred, fear, and despair within himself.
 
We have to reconsider the approach. We must bring a spiritual dimension to where we have been working and solving problems.
 
The desire to remove violence and terrorism is a good desire. It is authentic, legitimate.
 
The means that we use to remove violence and terrorism should be effective.
 
Using violence to suppress violence creates more violence. Not only in relationships but in society.
 
We know this, we’ve seen it time after time only understanding and compassion can neutralize violence.
 
As you have seen in your own city, meeting violence with violence creates more hatred, more enemies, more terrorists. This is clear.
 
We have allowed the situation to become what it is now. The situation is a collective creation and calls for input from all.

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
As a journalist, you can contribute positively to reducing violence. If you. as a journalist, write your article or make your TV report in such a way that always waters the seeds of hate, violence, and fear in people, you’re not doing your nation a service.
 
In every one of us there are seeds of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. If, by reading an article or making report, you can water the seeds of patience, understanding, and compassion you were serving your people well.
 
Don’t be carried away by feelings of hate and fear. Collective hatred and fear are extremely dangerous, they lead to war.

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Transformation
That is why mindfulness of consumption is especially important. It goes together with the practice of transformation.
 
“Freedom” should be understood in such a way that it can protect us, our family, and society. We are not free to kill. We are not free to poison people with toxic products.
 
We must be responsible to and for our society.
 
If we feel that we are free to produce the kind of items that bring toxins, violence come in, creeping into the body and consciousness of people, especially the younger generation, then we are destroying our collective body and consciousness, and we are destroying the future.
 
We are free to act, and some people are unsure where that line ends. We act based on our cravings. We want power, wealth, fame. These desires can cause us to neglect our responsibility to sustain the well-being of our communities.
 
That is why true freedom goes together with responsibility. It is their sense of responsibility that will protect us and protect our freedom.

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Dealing with Your Own Struggles First
We need to be able to handle our own loneliness, suffering, and anger before we can truly help people.
 
… people are in your life to be helped and not to be punished.
 
Long hours of work can be very destructive, frightening, and unhealthy. Let us be empathetic and compassionate… If you continue, you may find yourself feeling depleted and angry all the time, feeling like your spirit is malnourished. This can take a toll on you and your family.
 
Your depression and anger are like a hungry belly rumbling for food.
 
Nothing can survive without food. Not anger, not violence, not peace…
 
You must nourish and feed your love with the appropriate food, or your love will turn to hatred.
 
If you look deeply into the nature of your anger and identify the source of nutrients that you have used to feed it, you are already on the path of freedom.
 
If we notice that we are blocked by fear, anger, despair, it is because we are constantly stirred up.
 
We have the seeds within us and need to stop feeding them.
 
If we don’t start feeding the positive ones and only try to do with the symptoms we won’t go extremely far.
 

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Mindfulness of Consumption
This is called “mindfulness of consumption.”
 
We don’t want certain feelings to come up, so we suppress them by consuming something.
 
There’s some feeling of loneliness, fear, or depression inside that we do not want, so we pick up the newspaper, we turn on the radio, we turn on the television, we go to our phones, we go for a drive. We do everything we can to avoid confronting our true selves.
 
This kind of consumption is a practice of running away, and the items we consume continue to bring the toxins of violence, fear, and anger to us.
 
By practicing an embargo on our negative feelings, we create a situation of bad circulation in our psyche, suppressing our unwanted thought patterns and not allowing them to circulate.
 
When we create a situation of bad circulation in our consciousness, it causes symptoms of depression and mental illness. It is especially important to lift the embargo, allowing the negativity to come up.
 
You can only do this if you’re ready, or you’ll be overwhelmed by your suffering.
 
You invite the negative thoughts to come up with the energy of mindfulness generated by your practice. This energy is there to recognize, embrace, and transform.
 
You’ll learn how to sit and tolerate the distress. You will bring relief to your suffering.
 
Make friends with all your feelings, “You can see, my dear old friends, you are welcome to come up. I will offer you a bath of mindfulness so you will feel better.”
 
When they are free to circulate, the symptoms of mental illness begin to disappear.

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Respect
The moment you begin to lose respect for the other person, you begin to lose your love.
 
You can peacefully hold your anger- you can breathe in, and breathe out, you can either have the energy of anger, or the energy of mindfulness. The energy of mindfulness continues to be generated by the practice of mindful breaths and mindful walking and it begins to penetrate the zone of the angry energy. Bring mindfulness to your anger.
 
There is no fighting in this practice.
 
Your anger is not the enemy, it’s part of you.
 
It’s not good to do violence to yourself. Do not say “ mindfulness is good, and anger is evil, and good must fight evil.” In the tradition of mindfulness, there’s not a battle to be won. We must be very patient.
 
They continue to generate the energy of mindfulness and tenderly embrace our anger; we will find some relief. But we can do more.
 
We can also look deeply into the nature of our anger and find its roots. 

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Imagine Saying This
 
“Dear one, I suffer, and I want you to know it.  (We write this ahead of time so we can just pull it out and hand it to our beloved) (we acknowledge that we are suffering- we open the door for communication peace and reconciliation)
 or
“Dear one, I’m doing my best. Please help. I am aware of my anger. I’m doing my best to practice calming myself. I want to embrace my anger and to look deeply into the root of my anger. I don’t want to speak or act out of my anger and irritation, and I need your support. I need your help.” These are words of love, words of peace… we still might not remember to do them.
 
“My dear one, I don’t want you to suffer. There are moments when I am less than myself and irritated and difficult to deal with. Please be compassionate and patient. Help me instead of hating me.”
 
Every one of us is capable of writing sentences appropriate to our situation when we’re in a good state of mind, lucid, free from anger.

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
Deep compassionate listening is essential to the creation of peace.
Listen with all your mindfulness and concentration. Give them a chance to speak out -even if their speech is full of condemnation, bitterness, and blame.
 
You still listen, because you know that to listen like this is to give them a chance to move in the direction of peace.
 
If you interrupt, deny, or correct everything they say, they have no chance to make peace.
 
Deep listening allows the other person to speak, even if what they say contains wrong perceptions, bitterness, and injustice. The intention is to restore communication, because once communication is restored, anything is possible.
 
Listening to someone with compassion can turn them into a friend. It may be that no one else has been able to listen. Perhaps you were the first one capable of listening and giving the relief they need.
 
You become a being who ends suffering.
 
You lose an enemy and win a friend. When you act out of fear, you cause harm and distraction to yourself, and others. Fear is a product of ignorance and lack of compassion, which are the very atmosphere of war.
 
Fear feeds off ignorance- whereas compassion and lucidity flower from understanding.
 
Deep listening and loving speech can stop new anger and fear from arising, as well as transform long held misperceptions and suffering.
 
With mindfulness, we can protect ourselves from danger.
 

​As Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh by Don Boice
 
You Hurt Me
Imagine contemplating, “You, the one who hurt me, must have suffered deeply. You must have a lot of hatred and anger toward me to do such a thing. You’ve tried to destroy me, it seems, and you’ve caused suffering. I want to understand why, to understand what is making you suffer. I want to know what kind of emotion, what kind of pain what kind of misunderstanding has led you to such an action.”
 
 It is an essential and crucial step to understand and recognize the roots of causing pain in others.
 
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If you only love those who love you, what reward do you have?