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The activities below are designed to help you (or those you work with or teach) reflect upon their actions and the ways in which they contribute to peace through their daily actions.

This page will soon be replaced with an interactive database of many more activities. Please contact us if you have activities you would like to share.

Peace within Yourself

1. Roots and Fruits
Provided by the Shinnyo-en Foundation

Take a minute to draw a tree that represents the outward actions of service you offer with fruits, buds and leaves and the values you have gotten from your family, ancestors, community and social institutions with roots. Use the example to the right if it is helpful.

In groups of 2 or 3, take 5 minutes each to answer the following questions. (You may only have time for one or two questions. Don’t shorten the time, pick the questions that seem most important.) Keep track of time and honor your partner by giving them your deepest attention:

  • Tell the story of a time when you felt that your actions and values were connected in a way that gave you a great amount of energy or joy.
  • Tell the story of a time when you felt that your actions and values were connected in a way that was draining or causing a negative effect.
  • How might this reflection impact your future actions?

 

2. Refuge: Reflecting on the Inner Self, Self- Assessment
 Provided by the Cal Corps Public Service Center, UC Berkeley

We can better serve others when we understand our inner selves. Take a few minutes to reflect on the emotions listed below. Fill in a circle on the continuum of emotions that reflect your feelings at this time:

Anxiety
0   0   0   0   0
Peace
Loneliness
0   0   0   0   0
Support
Despair
0   0   0   0   0
Hope
Guilt
0   0   0   0   0
Forgiveness
Anger/Hostility
0   0   0   0   0
Resolution
Grief
0   0   0   0   0
Consolation
Helplessness
0   0   0   0   0
Control
Misery
0   0   0   0   0
Joy

One or more marks on the left side of the scale could indicate that you may need some support right now. What can you do to take care of yourself? We can better serve others if we are also taking care of ourselves.

Here are other questions that may help you to better understand yourself, and to think about how you want to serve others:

  • How do you nurture yourself? What kinds of things/activities do you do which nurture your core?
  • How do you nurture others who are important to you?
  • What are your core values? How do you want to serve in ways that are grounded in those values?
  • What do you see as your purpose in this world?
  • Is it hard for you to enjoy yourself, have fun, relax and experience joy in your service? When you feel burned-out, how do you rejuvenate yourself? Reconnecting with fun and joy will inspire others to join you in your work as well as ensure that you have a more enjoyable life!
  • What helps you to feel hopeful? How can you sustain your hope even when you experience despair or suffering in the world?
  • When you think about change that you would like to see in the world, what do you envision? How can you remember your vision and work towards it even when it feels impossible? Do you share your visions and dreams for a just world with others?

 

3. Melting Away Your Busy Day
Provided by Destiny Arts Center

This is a meditation that should be started only after everyone in your group is quiet and sitting upright. Read slowly as people close their eyes and turn their awareness inward.

Sit very quietly for just a moment. PAUSE. Perhaps this is the first time in your day that you have been truly quiet. Take this time to be very still and silent. PAUSE. Let all of the stress or tension from your day melt away in each breath. Let all of the experiences that you had today, anything that is in your mind and distracting you from being totally present in this moment, melt away with each breath. PAUSE. All of the worries and excitements of your day are gone and you are right here…in this room…sitting quietly…with your focus completely on your own breath. PAUSE.

Now, take a deep breath all together and let it out.

When you are ready, gently open your eyes.

 

Peace between Yourself and Others

4. Four Steps to Greater Harmony
Provided by the Shinnyo-en Foundation

Below is a process that can help you maximize harmony with another person. When there is already a positive flow of energy between you and another person, this process can fuel energy and keep it going. When there is a negative dynamic, this process can help to free up blocks or re-establish positive energy. When little exchange is going on between two people, this can be a sign that little is being invested in the relationship. However, in some cultures, the belief is that little exchange means you are in sync with another person’s thoughts and feelings. Either way, this process can bring greater harmony. Pick three people in your life (friends, family, acquaintances) with whom you can walk through these steps in your mind.

Step One: Appreciate the other person.

Creating harmony and peace with another person takes effort and creativity. Neither of these will be present if you can’t remember that the person, the relationship or harmony matter to you. When you can bring appreciation to a tension-filled situation, your heart opens and there is more room for possibilities and the easing of tension. Try to connect to something you have in common: a value, a past experience, etc.

Step Two: Investigate your experience.

The more we get to know ourselves, the more awareness we can bring to a situation of tension. You may have had a bad experience with a teacher in the past and as a result put up your guard every time someone tries to teach you something. You may feel physically or emotionally injured by an event. You may be clear that there is something you need to say. Whatever the case, clarifying what is going on for you will assist the process in easing tensions with another person.

Step Three: Detach from your experience.

Once you have looked internally, detach from your experience and step away from it as much as you can. Invite the other person to tell their side of the situation. Try to open your heart and really let go of your view so that you can deeply hear the other person involved. Once your heart is open and you have listened fully to the other person, attempt to speak more authentically about the situation and articulate your thoughts, feelings and reasons behind your actions.

Step Four: Initiate a gesture of harmony

At this point in the process you may not agree with the other person or have anything resolved. From a global perspective, hopefully you have begun to understand a different view more fully, and you have created a greater possibility for the exchange of positive energy between you to flow. There are many ways to ease tensions in a relationship once you have deeply listened to another and shared your truth. It may be the gesture of an extended hand, a note, or a physical embrace that will open the door to greater understanding and harmony.

Reflect on any insights that may have resulted from this process. Consider taking one of these steps with someone in your life.

 

5. Legacies
Provided by the Oseh Shalom-Sanea al-Salam Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp

This activity is designed for people to share their history and relate to each other. In addition, the objective is for people to experience a new quality of listening as well as being heard.

Gather in pre-assigned groups of 6-8 participants. Facilitators should provide the following instructions to their small group:

  1. Listen deeply. No interruptions. Suspend your own story and mindset.
  2. Establish time limits for each person. (Consider 2 minutes.)

Then the facilitator should being by modeling how to tell their own story. Answering the questions:

  1. Who are you?
  2. Who were your grandparents?
  3. Talk about the generations in the family. Share your narrative. Tell about your life and what brought you here.

Then go around the circle and have each person tell their story. Close will a short rendition of beautiful music.

 

6. “I thought you would never ask”
 Provided by the United Religions Initiative

The activity was designed for the purpose of helping people to practice asking and answering honest and respectful questions about our religious and spiritual traditions and to help the group open doors of communication to people of different faiths.

Begin by inviting a brief discussion on the importance of speaking from our traditions, not for them as official representatives. Ask: How can people who are not religious scholars or leaders best speak for their traditions? How does it affect communication and group dynamics if people speak as if they are representing their traditions rather than speaking only for themselves? What can individuals and the group do to be resources for one another for increased understanding of different traditions?

Ask participants to introduce themselves by describing their religious tradition or spiritual path, as well as any connections they may have to other traditions. Make a list on a flip chart of all the religious/spiritual traditions and expressions mentioned. For each, ask if there is at least one person who feels comfortable answering questions about it.

Next, ask each person to think of two questions about the teachings and practices of one of the other groups on the list. The questions should be in the spirit of genuine inquiry, not commentary or criticism. Questions can be phrased in one of two ways:

Why don’t people in your tradition do….?

Or

Please tell me about why people in your tradition….?

Hand out two cards for each person to write one question on each card. Collect the cards.

Then begin reading questions, and if not directed specifically at a particular group, move around the room inviting people to speak from their experience.

In closing, invite the group to identify three themes they would like to know more about and several ways that they can try to learn more about them.

 

Peace Among Groups or Nations

7.Images of Peace
Provided by stone circles

Read the following story to your group and follow it with the reflection questions below:

The Boise Peace Quilt started in 1981 when three people decided to make a friendship quilt for people in what was then the Soviet Union. The idea was to extent a concrete statement of their hope for world peace and their desire for friendship with “ordinary Russian people.” The first quilt was presented at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and then found its way to its intended home in Alitus, Lithuania. Since then, the Boise Peace Quilt Project has continued to make peace quilts for people in other parts of the world and to give Peace Quilt awards for peacemakers who are “blazing new trails to survival for our global family.” Past quilt recipients include Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Mr. (Fred) Rogers, Julia Butterfly Hill, and Senator Frank Church. A documentary about the project, “A Stitch in Time,” was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988.

Questions to reflect upon:

  1. What are your greatest hopes for peace?
  2. What medium might you use to express your hopes?
  3. Who else would want to join in the creation?
  4. To what part of the world would you send these hopes?

 

8. Partner for Peace
Provided by Pathways to Peace

Take some time to check out the many other organizations that are working for peace around the world. Log on to pathwaystopeace.org or cultureofpeace.org and research two to three new organizations. Consider picking one to partner with for an event or program on the International Day of Peace.

 

9. Six Billion Paths to Peace World Café
Provided by the Shinnyo-en Foundation

With this activity, you are encouraged to gather people from a variety of groups or communities that are not likely to be in deep conversation with each other. The focus of the gathering is to strengthen relationships between the people present, inspire them to reflect upon the things they have in common and invite them to take steps to expand peace in their lives.

In small tables throughout the room have big pieces of paper with one question written on each table. In 15-minute segments, people rotate randomly to different tables (based upon their interest in the question at the table). One person should stay at the table and be the link between the different groups that rotate in and out of a given table.

In introducing the exercise:

  • Let people know this activity is part of a larger campaign designed to raise people’s awareness about how they are taking action in the world to bring about greater harmony by approaching the world from a perspective of service.
  • Invite them to open their hearts – to witness others deeply and share freely. Although they may be gathered with people who are different from them, we hope this is an environment that welcomes everyone and has room for diversity.
  • Remind people of how the process and timing work. They can choose any question/table and we spend about 15 minutes talking before the bell is rung and you rotate to a new table.

Questions are as follows:

  • Share a story in which someone did something for you or you did something for someone that related to birth.
  • … to illness.
  • …to loose or death.
  • …to aging.
  • …to a desire for happiness.

Once everyone has cycled to at least two tables. Invite people into a larger group conversation about the following two questions:

  • What connections do you see, if any, between these conversations and creating greater global harmony?
  • As we have talked about things that are common to all of us as humans, what rang true or resonated for you?
  • Were you surprised by anything you heard here today?

Then invite people to return to small groups and discuss the following two questions:

  • How can we build partnerships with people we are in conflict with?
  • What kind of partnership might you build or enhance that unites people from different walks of life, based upon serving each other?

To conclude, invite all participants to make a commitment to doing something to bring about greater harmony. (They can do so in their small groups, in written form, with a partner, or with the full group.)