Nonviolence is a way of living. It is nothing more than that, nor is it anything less. Because our ways of living create for us the culture that we deserve, nonviolence stipulates specific ways of doing things that have been designed by specific groups of people who have imagined for themselves a specific future. A nonviolent future.
It is very easy to understand violence as a biologically determined default setting that we cannot reset. Turn on the television, for example, and watch one of those nature shows where a lion—always in slow motion with an orchestral soundtrack—runs down a gazelle, and we say, "Look! Even the noble lion kills the beautiful gazelle. Violence is part of our nature!"
It never occurs to us at these moments that lions don't have Wal-Marts and that they can't plant soybeans.
They can't make the decision to be nonviolent. We can.
Nonviolence is way of living. It is not a way of life. It is a way of living because nonviolence involves making decisions every second of our lives that will create the causes and conditions that give rise to the causes and conditions that we want, the ones that will nourish the conditions for peace within ourselves, within our families, within our communities.
So nonviolence is not a life; it is not a seamless coat that we put on, a one-time decision we make, and become nonviolent. It is a process of living, of negotiating, of trying one thing and watching closely the results that arise as a result of having tried that one thing, and then deciding whether or not that one thing increased the peace dividend within ourselves, our families, our communities.
We make choices every second either to indulge the thoughts and emotions that give rise to nonviolence or to linger on those that cultivate violence.
Nonviolence is a choice, and it is made very second of the day.
And what is violence? More on that later.
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