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When we’re in a disagreement, it’s sometimes hard simply to listen to the other person. The emotional temperature may be high and we can shut down in a defensive posture. But skillful listening is a core practice of conflict resolution and, potentially, a doorway to improved relations, greater self-understanding, and personal growth. Here we explore some principles of deep listening. We hear the rich reflections of Betty Burkes, a peace educator and Buddhist practitioner, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She emphasizes the value of pausing long enough just to notice what you’re actually feeling in conflict. What are you reacting to? This shifts the spotlight from the words and actions of the other person to one’s own experience. It can promote self-reflection and healing. Burkes embraces a philosophy known as Nonviolent Communication, which was developed by the late Marshall Rosenberg, PhD, whom we profiled in Humankind program #100. She also probes ways out of the dilemma that results when pain triggers as anger. Then, we examine a search for common ground between two friends in the Washington, DC area: Daniel Spiro, a Jewish attorney and novelist and Haytham Younis, a Muslim imam (prayer leader). Together they co-founded the Jewish Islamic Dialogue Society (JIDS), which convenes monthly discussions drawing on members of various synagogues and mosques. When asked for commonalities among Jews and Muslims, members identified these “unifiers”: being a minority group in America; ultimate values they share: charity, justice, peace, truth, humility and gratitude; as well as similar language and customs. And although often depicted as being seriously at odds, there’s another bond between these two groups: their embrace of monotheism – the ancient belief in a single, universal higher power.

How exactly can we build a future based on understanding and connection among people of diverse backgrounds – rather than prejudice, misinformation and suspicion that are the fuel for violence? According to the late journalist John Wallach, the answer is to instill this awareness at a young age. He went on to found a truly daring experiment in breaking down barriers: the Seeds of Peace summer camp on a glistening lake is Otisfield, Maine. David paid a return visit for this episode. Since the camp was launched in 1993, more than 6,000 teenagers from conflict regions around the globe have come for about a month of refuge. Their homes are places like the Middle East and South Asia. Usually it’s their first encounter with someone from “the other side” of bitter religious, ethnic or national discord. Here they meet, talk, eat, play sports, and sing together, living in integrated bunks. They discover that people who’ve been demonized are not monsters – just other kids trying to make their way in a confusing world. We hear the diverse voices and accents of campers, who are known as the Seeds. They are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, agnostic, etc. and are invited into interfaith dialogue. They are disturbed by violence, especially when claimed to be perpetrated on “religious” grounds. They feel they are up against a wall of misinformation disseminated by media in one country against the people of another. Camp co-founder Bobbie Gottschalk, who remains active in Seeds of Peace, recalls her own experience as a 20-year-old student at a Quaker college, which organized a trip to the Soviet Union to promote person-to-person dialogue at the height of the Cold War. That journey helped her understand the importance of forging personal connections in a polarized world. As one counselor observed: “Understanding and being able to open your ears to the other side can make a world of change.”

Why do our hearts sometimes harden and impede the flow of compassion? Getting a handle on this question requires deep awareness of the underlying impulses that drive our shifting moods. Compassion teacher Frank Rogers suggests that our fears, obsessions, angry attitudes and stress reactions are often an expression of “some deep need that is aching to be tended,” some old, open wound. If we can develop a conscious distance from these mental fluctuations, we may be better able to recognize our drives, rather than feel threatened by them. We therefore can soften our reactions to the world, and draw from a reservoir of inner compassion for others. How different faiths interpret compassion So how does this attitude affect the way we see and interact with others? Muslim imam Haytham Younis highlights the basic decorum of maintaining social civility “with everyone, even if someone is not polite to me. I try to remain polite and gentle.” And behaving this way with others, he notes, brings us natural blessings, like the health effects from peace of mind. Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield tells of young nuns from Tibet who were cruelly persecuted and tortured, but whose greatest fear was that their own hearts would coarsen in response, thus yielding to the hatred they stood against. And we hear the story of an army colonel who, surrounded by a large, hostile crowd, ordered his men to kneel down in a gesture of respect and peace, thus soothing a tense situation that could easily have blown up. UCC minister Rev. Betty Stookey emphasizes the importance of a calming discipline, like meditation. She also says we must act intentionally to break down social barriers, because “if you have somebody in your house for dinner, you’re not going to throw stones at them tomorrow.” And Rabbi Michael Lerner comments that—rather than rejecting people who show an anti-social side—we can view them as wounded, and set as our focus an attempt to.

In a world afflicted with so much violence, it would be easy to underestimate the impact of basic human compassion in actually solving conflict. Yet time and again, people are transformed—sometimes profoundly—by gentle acts of caring. Mere gestures of sympathy may not be effective in the heat of a battle, but in many settings compassion has a remarkable capacity to defuse antagonism. In this segment, we hear theologian Frank Rogers, whose personal struggle with rage in reaction to a tough childhood drove him to analyze the dynamics of compassion. In his book The Practice of Compassion, Rogers concluded: There are specific skills that can be cultivated in people seeking to enhance their own compassion. Compassion where the threat of violence is ever-present We travel to two Los Angeles jails, including one of the world’s largest, Men’s Central Jail. A prison chaplain there, Brother Dennis Gibbs, an Episcopal deacon, was once himself an inmate. He now reaches out to prisoners who volunteer for compassion training. We listen in on one of his classes and talk with Br. Dennis as well as an inmate whose remarkable tale of self-reflection lays the groundwork for a successful life after incarceration. From there we venture to a women’s jail, Central Regional Detention Facility. We learn about the vicious cycle of shame and violence in which many prisoners are caught up. Sister Greta Ronningen, who founded an Episcopal monastery in the Benedictine tradition, leads a meditation with two young prisoners. And we hear about their efforts to apply compassion in interactions with other inmates, who may be grumpy amid the intense strain of incarceration. These jailhouse chaplains were both trained by Frank Rogers at the Claremont School of Theology, east of Los Angeles. He emphasizes taking stock of ways in which all of us have been the recipients of caring by others, whether by a relative early in life or by sympathetic friends later on. And even for those people who feel utterly abandoned, merely developing self-compassion may be deeply healing.

We hear stories of peacemakers who draw from their lives and traditions as a basis for breaking down barriers and promoting conflict resolution. An Episcopal priest Charles Gibbs, now in the Washington, DC area, has dedicated his life to peace-building endeavors, including a global interfaith organization. His early awareness of the need to establish connections developed through lessons he learned growing up with an intellectually-challenged brother. Rev. Kristin Stoneking, tells the story of growing up in a Methodist Mennonite congregation, a “peace church”. Her father was a pastor in Kansas City. The family practiced three dimensions of Gandhian nonviolence: personal transformation, spiritual transformation and social action. Today Kristin is Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith pacifist organization founded just prior to WW1, which popularized the adage: “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” Quaker author Eileen Flanagan, attends another peace church, a Quaker congregation in Philadelphia, a city with a well-established heritage of Quakerism dating back to colonial times. The idea that “there is that of God in every person” is a guiding principle, that can make reconciliation of differences more practical. Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, California, says that all religions and all people are engaged in an internal struggle of worldviews — between a life of fear (and a perceived need to dominate others) and one based on love, which leads to caring for others. He draws upon deep study — in addition to being an ordained clergyman, Michael earned doctorates in philosophy and in psychology. M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, the late Sufi sage, led a remarkable life based on humanity and service. And he taught a perspective on Islam that may surprise people who are accustomed only to the most menacing stereotypes of Muslims. Bawa explained that, at its essence, Islam is nonviolent and that in perceiving others as “enemies,” we are really projecting onto them our own hateful thoughts. The solution is to think deeply and chase away our own tendency to hatred.

The world was stunned in the storied southern city of Charleston, South Carolina on a summer’s night in 2015. The unthinkable had happened: a young gunman consumed by hate suddenly opened fire during a quiet Bible study group at an historic African American church. He left nine dead, including the church’s pastor and an 87-year-old woman. And yet in court two days later, the surviving families, in deep grief, voiced forgiveness toward the young man. They did not excuse his murderous actions, but as one relative put it: “We are a family that love built. We have no room for hate.” It was a breathtaking scene. Perhaps it contributed to the atmosphere in which the Confederate flag finally came down in South Carolina and other southern states. And the familes’ forgiveness added a “counter-cultural” ingredient to the story of how we respond to violence. How survivors have transcended deep suffering This program examines our responses. It places the Charleston churchgoers in the context of the African American Christian tradition in the south, where the nonviolent example of Jesus is central. And we hear from long-time civil rights activist, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, now a religion professor at the Univ. of Florida. We also hear from Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist teacher and best-selling author. As a young man he entered the Peace Corps and was assigned to Cambodia — at the time of the genocide that came to be known as “killing fields.” He relates the moving story of a Buddhist teacher (the “Gandhi figure” of Cambodia), who invoked the healing power of love to mend the hearts of survivors who’d suffered unspeakable loss.