The Anatomy Of Peace

The Anatomy Of Peace will help you make your life and the world more calm by explaining the inefficiencies in our go-to pattern of using conflict to resolve differences and giving specific tips for how to use understanding to settle issues.

Pretend for a moment that your parents taught you to always hate left-handed people due to a bunch of them attacking your family’s right-handed ancestors. You notice, one day, that a left-handed person falls in the street, dropping what he was carrying. Do you help him or leave him there?

You’ve got two choices: you can decide to have a heart of peace or a heart of war. When you see through the lens of a heart of war, the man is not a person but an object. To you, he is inferior. This type of thinking paves the way for conflict.

The heart of peace, in contrast, embraces our natural desire to be compassionate. It helps us see others as humans, regardless of their social status in relation to us. This view helps us listen to them and see how they’re like us.

You can even have a peaceful heart in times of war. When the Crusaders massacred the people of Jerusalem in the 12th century, sultan Saladin chose this higher path.

After a while his people retook the city, but he didn’t let his people kill the innocent like the Christians had. Instead, Saladin banned harming them. He gave the Christians safe passage, keeping the city open to pilgrims.

You can choose this better way of peace also. Let go of past grudges and listen to the voice inside of you encouraging compassion and understanding. Those that make you angry are human beings, just like you.

Nearly a year ago I lost my job. The manager that let me go didn’t even bother to take the time to listen to me. Even if he had, I know from coworkers experiences that he was not the kind to care. It wasn’t a healthy work environment because I felt like more of an object than a person with feelings. This is what happens when you try to change a person without first attempting to understand them. And it’s often a huge source of conflict, both seen and not. Take the household chores, for example. If you’ve got a spouse that doesn’t do their fair share, you want to say something, right? This might make things worse though, because they’ll take it as criticism. What you need to do instead is look for the reasons behind their actions and listen. Maybe they’re stressed at work or dealing with a more troubling problem. Even in cases with a more serious issue,…