Jennifer Woodhull: Etymological Root of the Word "Violence"

Both at home and abroad, Americans are increasingly being obliged to confront the issue of violence. Conventional solutions have proven inadequate to the the scope and urgency of the problem. Similarly, appeals to religious values of compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and the like seem to have yielded sparse fruit. Violence of every kind, religious and otherwise, continues to vex the contemporary American situation. The 2016–17 Lenz Fellowship project is based on the proposition that, as in the observation popularly attributed to Albert Einstein, a problem cannot be solved by the same consciousness that gave rise to it. A more radical approach is required: literally radical, in the sense of addressing the roots of violent human conduct. The Lenz project will seek to uncover and amplify clues to such an approach through a hands-on engagement with the nondual worldview of Vajrayāna Buddhism. The Naropa community will be invited to help create a radio presentation that encourages listeners to identify and befriend the habitual violence in their own experience. The design of the project itself serves as a model for the inclusive perspective from which may be glimpsed a novel, and conceivably effective, approach to the problem of violence.