International Day for Empathic Action: An IDEA whose time has come!

The walls of the tiny classroom echoed with the quiet murmur of men’s voices. Though 17 of us were crowded into the 12’X12’ space, which shined white with the glare of fluorescent lights reflecting off of the dry-erase boards, the few voices were soft. We sat in two circles, almost overlapping into a vesica pisces, ready to birth something powerful. And we listened.

When it came to my turn to speak, to share a story about something I struggle with, or about something I regret having done, I glanced around the circle before I began. 8 men, all shrouded in baggy orange over white t-shirts, with tattoos peeking out their sleeves or crawling up their necks or dotted across their faces, looked back at me silently, intently. I spoke, at first in a slight stutter as my jumbled thoughts pushed their way to the front of the line, and began to unfold an account of the rocky road I have traveled with my younger sister, whose heart was surely broken when her big brother stopped paying attention. Within moments, my own tone softened, and my heart opened, as if pulled by the intention and empathic presence of those around me.

When I finished speaking, and sat within the silence that now lay like a warm blanket upon our small group, the men deliberately looked over the pile of cards lying in the middle of our circle. On each card was written a word that represents a universal human need, and the listeners carefully chose the words that they thought most embodied what was important to me. They looked for the words that matched what I said, and made guesses about words that might offer understanding about what was beneath my own story; they had listened both to what was spoken and unspoken, seeking above all to show me that they empathized with me. Solemnly, respectfully, they placed each card before me as an offering of truth, presence, and understanding. I was honored that they were there with me, and I knew that I was not alone in this life.

As Chogyam Trungpa reminds us in his book, Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, there is a basic goodness inside every one of us. It is through the discovery of that basic goodness that we begin to unearth a virtually unlimited capacity for service and for compassionate action. In that moment sitting in the circle, I not only felt the basic goodness within myself as I took in the words that were offered to me—integrity, connection, protection, contribution, meaning, care—but also saw how easy it was for those in my group to express the same from their own hearts. These men, who have fought their whole lives, who have committed acts of violence with and without remorse, who have suffered and been cast aside like a crumpled piece of paper filled with the failure of a writer’s scrawl, found without guidance or instruction that basic goodness lies inside themselves.

It seems as if we, as a society, have an almost incurable case of writer’s block when it comes to creating a safer world, and to finding ways of peacefully resolving the conflicts that affect our lives. We go through the motions of offering education, family structure, and a democratic political culture, but ultimately are alright with simply crumbling up those pages that we don’t like, or that we think don’t fit with the rest of how our story is supposed to go. Those who populate our jails and prisons—over 2 million people behind bars as I write this, and that number jumps to nearly 7 million if we include those who are on parole—have often been crumpled up and tossed away long before they committed the act that they were caught for. Yet like those crumpled pages that litter a writer’s floor or overflow from his or her wastebasket, if we take the time to open them, and to smooth them out enough to read what is written, there is often beauty and truth that easily shines through.

In this, our second class in a series called “Nonviolent Warriors,” we began to look at each other through a different lens than that which is offered to us by our society and culture. Every man in both groups had an opportunity to hear and to be heard; each had a chance to give and also to receive the gift of truth and compassion. I was touched not only by their honesty and their willingness to express about intense pain they have often held close or buried deep, but by their openness to take in what was offered by others.

One young man, new to the pod, quietly spoke up in my group after a few others had gone. A saga unraveled before us as he told us of his life. As his family bounced from place to place, he watched first his mother and then his younger siblings as they spiraled with drug use and abuse one by one. He left for a slew of foster families racked by guilt that he had failed in his duty as the eldest son, the protector. When he dropped into silence, the cards began to pile in front of him. He slowly looked them over. His eyes fell on the word, “understanding,” and they slowly welled up with tears. He shook his head slowly, and coughed away the pain that was rising as another man gently placed his hand on his back in reassurance. “This is what I’ve been looking for all along,” he said in a whisper. “I had no idea that this is what I needed.”

As we completed the group that day, we were again visited by onlookers from outside the classroom, peering in as they stretched from their two hours of lock down. The room felt warm as we stood in a circle and reflected on the courage it had taken to speak as we had. What we collectively realized was a piece of the truth that Gandhi espoused with his principle of nonviolence that, “Man for man the strength of nonviolence is in exact proportion to the ability, not the will, of the nonviolent person to inflict violence.” Surrounded by warriors, I knew in that moment that if Gandhi was right, then the strength the nonviolence in that room was not only great, but was far nearer to the surface than it had been before.