Theo Koffler and her organization Between Four Eyes uses Mindfulness as a tool to escape our circumstances and past and set out anew on a path towards peace.

Many of us, at one time or another, have contemplated how to go about effecting world peace. With time, most of us relegate wishing for world peace to beauty pageant contestants [1] and naive children. In the adult world, aside from the runway, peace is a knotty issue of ever shifting borders and embroiled conflicts far beyond our control. Theo Koffler has chosen to view the world at the human level and addresses human problem in the space between four eyes – the methods and expressions we use to interact with one another.

“Peace building” as Theo calls it can quickly become disheartening if we lose site of the trees for the forest. Theo emphasizes framing human problems in human terms: “meeting humanity with humanity.” Failing to do so, one can quickly feel the weight of the world bear down on our shoulders when we review the atlas of history: It is easy to become overly encumbered with a world divided by innumerable borders and a history of constant turmoil. Theo inverts the problem by focusing on the individual human level where the only critical borders to address are the false borders between of “us and them, me and you”. Theo, and her organization Between Four Eyes (http://www.btwn4eyes.org/) espouses the philosophy of “Mindful Awareness” or “Mindfulness” which is a collection of emotional and communicative tools which help individuals better deal with their circumstances and their peers.

Between Four Eyes is most active in Rwanda, Israel and Nigeria where they now have greater than 1000 educators versed in their curriculum. As part of the program “students meet and share matters of the heart in an open and non-judgmental environment”. The high school curriculum consists of 15 lessons devoted to developing core gratitude for and joy in living, inner peace, and open mindedness. One gathers that Theo’s emphasis on humanity and empathy is a targeted attack on violence by derailing the dehumanization process necessary for it to propagate.

While this approach may seem indirect to some, it only seems so. One needs to remember that there is no such thing as an army of soldiers, but instead, there is only a collection of humans who have been cultured to bear arms. Mindfulness offers a strong counterpoint to habitual thinking and unconsciously learned behaviours. Whereas issuing an order one army to attack another army is relatively straightforward, issuing the same order to a group of highly self aware and empathic emotional beings is exponentially harder.

Theo came to appreciate the tenets of mindfulness during her experience with Lupus (an autoimmune disorder). She abruptly went from being a dynamic and vivacious woman to one dealing with day to day shifts in health and abilities. Mindfulness challenges us to step outside ourselves and escape the circumstances that can unwittingly define us. Theo “refused to let Lupus be her identity.” By making a conscious distinction between herself and Lupus she “would only ever have Lupus, but [she] would never be a victim of it.” Having battled her Lupus into remission Theo came back swinging wielding her new found Mindfulness against the problems of the world.

We are all, to a large degree, defined by our circumstances and our experiences. The chains that bind us are constructed of the circular self sealing links of negative automatic thinking. Theo, and Between Four Eyes, invite us all to explore Mindfulness as a tool to break those bonds by scientific exploration and effective communication of our emotions and thought processes. In so doing, we are all afforded an opportunity to escape our violent past by refusing to let it define us, and moreover preventing us from falling victim to it again.

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[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25206087