The Work of World Peace in Small but Necessary Scale

My client, so insightful, noticed what scared her was that she would find out her new friends didn’t agree with her views. So she stayed superficial with them, not opening up and giving a chance to a real friendship. But the trouble was, her attempts to avert disconnection were definitely keeping her alone. Such is so often the case.

So we looked at this: They don’t agree. Then what? And she said then they will either find out they don’t like me or I will find out I don’t like them. I don’t like when people disagree with me, it makes me feel stupid. So much insight.

So we looked at this: What should they agree with? And she said, My ideas. But ideas, I said, are just thoughts. It’s just mental content like all this stuff we’ve been looking at and working with. These ideas we must agree with are simply that: Ideas. Not actions. Our life is shaped by our actions, not our ideas. So we shall fear the mental content of another person and disregard the intention and quality of the actions of their lives? Even if said actions are very similar to our own?

So we looked at this: What if you could keep your ideas intact while also holding another’s ideas in mind? What if there’s space in the world for both? What if there’s space in your mind for both your own ideas and the ideas of others? What would that open up? And she said she worries she’d be wishy washy.

So we looked at this: To not be wishy washy we must hold fast to an opinion even if the opinion is bound to meet adversaries along the way. In fact if we hold fast to our opinions whatever they are, everyone in our life will eventually disagree with some of them so… what do we gain by Avoiding the Appearance of being wishy washy?

So we talked about how in the world we are divided by what we think the other thinks. We’re double and triple tangled up in thinking and in what we think of others’ thinking as if we can know. But it’s just thinking. It isn’t the same as actions. I wouldn’t want to be judged for my thinking. I can’t fathom the complexity of another’s life to fully understand their thinking. And besides, Thinking is just thinking. There is no action in having an idea. No entity, no mass. It can disappear with the ring of a bell or with the moment of remembering something that must be done. Thinking can change with the tweaking of information. Ideas and beliefs are shifting, tumbling, gathering and dissipating. They are clouds passing. They are not our personal stake in the sky. Beliefs, I like to say, are thoughts that have repeated so often we no longer question them.

So we looked at this again: What if there’s space in the world for all the thoughts? What if there’s space in our mind for our own thoughts and those of others? And if we open up the space so they can be there, not needing to crowd out the wrong ones, what do we lose? What do we gain if we don’t have to sift through our own ideas of others’ ideas in order to know whether we should open up to them?

This, I believe, is a part of the work for world peace. The part it is entirely ours, as individuals, to do. Noticing our own mental content. And noticing the impact it has, if unexamined, on the shape our lives take. Noticing when we are staying away to avoid being separate. And if we can intentionally stay open to others’ thoughts, ideas, beliefs, recognizing them as part of the inner climate of the person but not indication of identity or fundamental difference; holding an open space where there’s room for it all, then we bridge the gaps in the world and offer ourselves a more workable path to truly connecting with other humans. And there isn’t anyone I’ve ever worked with who doesn’t yearn for that.