If you want to beat your enemy, know your enemy. And if you want to turn your enemy into a friend... listen to them! Gene Hoffman, 85, has been a peace activist for over half a century. She believes: “An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.” Gene has developed a reconciliation technique called Compassionate Listening. It has been successfully used in the strife-torn middle east and between native Americans and local hunters in Alaska. From her home in California, she told me: “The philosophy of ‘Might is Right’ has failed us. We don’t acknowledge the truth about the damage caused by war. We see victory as virtuous... but there’s more to virtue than winning!

“All of us have truth within us. We all come from a place of truth, so we should cultivate and find compassion.”

For nearly 40 years Gene has been inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who went to the US in the late 1960s preaching a doctrine of peace. His three steps to harmony are based on simple wisdom.
1. Listen to the suffering of all sides.
2. Relate the sufferings of all sides to one another.
3. Bring all sides together so that they may hear one another.

For more information: www.compassionatelistening.org

Mark Winter