Peace Practice Series: Seeing the ‘Enemy’ in our Mirror—Transforming Fear into Compassion, Inner Peace / Outer Harmony

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo

“Victory breeds hatred; the conquered dwell in sorrow. Those who have given up both victory and defeat are peaceful and live in harmony.” – Buddha in The Dhammapada 

Transforming Cycles of Inner Dissonance and Outer Violence 

The root of war is fear. Fearing the unknown in others is reflective of our fear of the unknown within ourselves. Accepting our fear of the unknown rejected parts within us and owning what we projected unconsciously onto the ‘enemy’, transforms our inner fears enhancing our inner peace and outer harmony.

Accepting the root of our fear, giving it the awareness it needs to grow by welcoming our fears, seeing and accepting them, transforms these fears into the inner empathic sensing elements we need. Unblocking our empathic capacity into broader compassion opens a way to see the intrinsic humanity in our perceived ‘enemy’. Rejecting the inherent humanity in others, degrades and rejects the humanity in ourselves. Through inner work, meditation and contemplative inquiry we may begin to see our shared common ground that holds all beings within the unified web of life, which then motivates us to engage in greater expressions of compassion and peace making for the greater good.

Inner shame, woundedness and trauma often leads us to an outer blame attack mode of response. In both interpersonal dynamics, groups and in expanded global forms, this deep inner fear/wound is generally the root cause that fuels personal, global and ethnic conflicts. These underlying conditions often create dynamics of an ongoing teeter totter of back-and-forth recrimination, rooted in self-shame/ ‘other-outer’ blame dynamics. Embracing a Universal Unified View offers a remedy to resolve this both personal and collective endless cycle of destructive violence.

Intentional strategies demonizing the ‘other adversary’, are contrary to this view of universal interconnectedness. This ‘righteous power’ mode is always a futile attempt to gain a false superiority which in the end can only diminish the integrity and wholeness of the perpetrator and is an admission of a core weakness of spiritual ground.

Solutions are to be found in small acts of selfless activity that open these sensitive locked areas of fear and trauma within us and our communities, into the wholesome arena of inner peace and mutual common good. Additionally, through internal contemplative and meditation methods, visualizing our ‘true self’ as the vast infinite interconnectedness of Indra’s net, that we can transform our inner lost islands of banality[i] and inertia, own our rejected ‘shadow’ elements and open them into fortified avenues of empathy and compassion.

Through His Enemy’s Eyes: Discovering Common Ground in Conflict Resolution

Some years ago, while participating in a purification ceremony[ii] with the Lakota Elder, Walace Black Elk, he shared the following experience of this expanded universal view and its transformative power during a conflictive situation. I vividly remember what ‘Grandfather’ Wallace shared, which I paraphrase here, and it goes as follows, Walace Black Elk speaking:

I was going to meet the developer who had purchased the land that was to be developed. This land for the Lakota peoples was a sacred ceremonial land[iii] where our ancestors had been buried and sacred ceremonies performed. The proposed development would destroy this sacred place. I was angry and ready to confront him to persuade him to stop and prayed to the Great Spirit to guide me. I arrived and he was there, and I walked up to him ready to confront him. When I was close, I looked directly into his eyes to speak, but before I could speak, seeing through his eyes I was suddenly drawn in deeper and deeper. The man disappeared and I saw through him the whole interconnected chain of life and the cosmos, Sun and planets and stars, a vision of the whole cosmos and life… it all opened through the eyes of this man who I had seen as an enemy. I could see that he and I were of the same universal spirit; that he was not my enemy.[iv]

Wallace Black Elk embraced his ‘enemy’ and through his enemy’s eyes experienced a profound view of the interconnectedness of life, which dissolved his anger and opened a door to dialogue in a highly charged situation. Seizing opportunities where this greater Universal View of our shared interconnectedness can be invoked and brought into our human conflicts and problems opens doors to solutions previously unconsidered and potentially transformative.

Indra’s Net - All life is interconnected

The view that all life is interconnected, is described in the teaching of Indra's net as follows:

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface … are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.[v]

Engaging in actively contemplating this view of infinite interconnectedness leavens our habitual tendencies of control and self-isolation. It opens our empathy through reimagining our ‘position’ and conditions and to be able to understand and see where the rejected ‘other’ is standing.  We then begin to gradually experience our sense of ‘self’ is much greater and not limited by our immediate causes and conditions.  This process broadens our capacity for empathy and compassion, the genuine basis for harmony and peace in our world.

Footnotes

[i] Banality of evil – see writings by Thomas Merton, also The Root of War Is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers by Jim Forest

[ii] The Inipi ceremony is a ritual purification conducted in a sweat lodge by a ‘medicine holder/elder’. The sweat lodge is an offering to Wakhan Taŋka, or the Great Spirit/Mystery. It’s a purification ritual where participants cleanse through sacred chanting, burning of aromatic plants and sweating in the encloses space, heated by sacred stones as a ritual of surrender and offering. When entering the sweat lodge one declares: ‘Aho Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ,’ ‘All our relations’ as a declaration of the sacredness of all life.

[iii] Black Hills of South Dakota

[iv] San Diego, California county mountain area circa late 1990’s.

[v] Cook, Francis H. (1977), Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra, Penn State Press