At Common Fire we believe there are some fundamental values and perspectives that are not being nurtured in broader society that offer tremendous promise in helping to create a more just and sustainable world. They are the values and perspectives we aim to nurture in our training programs and shared living spaces, and in how we operate as an organization and live our daily lives.

They do not describe a single way people should be in the world. They carve out the common ground that help people walking a diversity of paths in their pursuit of greater harmony in the world do so with unique intelligence, effectiveness and sustainability.

Nurturing Justice and Sustainability in the World

• UNNECESSARY SUFFERING AND DESTRUCTION
  There is a vast amount of suffering and destruction in the world that need not exist, that could be eliminated if people individually and collectively made more compassionate and informed decisions about what we do in the world, how we do it, and how resources are used.
• CAPACITY OF EVERYONE TO HELP AND GROW
  Everyone has a profound capacity to help bring greater peace and joy into the world. Many factors affect this capacity and how fully people live into it, but in most people it is hardly tapped and it is not fully tapped in anyone.
• CAPACITY IN EVERY MOMENT
  Every decision we make in every moment, from how we spend our time and money to how we interact with others, is ripe with possibility to help reduce suffering and destruction in the world -- or to feed into it or be complicit in its continuation by remaining neutral. These decisions have far-reaching consequences for beings everywhere, both those with whom we share the earth today and those for generations to come, and for the planet that sustains us.
• TAKING POSITIVE ACTION & REDUCING NEGATIVE ACTION
  There is an intimate relationship between people's efforts to minimize their negative impact in the world and their efforts to make positive contributions. Neither can succeed in bringing about meaningful and sustained transformations in the world without the other.
• ROOT CAUSES AND SYSTEMIC CHANGE
  We are all limited in the time and resources we can devote to helping reduce the suffering and destruction in the world. We must be strategic with them. Without directly linking our efforts to addressing root causes and creating systemic change we may not be using our resources most effectively and we may even be strengthening patterns and systems that are causing suffering and destruction in the world.

Creating the Context to Nurture Peace and Joy

• SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT
  People's perspectives on the world and the way they lead their lives are powerfully affected by the people and societies around them. To nurture compassionate, informed, engaged ways of living requires nurturing connections with people and places that support them.
• DIVERSITY
  Engaging with a diversity of people, places and creatures tends to increase one's concern for them and others. It also allows one to connect with a broader variety of perspectives and experiences, grounding one's own perspectives in a fuller understanding of the world and of ways to nurture positive change in the world and in oneself.
• INTENTIONAL EFFORT TO CONSIDER LESS POWERFUL
  Many factors at the personal and societal level tend to obscure our awareness of social and environmental problems and tend to diminish the voices of people and creatures less powerful and more removed from us. To nurture a greater awareness of these problems and to best honor all beings regardless of their power or place in the world requires a conscious effort to learn about them, to hear their voices, and to intentionally consider their hopes and needs as we move through our lives.
• TRANSCENDING LIMITED SELF-INTEREST
  The more a person benefits from the way things are in the world and is not personally threatened by them the easier it is to accept them and settle into a life of personal comfort and safety. The easier it also is to accept partial solutions to problems in the world when more complete solutions would more fundamentally challenge the way things are. And the easier it is to fall into pursuing one's limited self-interest even while intending to pursue the greater good. To best honor all beings and the planet demands constant reflection on the ways one's limited self-interest may bias one's perspectives and actions.

Nurturing Positive Change Within

• NURTURING SELF
  Nurturing others and nurturing oneself cannot be separated. Neither can be sustained for long without the other and both must be taken ever deeper for the other to continue to grow.
• NON-VIOLENCE / UPLIFTING OF ALL BEINGS
  In any particular situation with the potential for violence and destruction a broad range of responses may be appropriate. Yet sustained transformations require ways of living and approaching issues that are non-violent and do not alienate or demonize others but rather seek to uplift all beings. They require transformations at the individual level that allow people to root their perspectives and actions in a sense of peace, joy, and love.
• VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY
  Living simply is one of the most powerful paths open to us to find personal fulfillment as well as to create a more just and sustainable world. It reduces consumption and waste and it frees time and money to be dedicated to critical social and environmental work. It also gives people far greater freedom to respond to social and environmental needs by giving them exponentially greater ways to do so while still being meeting their simple personal needs and interests.