Dear Friends,
 
The Global Peace Initiative of Women  is organizing its first US Summit at the Aspen Institute in Colorado on November 6-10, 2008 entitled Gathering the Spiritual Voice of America to Deepen our Knowing of Oneness and our Compassion as a Nation.   
 
This national reflection or think tank is being called just after the elections in November to help initiate a new vision and course for our nation, calling upon our collective spiritual and creative resources to help us move beyond fear and division so that we as Americans can be a force for relieving world tensions and addressing economic imbalance; so that we can be a source of healing for our ailing environment and develop a more sharing society,  conscious of our consumption and use of resources.   It is time to renew the best of our national qualities and dreams.  Political leaders alone cannot achieve this.   The collective consciousness of our nation will determine our future course.   A shift in awareness is needed in America and around the world if we are to create a more peaceful and life sustaining world community.  How to support and facilitate this transformation will be the focus of our gathering.

This gathering was first conceived as a dialogue with 40-50 of our nation’s spiritual leaders and long-time contemplative practitioners.  Since then many of our friends and members have indicated the desire to join this reflection,  and so, while we are preserving November 6th and the morning of the 7th as the time for dialogue with religious and spiritual leaders,  from the afternoon of Friday, November 7th until the morning of Monday, November 10th,  our friends and members are invited to join us at the Aspen Institute for a more extended reflection on how to bring our best thinking - our collective wisdom — forward to advance the state of the nation.

We hope you will join us for this important post-election gathering.  Whatever the outcome on November 4th, we must collectively apply our insight and know how to guide our nation forward to a new vision of leadership.   For more information about the Summit email us at info@gpiw.org.

We seek your support to make this gathering of greatest benefit to our nation.
 

Dena Merriam                                                      Marianne Marstrand
Founder & Convener                                           Executive Director
Global Peace Initiative of Women                     Global Peace Initiative of Women
 

By Anne Scott

     At the recent global conference in Jaipur, India – Making Way for the Feminine: For the Benefit of the World Community, 450 women and  men gathered from around the world to explore the feminine way of humanity. The stories of women and life from many diverse spiritual traditions and cultures were shared with sorrow, love, compassion, and sometimes, great joy.

   Such an event can feel overwhelming to the senses. Daily the fragrance of India seeped through the conference, sometimes pleasantly as in the scent of spices in every meal or roses floating in stone basins as we walked along the path to the large tent where we met. But at other times, it was startlingly raw. I took a walk alone behind my hotel, and found a young woman in a sari and flip-flops shoveling hot, acrid liquid tar over a dirt road. It felt poignant, knowing that on the other side of the wall stood the conference tent where women were sharing deeply from their lives and their visions.

     Women from the East and the West spent five days together in this way, without an agenda yet held by a clear focus on specific topics. The conference included those from Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, Palestine, Israel, Africa, and Tibetans living in India. I was moved at the willingness of all these women to come together like this – where the uniqueness of each was held in a larger whole. No one was excluded. The sense of unity gave a certain freedom for each woman to be more fully herself.

   On the first night an Australian woman spoke about how the heart of Australia opened overnight with the asking of forgiveness of the Lost Generation by the government, which offered a deep apology. “The heart changed,” she said, “the heart of a nation softened.” Women from the African continent then introduced themselves: “We have come all the way from Africa to present the divine power because we hear the call of women to talk about Peace.”

   There was a profound witnessing of suffering as we heard the stories of women from Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. To simply listen to and hold with love the stories of what has been, and is still being inflicted against life in these countries, was very powerful. There was one moment where an African woman spoke violently against the effects of colonialism on her country. Another woman took her aside after her talk.  “Sister, there are no victims anymore. It is about all of us now—it is global. Speak quietly from the deepest place and they will understand you.”

     And this is how it went—women speaking from their depths, in prayer and in talks, with such love pouring through this unified body of women and men. This process worked within to heal our isolation or sorrow, and linked people together to form new relationships and water the seeds of new projects.

 During one talk a young Buddhist woman broke down in tears, unable to continue speaking about the loss of her family through political violence when she was a child. The next evening we walked together back to the hotel. With joy she shared about her lineage, and how she was now studying in Sri Lanka for her doctorate, enabling her to return to her own country where she would restore this lineage which had disappeared. 

  In between large group talks and prayers there were smaller gatherings. I was asked to co-host a circle about visionary leadership tapping into the principles of the feminine way. At this circle a journalist and social worker named Ashima, who works with women in Kashmir, told this story. I share it here because it speaks to each of us as we try in our own ways to do our work. 

 ”One day I sat by a lake in Kashmir and heard the lake crying. She beckoned to me, called to me. It was then that I knew my own work was to restore Kashmiriyat for the benefit of the people and the land. I didn’t know how I would proceed.”
 
     Ashima explained that Kashmiriyat had been a unifying way of life in Kashmir until several decades ago. Based upon hospitality, mutual understanding, tolerance, relationship, and caring – all qualities of the feminine – it fostered unity through dialogue, stories, festivals and a connection to nature. This way of life was destroyed in 1989 because of political and religious conflict. The loss incurred fragmentation and suffering among women and families. When she asked people about Kashmiriyat, most denied that it had ever existed.

     After her experience at the lake, Ashima had gone to a nearby mosque. The head of the mosque at first refused her entry because she was a woman and not Muslim; but once he understood her work, he allowed her in. What occurred in the mosque was a moment of grace. As she sat quietly, a man near to her began to pray aloud to Allah, repeating the name of the divine. Touched by the man’s devotion, she wept, and as she did so, a strength filled her so completely that she knew she had the power to carry out her vision.

     Afterwards she felt it was important to visit a Hindu temple, but all the temples had been locked up during times of conflict. A passer-by told her that the back door of one temple was open, so she entered. To her surprise, she found that the sacred rituals had been kept alive; someone had secretly been coming in to care for this temple.

     Just then a woman came in and addressed Ashima, “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you.” The woman told Ashima that she had had a dream in which a Sufi asked her to look after the temple until the people could care for it themselves. >From this point on, Ashima began to find others who were quietly doing their work to restore the soul of the land. Now she brings people together to repair the social relationships that had been torn apart.

     “So I continue with my work trying to restore the memory of Kashmiriyat among the people. When men who have been fighting each another come together and can remember Kashmiriyat, they embrace and weep. Even though they return to their organizations where there is hatred, at least they remember, even briefly, how life can be.”  

  Later in the conference we heard women who came from numerous war-ravaged countries, each affirming the power of their devotion that helped them to stand in their truth. I watched as Sunni and Shia women from Iraq sat side by side in an impromptu gathering with women from the United States. When an American woman asked, “How can we help you?,”  the Iraqi women said, Listen to us. Just listen.

     In these moments one could feel the weight of an old era touching the reality of a new culture. There was a palpable sense of possibility and hope that women were showing a different way to care for life. When I returned home, a woman with whom I had shared some of these stories, wrote:

     “Sometimes I have this picture that in order to be of service to life I have to be doing something Big, helping lots of people or whatever. And yet it’s not that way at all. It is devotion to the experience of life. Choosing again and again, Life.”

     “Yet the living of it, the devotion to it, is a choice every day, and a bigger choice is the one where we are so deeply challenged by the unknown. Not always easy. But I will consciously choose life. Even if it means there is only one small part of me that can stay open in the moment….”

     Without knowing it, this woman echoed what was stated on the opening day of the conference, when a Tibetan spoke about the importance of our attention to the smallest things:

     “I am a Tibetan lay man. I honor feminine divinity, and the importance of the commonality of human beings. I asked the Dalai Lama for a prayer so I might have a wholesome attitude towards myself and others. The Dalai Lama said that, even if he were many hundreds of years old, he doesn’t know if he could achieve that. But, he told me, ‘Do not neglect the smallest thing. Do not forget the small things. Anyone can do this.’”

     It is my belief that these stories from the conference in India link us together, those who are drawn to the call of the feminine way—of listening, sharing, cooperating, caring, co-creating, and honoring life. They carry a substance as vital as the earth is to a seed, or water to a tree.
From these stories we know that we are instruments of change. 

*

H.H. Amritanandamayi Devi arriving on opening day to provide keynote address.

The Global Peace Initiative of Women convened its second global summit of women spiritual leaders, this time in Jaipur, India on March 6-10. Several hundred women leaders from over 50 countries participated in Making Way for the Feminine for the Benefit of the World Community. The goal was to explore how the leadership of women, and particularly the feminine principles, can bring benefit to the world community, helping to create the platform for global transformation. The gathering was designed as a global reflection, opening with seven hours of prayer, sacred song and meditation. This created a sacred space in which dialogue could take place.As part of the journey to Jaipur, many of the participants, and particularly those from conflict areas, gathered at the Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi on the day before the Summit’s opening for reflection and prayer and to view the journey of Gandhi’s life. From there, the group moved on to the Summit in Jaipur.During the Summit, delegates from Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Burma, Kenya, Burundi and South Africa shared experiences of their communities’ struggles as the spiritual leaders discussed ways to deepen the practice of Ahimsa (nonharm) and Satyagraha, how to break the cycle of violence and penetrate to the roots of conflict, and how to foster the spiritual process of healing and reconciliation. A major theme of the gathering was Oneness - how to know and be in this Oneness, the underlying unity of life. And indeed, a sense of Oneness prevailed.As we prepared for this Summit, we came to believe that to move forward as a world community, we must begin to move beyond formal interreligious discussions toward a place of knowing our unity, honoring our many wisdom traditions, experiencing rather than speaking about the interconnections that run through life. Making Way for the Feminine was an effort to create a new way of being together as a multi-religious world community, based on a more feminine vision of inclusion, sharing and receptivity. Thus we sought a new language and format - instead of plenary sessions and keynote addresses, we held group gatherings and shared stories. Instead of workshops and presentations, there were circle discussions and a setting of context. This was difficult at the beginning for some, but it allowed a new energy to flourish and gave space for a deeply spiritual interchange.We also sought to create a new East-West partnership, giving ample space to the participation of the Eastern spiritual traditions, which are underrepresented at most interreligious events. This created a new balance and greatly enriched the exchange. (more…)

Asian and African Religious Leaders Meet to Deepen Ties

 Asia-Africa Spiritual Summit Launches Forum to SeekNew Approaches to Address Conflict, Poverty and Climate ChangeThrough Compassion  

– October 29, 2007, Dharma Drum Mountain, Taiwan. Religious leaders from throughout Asia and Africa, representatives from their spiritual and cultural traditions, and youth delegates gathered at the headquarters of the Buddhist organization Dharma Drum Mountain outside of Taipei, Taiwan, to explore how their spiritual traditions can bring new understanding and insight into the challenges facing their regions, and how they can build a framework for cooperation based on shared spiritual values.   From the African continent, religious and spiritual leaders came from Algeria, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal South Africa and Sudan. From Asia, delegations were present from Taiwan, India, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Lebanon.

 

      There were in-depth presentations and discussions to deepen understanding of the conflicts and the impoverishment that arose during the recent history of the two regions and that continues today, and how current approaches to dealing with the violence and poverty are bringing only limited success. Much cultural traditional and spiritual knowledge was lost during the colonial period at great detriment to the people.  New method based on the essential wisdom of the traditions are needed – ways to cultivate compassionate leadership at all levels of society.  Conflict, poverty, environmental degradation and gender inequity were all cited as manifestations of  violence that must be addressed by promoting non-violent education and nonviolence way of life – which has been a central component of their traditional wisdom.

 

       It was clear from the discussions that Africa’s Christian, Muslim and traditional faith leaders and the Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders from Asia share an essential vision of human unity.  They found that their shared many common spiritual beliefs and practices  – including a deep regard for the natural environment, an understanding of the interconnection between humans and the natural world, and a community structures that in the past took care of the needs of all its members. Traditional methods of addressing conflict incorporated mechanisms for reconciliation and healing that have been lost in modern conflict and struggles.  These in built mechanisms prevented the escalation of conflict to the levels we see today and also prevented the wide division between the have and have-nots that fuels much of the violence today.  By tapping their traditional knowledge and working in greater unity across religions, and by assuming more responsibility for the challenges at hand, religious leaders expressed their readiness for a new leadership role.  They understood the keys to be the active expression of unity across faiths and an effort to strengthen compassion as the guiding force in society.   

 

      During discussions with youth participants from Africa and Asia, religious leaders acknowledged that the religious institutions have often failed the young people by not addressing their needs or transmitted in modern terms the guiding spiritual values. 

 

Religions needs to maintain essential spiritual values and respond to contemporary issues which had been developed in response to issues of earlier times and is of little relevance today.

 

      Poverty, conflict, environmental degradation and discrimination were ills that must be countered through spiritual efforts. Long-term problem that can only be addressed through education, the empowerment of local communities and the system work to transform thinking and behavior at the local, national and global levels.  

 

There was an outpouring of support for people from Darfur, Sudan and Northern Uganda. A similar call was directed at leaders of Myanmar where Buddhist monks have been killed and imprisoned for their non-violent protests. Because of the extent of human suffering, the participants launched a global appeal to the international community, governments and parties in conflict, a call for peaceful dialogue and compassionate leadership to resolve tragedies around the world. We as religious and spiritual leaders we condemn and reject the manipulation of religion for political ends.

 

The participants agreed to continue their engagement through an ongoing Asia-Africa Spiritual Forum, which would focus on building unity across faiths and developing new strategies for building compassionate leadership. The participants formed a working group, drown from partner organizations, to develop an action plan would be shared with all for approval.

 

The gathering was hosted by Dharma Drum Mountain of Taiwan and was organized in partnership with the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA), the All India Movement for Seva, the Global Development for Peace and Leadership in South Africa, and the Global Peace Initiative of Women. All the participants express gratitude and deep appreciation to Venerable Master Sheng Yen and Dharma Drum Mountain, and conducted the prayers for on going work for the Dharma Drum Mountain.

 

 

View Dr. Campbell’s video message on “Making Way for the Feminine” - Jaipur Summit.

Recently HH the Dalai Lama was honored with the Presidential Distinguished Professorship award at Emory University and participated in a weekend of events in his honor. Sister Joan Chittister, Co-Chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, was one of the four respondents to the Dalai Lama at the First Emory Summit on Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. Following her response to the Dalai Lama’s address at Emory University, in Atlanta on Sunday, Oct. 21, Sister Joan received a long standing ovation from the standing-room only crowd of 4800 people who had gathered. The two-hour event is now available on the web in video. The Dalai Lama at Emory HH the Dalai Lama begins near the 45 minute mark. Sister Joan Chittister at the 1 hour 25 minute mark and the into questions and answers. This dynamic conversation between 5 representatives of the world’s major faiths revolved around the question: Can the religions of the world work together to reduce violent conflict and build peaceful, pluralistic societies? This picture of HH Dalai Lama and Sister Joan was taken by Myron McGhee.

Welcome to the blog of the Global Peace Initiative of Women. We hope to keep you updated on our work and to share our thoughts and visions with you.

With this first entry on our blog, we begin our internet discussions on what we are planning in Jaipur, India, next March.

As we organize numerous discussions around the world in preparation for the Jaipur Summit, “Making Way for the Feminine for the Benefit of the World Community,” we have come to realize more profoundly that the goal of this gathering is really captured in the second part of the title — for the benefit of the world community. The inspiration that is calling us together is the drive for global transformation — the realization that we need to transform our way of relating to other cultures and to the natural world around us, rethink the way we are educating our young and the type of leadership needed to guide us forward, and we must rethink our understanding of progress — what we want our world to be in 10, 20, 50 years. The priorities of women are different from those that have led us thus far, and we must together consider how we can enable new priorities around compassion, love and nonviolence to become the predominant forces in our societies.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts as we create and then work to realize the vision for what we can accomplish together in Jaipur, India next March. 

Dena Merriam, Founder & Convener, The Global Peace Initiative of Women

For details on the Jaipur Summit click here