Seven ways Compassion-based Mindfulness helps us stay grounded amidst chaos, moving us closer to inner and outer peace

It's hard to imagine peace in the world today when it seems that violence and hatred are escalating. I'm sure for Americans it is even more difficult to see this violence and hatred play out so close to home. It is usually in a distant land or neighborhood that we can keep at arms length from our minds and hearts. The recent wave of violence is touching so many, it speaks to why we take a compassionate stance towards the difficulties in life and why a mindfulness practice that is compassion-based is so terribly important--no one is exempt.

When it comes to working through the topic of violence, though, mindfulness, and particularly compassion-based practices become paramount as tools of response and action. Here are seven ways mindfulness can be foundational to individual and world peace:

1. Mindfulness practice helps us learn how to be fully present with what is in each moment so we know what is really happening. Rather than running from uncomfortable or undesirable situations through denial, substances, distractions or spacing out, we are invited to bring our full attention and heart to our moment by moment experience. As a practice, this strengthens our ability to sit with life's inevitabilities such as pain, illness, death and loss. The practice further spills over into our lives by growing our equanimity within us so when things do go awry, we can stay present enough with it to consciously decide the best course of action. It is within this brief moment of conscious choice that we can lead ourselves to inner peace and the world to outer peace.
2. Mindfulness helps us live more from our chosen values. When we wake up to the moment, we are more likely and able to make choices that are aligned with values of our choosing rather than our evolutionary selected biological reactions--fight, flight, freeze. We all know that violence cannot be ended with more violence--in other words, as long as there is any violence--even violence that feels justified to end other violence--there cannot be peace. (If violence could lead to lasting peace, don't you think we would have it by now?) Mindfulness isn't about a pacifist response, per se, though that is a valid path. Mindfulness is about increasing our choices for response to any situation and allowing a more wisdom-based part of ourselves to decide the best course of action. Do we value inner peace? Do we value world peace? If so, knowing this can help us take active steps towards creating it.
3. Compassion-based mindfulness practices work directly to counteract the negativity bias of the brain--our genetic predisposition to notice the negative and potentially harmful items and situations around us. We have to work hard to rewire the brain to see the positive. Any culture that is rife with violence streamed through conventional media sources--news, movies, books, television, etc.--actually helps reinforce the negativity bias in the brain through affirming these actions as valid. Additionally, the more we feed this bias through unconscious living, the deeper we ingrain it. Cultivating compassion and well wishing for ourselves and others actually help rewire the brain to notice the positive and good--and there is a lot of that in the world right now. 
4. Mindfulness can help us put down overexposure to negativity--This is not to say that we should bury our heads in the sand about current events--that would be denial and mindfulness is about everything but denial--but rather to be careful that we don't overexpose ourselves to emotionally charged negativity and violence, particularly through brief sound bites and one-upsman jabs. We can replace this overexposure with actively cultivating the positive states and/or bringing good to our part of the planet. Don't let the headlines fool you--they are not indicative proportionately to what is happening on the planet. There is a lot of positive actions taking place all the time. If you do engage with mainstream media and news sources, be sure to counteract it with stories of positive news (Try YES! magazine; The Optimist (formerly ODE) magazine; Positive News; and the Good News Network.).
5. Mindfulness empowers us out of a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. What is a wise response to war and violence? Each of us must answer this for ourselves--there are many things that can help put an end to hatred and war--but I invite you to go inward and take an action that either ceases the immediate violence non-violently (have you ever helped a two year old end a tantrum by just calmly holding them until it passed?); helps end the conditions where violence arises; or helps create the external conditions where violence need not arise (a local education group; a neighborhood helping group; etc.). Because mindfulness helps us become more conscious and choiceful in our actions, taking positive actions can bring us hope while contributing to the solution.
6. Mindfulness helps us understand that hatred itself is suffering. Anyone who practices mindfulness recognizes that those who are acting from a place of hate are caught in a very, very painful cycle. We all know how this is. If we "fight against" hatred and violence, we are caught in that cycle and living our own inner war. When was the last time you caught yourself being angry and couldn't get out of it--regardless of how much logic or resistance you met it with? Remember the two-year old and the tantrum above? Rage and uncontrolled anger happen in the same part of the brain regardless of age. It all begins in the amygdala. The difference is that a two-year old doesn't have the executive functioning part of the brain (the frontal cortex) fully developed, so it only responds from this primal part of the brain (fight, flight or freeze). An adult, though, has the capacity to sit with those physical reactions (flushed skin, increased heart rate, angry expression, etc.) and choose their response from the executive functioning part of the brain. I don't know anyone that is exempt from experiencing this natural physiological reaction. Knowing this helps us meet the condition with compassion--we are all susceptible to it. How many of your friends have had to back off media or Facebook during the campaign season because of growing rage and frustration? Conscious compassion-based and loving kindness practices help us learn how to meet these challenges within ourselves and others with patience and compassion. That person that is striking out is either scared or hurting or both. We see it as anger, but inside, there is pain and suffering. We need only look to our own experience to discover this and to engage our natural compassion to want to see it end.
7. A sustained mindfulness practice cultivates and reveals more of our innate kindness and compassion--This nature is usually concealed by conditioning and external inputs. Particularly when we are overwhelmed, past conditioning has a tendency to take over. We may blindly continue an unconscious pattern that includes or leads to more violence and hatred. With practice, we discover more of the positive pro-social parts of ourselves. Our practice leads to a greater sense of well being which affects all that we touch.

Is mindfulness an antidote to violence? I'm not sure such a simple statement can be made, but I am sure that it can lead to more choiceful responses, which may end up curbing violent reactions to circumstances that contribute to perpetual violence.