today is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. i’m sharing his quote on the power of nonviolence, because it is how he is best known and also because the power of this message is still deeply resonate and needed today.

we can expand our self and public inquiry into what nonviolence really means. this curiosity and openness to discovery reveals just how subtle violence can be in our personal relationships (even our relationship to ourselves) embodied in impatience and an eagerness to control, and also in the public sphere in traditions both religious and secular, and in governmental and institutional policies that aggress, especially towards the marginalized.

in time we discover that the qualities of an open heart, of empathy, of tenderness and kindness, of compassion, are nonviolence embodied. they pull the rug out under violence and aggression, making it impotent one word, one action, one conversation, one relationship at a time.

when we practice meditation – sitting, breathing, approaching ourselves and present moment with a gentle, tender openness – we are embodying nonviolence. we can take this same quality out into the world.
~j

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