Conflicts are hard for most of us to deal with. They are even harder to deal with well. Having few models for effective resolution of conflicts, our experiences of it are often negative. We learn to fear and avoid conflict. Some studies have shown that up to 95 percent of the population will avoid a conflictual situation.
Yet the avoidance of conflict does not make it go away. In one form or another it surrounds most of our relationships. In the context of a work or live-in community, unresolved conflict has the potential to be very destructive, fracturing groups and leading to their break - up. Learning positive ways of dealing with conflict is essential to the long-term survival of the community.
One skill that is essential to effective conflict resolution is listening. As faith-based people seek to listen to God in prayer, so listening to others is essential to peacemaking. This paper explores the ways that listening to each other and to God can deepen our prayer life as well as our ability to peacefully resolve conflicts in community settings. The final section presents one process based on deep listening that can be used in maintaining harmonious relationships in community settings.

"We invoke your spirit, Creator. We aspire to learn your way of listening in order to help relieve the suffering in the world. You know how to listen in order to understand. We invoke your name in order to practice listening with all our attention and openheartedness. We will sit and listen without judging or reacting. We will sit and listen in order to understand. We will sit and listen so attentively that we will be able to hear what the other person is saying and also what is being left unsaid. We know that just by listening deeply we already alleviate a great deal of pain and suffering in the other person."
Adapted from a Buddhist prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I. Conflict in our Lives: Danger, Opportunity, or Sacrament?

The Chinese character for the word "crisis" is the character for the word "danger" over the character for the word "opportunity." Crisis and conflict can be either. We all can think of examples of conflicts in which people got hurt: riots in Los Angeles, Rodney King being beaten, wars in the Gulf, painful divorces with kids caught in the middle.
However, there are also many examples of positive changes growing out of conflicts: the civil rights movement, the abolitionist suffrage movements, to name two. Like it or not, significant change never comes about without conflict of some type. If we are working for change on any level we must accept conflict as a reality that is here to stay.
A colleague of mine who also works in the conflict management field has called the work of helping others to resolve conflict as being sacramental. It is quite a powerful thing to be with people when they are vulnerable, to have them trust you enough that they can reveal who they really are in your presence. It is even more powerful to be with them as they come to understand each other better and figure out how they can move forward in ways that will meet all of their needs.
When a mediation goes well (and it doesn't always), people leave understanding each other on deeper levels. Relationships are healed. This healing of broken relationships is sacramental-it is a sign of God's presence among us. Because God created us to be one body, we give witness to God's presence when we reunite that body. In thinking of conflict, our challenge is to minimize the potential for danger, maximize the opportunity, and try to make it sacramental. How can this be done?
In the Conflict Resolution workshops that I do, I often begin with a simple
exercise. First, I ask participants to imagine that when they get home that evening
they are going to be in a conflict. When I ask them the first thought that comes into their heads they say, "How can I avoid it?" When I ask them what it feels like to anticipate a conflict they say "Stressful," and "Dreadful."
The point here is that most of us don't see the opportunity that conflict holds. William Donohue has written, "Emotions blind us to these opportunities. We get excited, we believe the other person is completely at fault, and we try to work around them." He goes on to say that someone "once described this problem of not seeing the opportunities as 'getting stupid.'" She said that, "during conflict all the energy rushes from the thinking part of your brain to the feeling part. This makes you stupid and incapable of thinking."
After demonstrating that most of us don't see the opportunity in conflict, I then ask the group to name the specific behaviors that they have experienced in conflict that really irks them. They list a number of behaviors that normally include being blamed, being yelled at, not being understood and not being listened to.
Lastly, I ask them to think of a conflict that actually went well and to name what enabled it to go well. Here participants come up with a list that usually includes, a sense of openness, being understood, preparing for the conflict, not being blamed, and being listened to.
It is always interesting to me to see that groups usually do not say that solving the problem is what makes the conflict go well. Despite our culture's focus on fixing things, it is not the dispute that is most important to us -- it is the disputing. It is the process that matters most. To make conflict less painful we do not need more solutions we need better processes. Solving the problem does not alleviate the pain of conflict so much as how we engage in it. A good conflict, for most of us, is not necessarily one that we solve, it is one in which we feel listened to, understood, and not blamed. This is also sacramental. For when we understand each other better, God is present.
It is interesting to observe that good prayer is similar to good conflicts in this manner. Good prayer does not attempt to solve our problems. Rather, good prayer is one in which we listen to, and are present to, God. Perhaps we can learn something about how to listen in conflicts by looking at how we pray.

II. II. Listening for God's Presence in Prayer.

A. Meditation

In the Buddhist tradition prayer, or meditation, is thought of as the practice of learning how to be present in the here and now. It is understood that most of the time our minds are not here. Most of the time our minds are living in the past or thinking about the future. To actually be in the present moment takes some practice and, at least initially, some work.
The name Buddha means one who is awake. In meditation Buddhists try to wake up. They do so by merely paying attention to what is happening in the present moment. When one practices this they learn that there is a great tendency to avoid the present moment. Either we are bored, in some sort of physical or emotional pain, or we just believe that when our dreams come true everything will be better. But by continually living in the future, we stay asleep. For thinking about the future is nothing more than day dreaming. And while we sleep we are tragically wasting our lives. "One psychologist called us a society of attentional spastics." While we think that we are in control of our minds, the reality is that our thoughts think us. We seem to have no control over them.
"There is a sign in Las Vegas that says, 'You have to be present to win.' The same is true in meditation. If we want to see the nature of our lives, we must actually be present, aware, awake." And it is quite a powerful thing to be fully present, not straining, but just listening, just aware of what is.
The Vipassana School of meditation teaches two main practices. First, the practitioner of meditation must stop. We must slow down enough to be present to what is. We live such busy lives. We are always trying to get somewhere or something. Maybe we are seeking a new job or we want a new car. Maybe we are constantly thinking about getting into a college, or all during dinner we can't stop thinking about the dessert that has been prepared. Ironically, however, when dessert is served, or we get our promotion to a new job, a new desire arises in our minds and we begin chasing that and we still are not living in the present moment. To begin to do this we must first stop.
Only after one has slowed down in Vipassana meditation can one look deeply into what is actually going on. Often, the first thing that we become aware of is that what is going on is not what we thought was going on. The way we often are is not how we like to think of ourselves. To see and accept the patterned reactions in our lives is often not flattering. When we are present to what actually is we often see our own insecurities.
If we continue to look and listen we can begin to contemplate if our actions are leading to peace or to suffering. Only after we see ourselves clearly can we ask if this is the person that I want to be; if my actions are helping me relieve suffering in myself and in others.
Jack Kornfiled writes that wisdom "arises through our gentle and careful inquiry into the workings of the body and mind and through an open inquiry into how this body and mind relates to the whole world around us." But this wisdom will not come to us if we are not present, fully attentive, and listening to what is.

B. Contemplative Prayer in Christian Traditions

While prayer is taught differently in the Christian faith, the contemplative practices also stress the need to be fully present. Henry Nouwen writes that, "To pray . . . does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God."
In a similar vein, Abhishiktananda writes that, "The life of prayer, the life of contemplation, is simply to realize God's Presence to us." So in prayer we are present to God's Presence in us, and for this to happen we must be living in the present moment. Ephesians 6:18 instructs us to "keep alert in prayer." This is because "the present moment always reveals the presence and the power of God."
Thomas Merton writes that the purpose of silence in the monastic tradition is to help monks listen to God better. "If our life is poured out in useless words," he says, "we will never hear anything in the depths of our hearts, where Christ lives and speaks in silence."
The bible is filled with stories of God speaking to those who were present enough to actually listen. Adam and Eve heard God's voice in the breeze; Moses, in the burning bush. These people were not special because God chose them to hear His/Her word. Rather they were special because they were present enough to be able to listen to God. God speaks to all of us in the same way. Our capacity to listen is ours to develop.
How do we develop this capacity to hear God's voice? To listen to God in the world we must learn to listen to each other. For the more we are present to each other the easier we will find it to be present to God. We may also discover that our ability to be present to each other gives witness to the presence of God. For as Nhat Hanh says, "just by listening deeply we alleviate a great deal of suffering in others." This makes us living sacraments
Henry Nouwen writes that, "Contemplative prayer requires that we listen, that we let God speak to us when he wants and in the way he wants. This is difficult for us precisely because it means allowing God to say what we might not want to hear." Listening to others is hard for the same reason. If we really listen we might hear something we don't like, or don't know how to respond to. Really listening makes us vulnerable. It exposes us in the moment. When we really listen we are putting ourselves in a position where we don't have a prepared answer.

III. The Nature of Conflict Resolution

A. Listening in our Culture

Listening is rare in our culture. As Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has written, "We have e-mail, faxes, and telephones. We can send news to the other side of the planet instantly. But communication between parents and children, between those living together has become very difficult. We spend hours on the computer without really looking at the person nearby." And when we do look we usually do not really listen. While others speak, we allow our minds to wander to other matters, or begin to formulate our response. "Our habit energy is to judge whether what she says is correct or not. Then, when she speaks, it isn't her words we hear, only our judgement."
This cultural phenomena has led Nathan Miller to "caustically remark that 'conversation in the United States is a competitive exercise in which the first person to draw a breath is declared the listener.'" In fact researchers claim that 75 percent of oral communication is ignored, misunderstood, or quickly forgotten.
How we listen also affects what the other person says. If your style of listening is only partially attentive, rarely making eye contact, and interrupting occasionally, you will not get the same information as you would if you leaned forward, fully attending, paraphrasing and asking clarifying questions. Unlike prayer where God is present to us regardless of our attentiveness to God, how we listen to other people affects both what we hear and retain and what the other person says.
In our society it is rare for persons to listen intently enough to really understand what another is saying. As a consequence of this, it is rare for persons to share what really matters.
This should not come as a great surprise to us, however. Most of us have been trained to be poor listeners. Many parents and teachers model inattentiveness. When we were children most of us were interrupted often. At other times when we wanted to be listened to, we were given advice, judged or analyzed. It is rare for most of us to have the experience of being in the presence of someone who is really present to us, someone who gives us their full attention in a way that models how we attempt to be present to God in prayer. Given this cultural training in antilistening skills, it is no wonder that many messages "go in one ear and out the other."

B. Listening to Resolve Conflict: Positions and Interests

The kind of listening needed to resolve conflicts goes beyond hearing the other person's words. In conflicts we need to hear both "what the other says, and what is left unsaid." When we become aware of our tendency to shut down and stop listening, we need to learn to open up and listen with our whole being.
Conflicts occur when people feel that something important to them is being threatened. In resolving conflicts those important concerns are called "interests." Interests are what matters the most to people in conflict. They are what's at the heart of the conflict for them. In order to learn how to resolve conflicts better it is important that we listen to what matters the most to people. Only if we do this will we know what is actually going on and have the opportunity to resolve it.
Listening for people's interests in a conflict is not a simple task. While one would think that conflicting parties would communicate their interests to each other at the start of a conflict, this seldom happens. What happens is that people enter into conflict communicating their solution to the problem. These "positions" that people enter a conflict with is what they have decided should happen. "Taking a position leapfrogs from problem to solution" without taking the time to clarify why the problem is a problem.
Despite our discovery earlier that what makes conflict okay for us is not the solution, but rather how we engage, most of us go right for the solution and ignore the process. It is rare for conflicting parties to slow down enough to listen to each other's deep needs, define the problem clearly, and to communicate what is most important to them. Perhaps a few examples will illustrate this point.
Neighbors might engage in a conflict about a barking dog. One might take the position that the dog should go to the pound or be put down. The pet owner might argue that the dog has every right to stay and that if the neighbor did not like it he should leave. Underneath this dispute the first neighbor might really want a good night's sleep more than he wants the dog to go.
A parent and youth might argue for weeks about what time the youth needs to be in at night. What may be at the heart of the matter for the parent, however, is to know that their child is safe. In these interests lie the key to deeper understanding. Identifying them also broadens the possibilities for potential solutions
In the classic book Getting to Yes, Roger Fischer and William Ury describe the usefulness of going beyond positions to interests in international conflicts.

The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty blocked out at Camp David in 1978 demonstrates the usefulness of looking behind positions. Israel had occupied the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula since the Six Day War of 1967. When Egypt and Israel sat down together in 1978 to negotiate a peace, their positions were incompatible. Israel insisted on keeping some of the Sinai. Egypt, on the other hand, insisted that every inch of the Sinai be returned to Egyptian sovereignty. Time and again, people drew maps showing possible boundary lines that would divide the Sinai between Egypt and Israel. Compromising in this way was wholly unacceptable to Egypt. To go back to the situation as it was in 1967 was equally unacceptable to Israel.
Looking to their interests instead of their positions made it possible to develop a solution. Israel's interest lay in security; they did not want Egyptian tanks poised on their border ready to roll across at any time. Egypt's interest lay in sovereignty; the Sinai had been part of Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs. After centuries of domination by Greeks, Romans, Turks, French, and British, Egypt had only recently regained full sovereignty and was not about to cede territory to another foreign conqueror.
At Camp David, President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel agreed to a plan that would return the Sinai to complete Egyptian sovereignty and, by demilitarizing large areas, would still assure Israeli security. The Egyptian flag would fly everywhere, but Egyptian tanks would be nowhere near Israel.

If I have learned anything from my work as a professional mediator it is that the surest way to disarm someone is to listen to them carefully, understand their interests, and to let them know that you understand. Yet, as I have stressed, listening deeply in the midst of a conflict is hard. Our habitual reactions to conflict are either to lash back, give in, or walk away. Responding in these ways, however, ensures that we will not get what is most important to us.
If we can detach ourselves from the emotional context of the conflict and step back we can then begin to ask ourselves what is most important to us and to the other person. Do we know what is most important to them? What assumptions are we making about them? What is most important to us? Have we communicated this to them? Are we able to listen to them deeply in the present moment, or are past experiences getting in the way? What do we need in order to listen better? How can we find the opportunity in this conflict? How can we make it sacramental?
Once we have answered these questions for ourselves, we can decide how we want to approach the other party. Good peacemakers, like good contemplatives, listen much more than they speak.

V. Conflict Management in Community Settings: Beginning Anew, A model based on listening

A. Background

In Plum Village, the community in France where Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh lives, about 60 Vietnamese and Western monks and lay people live together. Many of the Vietnamese are refugees of the war; many of the Westerners arrive with high ideals about what a Buddhist practice center should be. Cross-cultural misunderstandings are common, as are the innumerable tensions that inevitably build up between people living and working together. The intensity of the meditation also, ironically, brings tension to the surface. Despite its "spiritual" nature, the need for an ongoing means of dealing with conflict is great.
Beginning Anew was designed especially for communities that have ongoing relationships. It is a ritual that is carried out weekly. It was introduced into the practice center in order to "disarm the many little bombs" that can build up among people trying to live or work together. While other models of conflict management are more tailored to one time interventions in a time of crisis, this model lends itself especially well to the ongoing maintenance of a group of people. While it can also be used in a crisis, it is really designed to create a safe constructive place to explore conflict as it arises. To a large extent it avoids crisis by dealing with conflicts on an ongoing basis. While there are numerous processes designed to help groups give each other feedback, I have found this one to be especially effective for faith-based communities.

B. An Outline of the Process

The Beginning Anew ceremony begins with the community sitting in a circle. People are encouraged to reflect on the community in the past week, and on their contribution to community life. The spirit is one of inner reflection. The hope of everyone is that all conflicts will be addressed because everybody knows that conflicts between just a few people inevitably leak out into the community, making it a less peaceful place for everybody.
A bell master facilitates the process. He or she gives a few introductory comments and reminds the community of the goals of the ceremony. If possible, all community members should be present. If there are new people, the bell master goes over the ground rules and invites the community to practice deep listening in order to gain new insights into themselves and the nature of any conflicts of which they may be a part.
When a community member is ready to speak they stand up and pick up a vase of flowers or something beautiful that is placed in the center of the circle. There are three topics which people can speak to: 1) The positive things that they have noticed in other community members this week (Watering flowers); 2) The things that they have done in the past week that could contribute to conflict within the community for which they wish to express regret (Composting your garbage); and 3) The things that other community members have done to them in the past week that have been hurtful (Expressing hurts). People can speak to one or all of these topics, although if they are going to express hurts, they are encouraged to also water flowers.

C. Guiding Objectives

The main objective of Beginning Anew is to deal with the ongoing conflicts of community life in a positive, constructive way. In order to do this, four minor objectives are important to bear in mind. They are: 1) to keep the process safe so that people are able to take risks, 2) to encourage listening rather than arguing as a path toward understanding and healing, 3) to diffuse the conflicts before they get too big, and 4) to help community members to learn about themselves, and the patterns or "habit energies" which normally dictate their behavior.

a. A Safe Process

For any conflict to be dealt with effectively, a safe environment must be created. People have to feel safe to be able to make themselves vulnerable and take risks. Taking risks is always difficult, and doing it with an adversary is particularly difficult. To foster this safe environment, Beginning Anew uses a number of ground rules.
One ground rule is that people do not respond to or interrupt each other. While one person holds the flowers, no one else has the right to speak. This allows community members to feel safe, knowing that whatever they choose to share, they will not be scrutinized, condemned, or blamed. People know that everyone will be listening to them with their full attention. No one will respond defensively, or tell them that they are wrong. The community members will ponder their words in their hearts. Also, people are allowed as much time as they need. Only the bell master, in certain situations can ever cut a speaker off.
Secondly, while it is expected that conflict will be dealt with, no one has to speak in the circle. No one is ever pressured into speaking. Choosing to listen is valued just as highly as choosing to speak. In fact, the listening is what alleviates at least a part of the pain.
Another ground rule is that, if at any time someone is speaking about a conflict with another person, the person not speaking has the right to stop the speaker by simply raising his or her hand. This is a signal to the facilitator that the conversation is either too painful, or that the speaker is speaking in a way that is fueling, rather than shedding light on, the conflict. While this rarely happens, knowing that it is possible adds an element of protection to the listeners.
The Beginning Anew process asks community members to do a careful evaluation of how they have acted in the past week. They are also asked to "try on" what others say to them. Even if they feel themselves reacting to another's words, they are asked to wait at least 24 hours to talk about it until they have calmed down. In this way, old patterns of defensive responses and arguing are broken. Moreover, safety is provided for people to speak because they won't have to defend their words immediately.
After a time in the community, this weekly ritual becomes quite familiar. With familiarity comes additional safety. Beginning Anew soon becomes a known, rather than an unknown process. Having experienced a safe environment, community members become more comfortable taking risks.
In addition to these ground rules used at Plum Village, additional safety could be added by doing some capacity building workshops to help insure that participants have the skills needed to communicate successfully. This can be especially helpful with groups that don't have a good track record of being able to successfully communicate about conflict without blaming or hurting each other.
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b. Understanding as an Alternative to Arguing

Conflicts in our society often lead to polarized debates. One party feels hurt and tells the other, who feels blamed and responds defensively. Effective communication is minimized when parties in conflict fall into old patterns that often do more to fuel the conflict than to alleviate the pain. Attempts to "dialogue" often erupt into arguments and people lose their ability to listen to each other.
One of the strengths of the Beginning Anew process is that it does not really attempt to "solve" problems through dialogue. In fact, there is no crosstalk, discussion, or dialogue whatsoever in the process. Rather, people are encouraged to practice deep listening while other community members speak. People are encouraged to listen in order to understand.
Of course, sometimes for conflicts to be effectively resolved, clarifying questions need to be asked, and dialogue needs to occur. Listening deeply may be a step toward demining the minefield, but additional work may be needed to deepen understanding. If a community member wants to clarify or respond to what another person says in the Beginning Anew, they are encouraged to do so after waiting at least 24 hours. In this way community members are "forced" to sit with their feelings for a while and not respond in pre programmed ways. This minimizes the quick defensive reactions that usually lack the self-reflection needed to truly look at a situation deeply.

c. Consistency: Diffusing the Conflict Before it Becomes a Crisis.

The Beginning Anew Ceremony takes place weekly in Plum Village. On alternate weeks, Vietnamese and Westerners meet separately, and on other weeks the whole community meets together. The consistency of this set up is extremely helpful to those who might be tempted to avoid conflict. Everyone expects that conflict will come up in the ceremony. The community is there to support its members in facing the conflict. All of this has the effect of normalizing conflicts and the pain that comes with them. The consistency encourages community members to put things on the table. With time this becomes easier for even the most timid members of the group.
Having the time scheduled also bypasses the need for an individual to initiate a meeting and the anxiety that often comes with those confrontations. The consistency of it often puts people more at ease with the conflict. It is not a "special meeting" to deal with problems. It is just a weekly ceremony to help establish honest, ongoing communication.
One community member wrote of this process, "At first I felt a little nervous, not knowing what would come up for me. I pondered how to speak out in the best way. It is amazing how frightening it can be to speak openly about regret or feeling hurt. The latter is quite difficult for me. But as the ceremony proceeded, I could feel the air clearing. To witness so many hearts opening like flowers, to see people being so sincere, authentic, loving, and honest, touched me deeply."
Thus, seeing others model good communication also helps teach conflict resolution skills.

d. Helping Each Other Learn About Ourselves

It could be said that the whole purpose of a Buddhist practice center is for people to learn about themselves. Given this backdrop, Beginning Anew creates a very good laboratory for such exploration. The emphasis is on learning. So even if participants are pointing out a difficult behavior in another person, it is done in the spirit of learning and helping, and not in the spirit of blaming.
Of course there are times when community members are not able to make this distinction, and we should not assume that those using this process in other settings will have the same openness to learning about themselves. Therefore the facilitator or bell master has an important role in clarifying the goals of the process. He or she can also help set the tone and create an environment of members working together rather than against each other. If it can be accomplished, a community that helps its members transform their garbage into rich compost offers a beautiful gift to everyone.

D. The Steps in Detail

a. Watering Flowers

Nhat Hanh writes, "During flower watering, each speaker acknowledges the wholesome, wonderful qualities of the others. It is not flattery; (members) always speak the truth. Everyone has some strong points that can be seen with awareness."
The flower watering encourages the peaceful elements of the community. It is essential to recognize the positive, while also dealing with the difficult. If we are able to see the positive aspects of others, and tell them so, they are much more likely to listen to us if we have something difficult to tell them. So the process starts with recognizing the positive aspects of the community. The community acknowledges what is not wrong before exposing what is.

b. Composting Our Own Garbage

"In the second part of the ceremony," according to Nhat Hanh, "we express our regrets for what we have done to hurt others. It does not take more than one thoughtless phrase to hurt someone. The Ceremony of Beginning Anew is an opportunity for us to recall some regret from earlier in the week and undo it."
It is usually much easier for someone to hear an apology than to have to ask for one. People taking the initiative in this part of the process helps to take pressure off of both those who have been affected by our errors and those who want to express regrets of their own. One participant wrote, "During one Beginning Anew Ceremony at Plum Village, a senior student spoke very openly and even lightly about things she had done or said in an unskillful way. Her acceptance of herself gave me a feeling of spaciousness. We all make mistakes. Speaking out about our mistakes strips them of their heaviness."

c. Expressing Ways in Which We Have Been Hurt

Nhat Hanh continues explaining the process by saying, "In the third part of the ceremony, we express ways in which others have hurt us. Loving speech is crucial. We want to heal the community, not harm it. We speak frankly, but we do not want to be destructive. Listening is an important part of the practice. When we sit among a circle of friends who are all practicing deep listening, our speech becomes more beautiful and more constructive. We never blame or argue."
Beginning Anew is designed to "disarm the little bombs" that are created in communities. This part of that disarming process requires that participants speak with all of the skill and mindfulness that they would use if they were demining a minefield. In our world today land is demined by people who stick large prods that look much like knitting needles, into the ground at 30-degree angles. If the angle is correct the mines that they find won't explode. Deminers know the cost of not using all of their skill and attention for this task. In much the same way people expressing hurts must do so with love, care, and mindfulness. Yet in doing so they cannot compromise their honesty.
In this part of the ceremony members can also, if they feel ready, invite others to let them know of their own shortcomings of which they have been unaware. They might say, "I know I have faults that I am not aware of. Please help me, brothers and sisters, by revealing them to me." Because community members are often worried about hurting other members' feelings, they may need to be invited to tell others of their shortcomings. Sometimes numerous invitations are necessary.

E. Closing

Beginning Anew is ended with a song, or by holding hands, or by in some way allowing the community to feel the closeness and healing that it has started. Resolving conflicts in communities is always an ongoing process. Groups that commit to such a process, however, usually experience the benefit of their work. One member of Plum Village wrote of the Beginning Anew, "Each Beginning Anew Session I have attended has ended with a room filled with love and warmth. . . . We rediscover how woven together we are. Beginning Anew is the backbone of the community, a living example of Nhat Hanh's teaching about how to transform our "garbage" into a flower."

Greg Hessel is a professional mediator, trainer, and group facilitator with international experience in conflict management. He has worked for service organizations in Bosnia, El Salvador and Nicaragua facilitating groups and accompanying those threatened by violence. In 1988 he was part of a team that successfully negotiated the release of a kidnapped Italian priest in Nicaragua.
Greg has worked as a trainer and facilitator with social service agencies, non-profits, and international human rights groups. He has over 700 hours of professional training specifically in facilitation, mediation and conflict management. Currently he coordinates the parent-youth and victim offender mediation programs for Cheshire Mediation in Keene, NH. He also works extensively providing non-violence and conflict resolution training for service organizations. He can be reached at: (603) 357-6873, or ghessel@mfs.org.

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