According to one school of thought, war, violence and aggression are an inevitable outcome of our evolutionary heritage. “Man is a predator,” Robert Ardrey wrote in the book African Genesis, “with an instinct to kill and a genetic cultural affinity for the weapon.”

Ardrey is joined by others in this point of view. There is evidence, behaviourist Konrad Lorenz said in his book On Aggression, that several of our early relatives, African Australopithecines and Peking Man, preyed on their own kind.

Conceptual thought and speech have proven to be both a blessing and a curse, Lorenz said. Lifting us above all other species, while at the same time creating conflict among ourselves, and giving rise to what he called ‘militant enthusiasm.’ As a species we still respond today with instincts buried deep in the primal past, joining the call to battle. Lorenz described the inevitable and ever recurring consequences.

“One soars elated above all the ties of everyday life, one is ready to abandon all for the call of what, in the moment of this specific emotion, seems to be a sacred duty. All obstacles in its path become unimportant; the instinctive inhibitions against hurting or killing one’s fellows lose, unfortunately, much of their power. Rational considerations, criticism, and all reasonable arguments against the behaviour dictated by militant enthusiasm are silenced by an amazing reversal of all values, making them appear not only untenable but base and dishonourable. Men may enjoy the feeling of absolute righteousness even while they commit atrocities. Conceptual thought and moral responsibility are at their lowest ebb.”

But there is another side to human nature.

“There is so much suffering, so much hatred, so much misery,” Mother Teresa said as she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. "I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive [the Nobel] in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

Mother Teresa began working in the Calcutta slums in 1946, without any financial support. By 1979, The Missionaries of Charity order she founded numbered one thousand workers in India, living with the ‘poorest of the poor’ – operating children's homes, homes for the dying, clinics and a leper colony. Tens of thousands of the poor and outcast were comforted by her unconditional compassion. The Missionaries of Charity order has grown significantly in numbers, expanding geographically to help others in need - in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the United States. “You can find Calcutta all over the world,” she once said, “if you have the eyes to see.”

When a TIME magazine reporter asked the Dalai Lama to explain the essence of his beliefs, the Tibetan monk just smiled and laughed. “My religion is very simple,” he said. “My religion is kindness.”

Forced into exile by the Chinese, witness to the devastation of his country, the Dalai Lama has chosen to shun violence and follow the path of compassion. “When we meet tragedy in life, we can either lose hope and fall into self-destructive habits, or use the challenge to find inner strength. Buddhist teachings helped me to take this second way.”

Compassion, he says, is the ultimate source of happiness. A sincere open heart allows communication with other beings. It builds inner strength, and dissolves the fear, insecurity and suspicion that separate us from each other. The opposite of compassion is hatred and negative feelings toward others which have a radiating effect: first they destroy our inner happiness; then the peace in our families, our communities, our nations; and ultimately the world. Anger alone will not harm our enemy, although it alone harms the self.

This is the tightrope that we humans walk.

Victorian philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote, “in the same individual we find infinite capacity for tenderness, sympathy, charity, love and infinite capacity for cruelty, callousness, destruction, hate.” We cannot avoid this issue. In the end, we must each take responsibility for what American Zen teacher John Daido Loori calls “the whole catastrophe.” We create the world through our own personal choices.