In the 1960’s and 70’s I was part of the anti-Vietnam-War movement. I participated in protests at my college and in New York City and Washington, D.C., and I was convinced that I was doing something kind and compassionate, even when I was chanting slogans that insulted people and shouted angrily at soldiers and police.

I was part of a group of anti-war demonstrators who confronted police in Madison, Wisconsin in 1967. We were trying to block people from having job interviews with Dow Chemical Company, which manufactured napalm. Most of us were angry: angry at the government for the war, angry at Dow for napalm, angry at the systematic violence and oppression. The local police tried to force a path through us, some protesters started yelling taunts at the police, and a melee ensued, with some police wielding nightsticks and some protesters throwing rocks. It became violent and ugly very fast. I was sickened by what I witnessed, and I found myself angry at the police, wondering why they were so violent with us when all we wanted to do was stop violence.

Two days later, my next-door neighbor was hit by a car while riding his bicycle and ended up in the hospital with serious injuries. I went to visit him, and in the bed next to him was a man with an injured leg and arm. I went over to talk to him also. When I asked where he had been injured, he told me that he was a Madison police officer and that he had been hurt while trying to control the crowd at the Dow Chemical interviews. He was angry at the protesters. He didn’t understand why we were disrespectful of him and of other people in uniform, even soldiers, who were only trying to do their jobs. As I talked with him, I realized there were honest people on the “other side”, human beings like me and like my injured friend. This policeman’s injuries were real and painful. I could not be angry with him.

I did not have a spiritual practice back then; my introduction to mindfulness practice and Buddhism came in 1985. Looking back on this incident with the perspective of practice, I see that we were trying to be compassionate from angry hearts. We had divided the world into “us”, the good people, and “them”, the bad people, and loving-kindness doesn’t have a chance in a world with evil enemies. We offered conditional love, love only for those who agreed with us and who did not support the war. At the same time many of us saw individual and group violence as a reasonable response to the institutionalized violence of war and police brutality. We did not understand the core truth: that hatred and violence lead only to more hatred and violence. We didn’t understand that the perpetrators of violence also suffer, deeply.

Mindfulness practice has changed my life. It gives me the opportunity to understand myself and the world better and to make better choices. By developing mindful awareness of each moment and each activity, we become more aware of how the mind works, of how our thoughts and emotions create the world we live in. As I do mindfulness practice I move more deeply into the reality that my thoughts and feelings create: I experience them more strongly. And, in the wonderful way mindfulness works, I can see my relationship to my thought-patterns and chronic emotional states change. I realize that I have choices. I do not have to follow my old, chronic patterns; I can choose differently. And when I began choosing differently, my life changed and the world began to change around me.

We don’t have to wait until our heart is pure before we take compassionate action. If we did that, we could wait forever and the world’s suffering would continue, inside and around us. Instead, we need the courage to walk into whatever the situation may be -- whether it’s listening to the suffering of a soldier or abused spouse, or helping at a prison or at an elder-care home, or saying hello to a homeless person and asking what (s)he needs. We can walk into that situation, be aware of our habitual feelings and thought-patterns, and then choose to step outside of them and see what the world looks like. When we do this, compassionate action and loving kindness are not only possible: they are the true response of our hearts to suffering in the world.

One symbol of mindfulness practice is the lotus. A beautiful flower blooms with its roots in the muck of the world. We can live like a lotus if we have the courage and commitment to live each moment with awareness; we can let compassion bloom.

Andrew JiYu Weiss is a mindfulness meditation teacher, and has been ordainedin both the Japanese White Plum zen Lineage and Thich Nhat Hanh's Order of Interbeing. His book, "Beginning Mindfulness: Learning The Way of Awareness", published by New World Library, helps us establish mindfulness in our lives through a 10-week , sequenced instruction program. The practices Andrew describes in this article are included in Week 6 of his book. For information on the web, see www.beginningmindfulness.com or www.newworldlibrary.com, or contact Andrew at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .