Peace Education

Peace Education:
Unlearning Separateness
and Remembering Interbeing
Peace ed art by Stephanie Knox Steiner

Stephanie Knox Steiner shares her efforts to be a continuation of Thầy
through her livelihood and vocation as a professor at the
University for Peace.
Aware that much suffering is caused by war and conflict, we are determined to cultivate nonviolence, compassion, and the insight of interbeing in our daily lives and promote peace education,
mindful mediation, and reconciliation within families, communities, ethnic and religious groups,
nations, and in the world. We are committed not to kill and not to let others kill. We will not support
any act of killing in the world, in our thinking, or in our way of life. We will diligently practice deep
looking with our Sangha to discover better ways to protect life, prevent war, and build peace.
-The Twelfth of The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings

When I first heard the Twelfth Mindfulness
Training, I knew I was home. I had just graduated
with my master’s degree in peace education from
the University for Peace (UPEACE) and had moved
back to San Diego, California, US while working on
a teacher professional development program in
peace education for Teachers Without Borders. I
had been inspired on my path of peace education
by reading Thầy’s book Peace Is Every Step when I
was about twenty. This book set me on a path of
making my life a work of art for peace. Eventually,
this aspiration took me to UPEACE to study peace
education and then to San Diego and Deer Park
Monastery. There, in the Ocean of Peace Meditation
Hall, I first heard the Twelfth Mindfulness Training
during The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings recitation ceremony. The words peace education rang
through me like the great bell at the front of the
hall. Here was a spiritual path and community that
aligned with my vocational path and deepest aspirations; I knew I was at home. Fast forward fourteen years. I am now a resident faculty member at
UPEACE, teaching in the peace education master’s
program as my humble effort to be a continuation
of these teachings in my livelihood, vocation, and
life.
For me, the essence of peace education
is unlearning the illusion of separateness and
remembering or relearning our interbeing. One
hand of peace education is understanding the
root causes of violence. Each of The Mindfulness
Trainings begins with “aware of the suffering.”
To start, we have to be aware. So much violence
in our world is rooted in the illusion of separateness, which allows people to create hierarchies
enforced through domination and violence. The
illusion of separateness underlies colonialism,
white supremacy, and patriarchy—systems and
cultures of violence, domination, and separation.
These systems permeate our relations at personal
and global levels and have been operating for
centuries, causing harm internally and externally
for each of us, albeit in vastly different ways dependent on our identities and positions.
The words peace education rang
through me like the great bell at
the front of the hall.
The bamboo hut

Peace education means seeing clearly and
understanding this illusion, in a historic and contemporary context. It means understanding these
roots and how they have become systematized;
it means disrupting this illusion within ourselves
when we notice it; it means healing from the
violence, harm, trauma, and destruction of this
separation; it means imagining other ways of living
and remembering our interbeing with each other
and with life itself.
Remembering our interbeing is the path forward, the other hand of peace education. If we
remember our interbeing, we no longer want to
hurt each other. Instead, we want to find ways of
being and living well together—ways that allow
everyone to be free and to thrive, that allow us to
transform conflict nonviolently and creatively, that
allow us to relate to the Earth as our mother and
great ancestor rather than something to exploit.
A beautiful vision of peace that I love, which
comes from the Earth Charter, describes peace as
“the wholeness created by right relationships with
oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life,
Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.”1
This description aligns with the vision of interbeing at the heart of peace education. In the UPEACE
classroom, we practice this vision of peace in many
ways. We are very lucky: our physical classroom
space is a bamboo hut at the edge of a protected
forest in Costa Rica. We are immersed in beautiful natural surroundings; we do not need to try
for nature to be our teacher, we just need to be
aware. Our recent introductory peace education
class took place in the peak of the rainy season, and every day we had to trudge through mud,
trying to avoid slipping, to get to class. The breeze
through the leaves of the trees, the birdsong, and
the sweeping views of Costa Rica’s Valle Central all
permeated our learning experience, reminding us
that we, too, are nature.
We begin class with music to touch and water
our seeds of joy, calm, and happiness. Then, we
share a moment of mindfulness to allow us to arrive together and help us be aware. Our moment
We see ourselves as a learning community;
we are not doing this learning and
unlearning alone.
Learning altar for introductory peace ed class.

of mindfulness allows us to be in touch with our
bodies, minds, and feelings so that as we move
through our class time and perhaps touch upon
difficult topics, we can stay present to our inner
landscape. In fact, this awareness becomes a key
part of our learning process. Peace requires our
presence and attention, and it is hard to cultivate
peace if we are not present to ourselves and those
around us. We create a learning altar to honor our
roots and lineages, to honor the teachers we learn
from and with, and to remember each day that the
path of learning is sacred, not just a transaction.
We check in so we have a sense of how we are
doing as a collective, to understand what each of
us is bringing with us that day. We see ourselves
as a learning community; we are not doing this
learning and unlearning alone. This, for me, is
the heartbeat of peace education and the most
important, most beautiful, and sometimes most
challenging work we do together. This is interbeing in practice—to understand and practice that
we are not separate individuals learning alone; we
are a community, we inter-are. This extends well
beyond the classroom as we choose to be together
beyond the formal spaces of learning.
Modern formal schooling can be highly individualistic, which is part of how many of us learn the
illusion of separateness. Even though at UPEACE
we are in a formal academic system still very much
rooted in some of these philosophies, we disrupt
this illusion as much as we can, especially through
collaboration and co-creation. We write poetry
and articles together. Students create group projects and co-facilitate classes. We dance and sing
and howl and meditate together.
Modern formal schooling often overvalues
rational and intellectual thinking as the only way
of knowing. Part of our peace education practice is
remembering there are many paths to know, and
learning is not just lectures and readings. We can
learn from our bodies, our emotions, our relationships, and our experiences outside of the classroom.
We think about who our teachers are, knowing the
Earth is one of our greatest teachers. As the Second
of The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings reminds us,
truth is found in life; life is our greatest teacher. In
peace education, we try to remember this daily.
As I reflect on my own role as a teacher, I am
taken back to the Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall.
In 2011, I was on retreat with Thầy and the Sangha.
After reading Thầy’s words for many years, it was
the first time I had the opportunity to be in his
presence. More than anything he said during those
days, what I remember most are little things—how
he opened a door, how he erased the white board,
how his smallest actions embodied and radiated
peace. In the packed hall of one thousand people,
you could truly feel his peaceful presence and how
powerful his peace was. I can still feel it today.
This, for me, is the greatest peace teaching I have
ever received.
At a moment when we are witnessing and
experiencing so much violence at the collective
level, peace can feel very far away. Peace education is not a fast solution, but I believe it is part of
the long-term work needed to shift toward more
life-affirming and life-giving ways of being, knowing, and living. If we want to see a more peaceful
world, we need educational spaces that teach
toward it. Returning to Thầy’s words and living
example, which continue to reverberate long after
he has left his physical body, we can touch peace in
every step and every breath, and we can cultivate
peace right where we are, in ourselves and in our
relationships. In my office, I have a copy of Thầy’s
calligraphy: Peace in oneself, peace in the world.
1 Earth Charter Commission, 2000, “IV Democracy,
Nonviolence, and Peace,” Earth Charter. https://
earthcharter.org/read-the-earth-charter/democracynonviolence-and-peace/

Stephanie Knox Steiner, PhD, True Earth Dwelling
(pronouns she/her), is an assistant professor and peace
education program coordinator in the Department of
Peace and Conflict Studies at the University for Peace in
Costa Rica. She is an ordained member of the Order of
Interbeing and has been a member of the Earth Holder
Community Care-Taking Council and board since 2017.
She writes about interbeing, education, enchantment,
and magic on her Substack, Enchantable (enchantable.
stubstack.com).
Even when peace in the world might feel far away, through our
actions in this moment and through unlearning separation and
remembering our interbeing we can create peace together,
knowing we are not doing it alone.

Ocean Mindfulness According to Rachel Carson
illustration by Dr. Magda De La Paz Cabrero