About the Author
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, scholar, and human rights activist. In 1967, he was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr., for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is author of over one hundred books, including Being Peace and Anger. He lives at Plum Village, a meditation center in France, and travels worldwide, leading retreats on the art of mindful living.
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A police officer is someone who is supposed to bring peace. Your duty is to maintain peace. Peace means the absence of conflict, violence, and anger. You should have peace within yourself in order to truly be doing the work of peace. Making peace is not possible without being peace. And being peace is your practice. Recognize the violence, the fear and anger in you, embrace them and transform them. Getting in touch with the wonderful, healing, and nourishing things around and inside you for your nourishment and the nourishment of your family and community. That should be your daily practice. Thich Nhat Hahn in Keeping the Peace 2) If you practice law enforcement based on your anger, on your violence, using only your authority to suppress your children and others, that kind of practice will not bring peace, will not bring happiness and harmony at all’’When we speak of law enforcement, using a police force, a huge administration to take care of detentions and prisons’we try to suppress violence as symptoms. But at the same time we allow violence to be fed into our daily life’into our family, our schools, our society. It does not mean much to try to suppress the symptoms. You have to deal with the roots. Suppressing violence with violence does not make any sense. Because the person in charge of suppressing violence may have a lot of violence and fear and despair within himself or herself. Thich Nhat Hahn in Keeping the Peace We’re not called police officers, we’re called peace officers. I don’t know how many of you knew that, but we are peace officers in the statutes. We are peace officers. Our job is to strengthen relationships in the community and to help you strengthen relationships in the community, to improve the safety net that needs to be there for all of us to have a chance. Sheri Maples ‘ from the Introduction The officers have never had any exposure to chasing cucumbers around on our plates in silence, or walking mindfully, or to hugging meditation, which was really fun. One of the things that is very important for us to have you believe that this can happen in the police departments in your communities. Sheri Maples ‘ from the Introduction As police officers we are extremely familiar with the suffering, the intense suffering that is caused by killing and poverty and exploitation and social injustice, stealing, sexual abuse, unmindful consumption and oppression. Sheri Maples ‘ from the Introduction
