Let Peace Begin Within You (12.20.07)

In response to your article, “Is Peace Possible?” the answer is “Yes”.

I speak as someone who has been a part of a grass roots movement for world peace for almost 32 years. It is a philosophy based on world peace through individual happiness. There are all kinds of happiness. There is relative happiness, which is when you are only happy when you have material things in your life to make you happy. Then there is absolute happiness, which means whether you have or do not have the material things you can still be happy and have a wonderful life state. Then there are those people who base their happiness on the suffering of other people. We have been taught that if I win, then you must lose. But actually we can all win. World Peace is not some lofty far-off goal but rather in the present. The lack of peace is anything that makes you suffer. So as we change those things and become happy, it starts a ripple effect, from our small immediate world or environment going out into the world. This is what I truly believe is Peace.

This grass roots movement is called the Soka Gakkai International – USA (SGI-USA), an American Buddhist community that promotes peace through individual happiness, based on the teaching and practice of Nichiren Buddhism. The members of the SGI share a commitment to the promotion of peace, culture and education. The following are some of the recent activities of the SGI-USA:

• A group of SGI-USA Chicago members organized a seminar to commemorate the 50th anniversary of second Soka Gakkai president Jōsei Toda’s declaration against nuclear weapons. Invited speakers included: Edward Widmer from the U.N. Association – Illinois branch; Yuki Miyamoto, assistant professor at De Paul University; and members of the Interfaith youth corps and De Paul University Interfaith Scholars.
• Virginia members took part in the second annual youth interfaith “One Love” concert for peace, which was held last year in honor of the 5th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. This year there were representatives of Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian and Sikh faiths as well as other community groups.
• Washington D.C. members co-sponsored the annual 9/11 Unity Walk. It drew participants from approximately 100 faith communities and nonprofit organizations. At the event, SGI-USA vice general director Bill Aiken said, “The events of Sept. 11, 2001, can be seen as a failure of cultural understanding. The response should be to bridge the gap between self and other.” The purpose statement for the 9/11 Unity Walk reads. “We walk together as neighbors from many faiths and cultures. We gather in peace to demonstrate our unity, recalling the spirit of togetherness that grew out of 9/11. We commemorate this day because concern for each other’s welfare is the shared hope of us all.”
• Lawrence Carter, Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, spoke at the opening ceremony for the “Gandhi, King, Ikeda: A Legacy of Creating Peace” exhibition at Harrisburg (PA) Area Community College. Dr Carter said, “What 9/11 really taught Americans was that, without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the world. Peace begins with each person. It’s an inside job.”
• Long Island and Queens area members attended “Visions for a Non-Violent Future” hosted by Hofstra University's Center for Civic Engagement. The event showcased the SGI exhibition “From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Transforming the Human Spirit” and the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces exhibition “Courage for Peace: U.N. Peacekeepers in Action.” New York State Assemblywomen Michelle Schimel attended and said, “The cause of peace must be practiced every day, as if it were a religion.”
• Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Betty Williams spoke on Sept. 23 at the SGI World Culture Center in Santa Monica, Calif., as part of the “Culture of Peace Distinguished Speaker Series.” She said, “Nonviolence is the weapon of the strong, not the weak. Violence is a choice, Reject it.” She is the recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to restore peace in Northern Ireland and the founder of World Centers of Compassion for Children International.

Daisaku Ikeda is the current president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and under his leadership, the SGI has grown to its present membership of more than 12 million people in 190 countries and territories. Based on the humanistic principles of Nichiren Buddhism, Ikeda founded the Soka School System which includes universities in Japan, the United States, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries. He is also the founder of the Toda Peace Institute, the Boston Research Center for the 21sth Century, the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum and more. He is the author of numerous books that have been translated into many languages and he has received much recognition for his peace efforts, including more than 220 honorary degrees from universities worldwide.

In conclusion, yes Peace is possible but we must first start with ourselves and be willing to practice this on a daily basis. And also realize that we are connected with all the people in our immediate environment and the world. We have a shared humanity. As Ikeda says: “A change in one person can change the destiny of all humankind.”

To learn more about the SGI-USA, go to www.sgi-usa.org

— Jackie Givens

Making collective moral progress (12.11.2007)

Peace during the nuclear age?

I have just finished an international studies class where I learned why humanitarian and advocacy NGOs are formed. My professor mentioned that one of the reasons is that people are motivated by the idea of collective moral progress. That is the belief that if an individual has the ability to morally progress, society as a whole can collectively morally progress. Politicians claim that the nuclear arms race is a matter of “defense,” while slowly the rest of the world is beginning to realize that, in fact, it is a matter of power.

How long will this race for power be a threat to civilization? Until society can collectively morally progress. Until people begin to realize that power is not a greater priority than a threat to human lives. This change will occur when people begin to value the lives of others whom they’ve never seen, whom they have no interests or relations with whatsoever. Human beings must evolve into becoming a species of not just higher brain power, but of greater hearts. Men and women must learn to love unconditionally. When individuals recognize this truth, this necessity for us to evolve, then the love for humanity as a whole will develop, society will collectively morally progress, and the resulting actions will bring us the peaceful world we hope for. But first, a change of awareness must occur within each one of us.

— Garima Singh, 2nd Year Public Health Major

Peace through self-interest (12.6.2007)

Dr. Whiteley is a political scientist – a sure-fire ticket to failure in this endeavor. His quote at the end of the article, about putting “the welfare of all people before that of the tribe,” seems to champion the road to intervention and chaos. The war on Iraq is a clear example of this mode of thinking. What we really need is for people to put their own self-interest ahead of all others – the approach of minding one’s own business and letting others take care of theirs. The mere idea that he, or anyone for that matter, knows the “welfare of all people” is absurd.

Perhaps Dr. Whiteley could expand his mind by reading F. A. Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit or Ludwig von Mises’s Omnipotent Government, especially part IV, “The Future of Western Civilization.” Even George Washington’s “Farewell Address of 1796” could be instructive as far as its emphasis on commercial over political relations.

All of this is to say that Dr. Whiteley might do better searching outside the realm of politics for a solution. One doesn’t ask the bull to clean up the china shop.

— Brian J. Gladish, ’70

Peace as an ecological issue (12.5.2007)

UCi magazine’s fall 2007 question, “Is peace possible?” is certainly apropos to our time. It certainly underlies the currently central question, “Can humanity survive?” A researcher such as Professor John Whitely may never find a complete answer to his questions, but in this case I reply.

The answer to both questions is YES!

The answer is in the affirmative if mankind properly establishes correct priorities and acts upon them.

Back in 1972, my UCI ecology professor required reading of an article outlining the problems to be incurred by continuation of then extant human behaviors, particularly production of pollution. While some aspects were not clear, we are definitely now seeing the effects in the form of Global Thermosis (Global Warming and Climate Change), as well as the damage to the Ozone Layer detected by UCI Nobel Laureat Roland et al. Most of those warnings from Forester (Limits to Growth), and the Club of Rome and others went unheeded, and now we are paying the price. We may witness the destruction of half of civilization in the next 50 years because so much of it is at or close to today's sea level.

Here are the two main priorities that need to be set, and not in order of importance, but rather in the necessary order of implementation.

Vast increases in production of safe (generally adiabatic) energy supplies combined with virtual elimination of combustion-based civilization processes. This is really an amazingly trivial change for most industrial societies, and a huge and possibly difficult change for some primitive societies. We have seen, however that given the resources, primitives tend to adapt quickly. Note that as many as 5/7ths of humanity may be in the latter category. Replacement of 200 million combustion powered vehicles is already underway. But supplying adiabatic electric power to villages worldwide is barely started.

Control of human population increases is essential, even though presently not popular. Education is the key. Currently, the only nation with a reasonable policy is China. However, their policy could be greatly improved, and in ways that might make such draconian measures more acceptable to western and also primitive cultures. The changes could include lotteries and costly licenses for enlarged families, which would enable the cultural traditions of extended families to persist: i.e “brothers and sisters,” thus uncles and aunts.

— Drew Angel, ’73

Communications technology and peace (12.2.2007)

Peace is ever more possible in an age of ever improving communications technology. I have believed this based on an experience of an idea coming to me in the summer of 1976, just a few months before I became a UCI undergraduate. I changed my major from Engineering to Social Ecology in my first year in part because I believed that advancements in the social sciences were more important than advancements in the physical sciences for the world to survive the risk of nuclear annihilation and realize peace. I graduated with a degree in Social Ecology in 1980. I now wonder if I should have stayed in Engineering, perhaps working to further improve communications technology, since my aptitude is skewed strongly toward math and science, as opposed to verbal communication. That, however, does not change my belief that the greatest obstacles to peace are more social and political in nature than they are technological.

Since having this experience of conceptualizing a global social structure in which world peace would seem inevitable, I have felt confidence that peace is certainly possible, if people want it enough to make the effort to realize it. The idea simply involves bringing people together the world over, or in any large population selected, through interconnecting levels of small groups. I call my latest formulation of this idea, Oneness in Sevens.

— Hal Messinger

Peace at risk (11.28.2007)

I read the article Peace Talks about John Whiteley's efforts toward pursuing peace, as always grateful for the discussion. Our current political and social times put peace at particular great risk. We seem to imagine no way to achieve anything without the use of force. And we do this with the stated goal of abolishing terrorism as if it could be done on the business end of an AK-47. Wars don’t achieve peace, how could they? It is not their goal. They are usually fought for ideology, profit, or resources. Thank you for the well written article and focus on this most relevant issue.

— Lucinda Wright