We live in dangerous, tentative times – ripe for ongoing violence of all sorts, but also for deep transformations of violence. What are the roles of violence & non-violence in social change? Come explore with us questions that have have been prominent in my heart & mind in my heart & mind for the last few years:

• Is it better to practice extinguishing rage, outrage and other strong emotions, or to transform them at times into powerful expressions that seek to awaken, but not destroy – like ferocity? Is something like “utilitarian anger” ever appropriate?
• Bodyguards protected the Dalai Lama when he fled Tibet for India – and routinely still protect him. Would it have been appropriate for them to have used violence to protect him? Might it ever be?
• Does it even make sense to think of the great Amílcar Cabral as “Ghandi with a gun”? Do you know who he was? If not, what forms of structural violence – social engineering to marginalize groups of people in ways that create or reinforce more direct forms of violence – might account for why not?
• If you could have killed the person who, in your view, engineered and/or executed the worst genocidal murders in history – in time to prevent the horrors – would you have?
• South Africa's had a bloodless revolution, and subsequently opted anew into the global economic paradigm. A consequence: poor Blacks are worse off economically than they were under apartheid. If you were a poor, Black parent in a township without safe drinking water or quality education or decent housing for you and your children, and if revolutionary violence could redistribute the wealth of centuries of White extraction and exploitation, what would be your choices?
• I have strong commitments to honoring my interconnectedness with all my relations, including Great Mother Earth – & the Plant, Animal, and Mineral Nations. How are others embodying such commitments while living in the belly-of-the-beast of the rapacious Industrial Growth Society?
• It is perhaps easier to live as a vegan in the SF Bay Area than almost any place on Earth. Still, it can sometimes be very challenging. How can I hold the tension and complexity, and at times exhaustion & sadness & outrage, of sometimes nearly killing myself to protect the lives of animals – especially those who live in factory-farm concentration camps?
• When I committed to the First Precept, it was the following version: “Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.” Provisos and precautions were cited: the precepts are like the North Star. You head in their direction, though you may never fully reach/realize them. The First Precept can be especially problematic, since all of us must kill or support systems of killing in order to eat – even vegetarians. Still, less violence is better, is on-the-path to the North Star. Yet can I truly support “not to condone any act of killing in the world”?
• When I succumb to activist “do-until-you-drop” violence against myself, what practices, communities and resources can bring me back to self-love? Given who we are, given these times, is a life without the prospect of ever again succumbing to do-until-you-drop self-violence feasible – even imaginable?
• What's the responsibility of those of us who benefit – even passively – from the military, economic and other forms of violence perpetrated constantly by the US?