By Travis Newbill   If we’d like to see a shift towards greater friendliness and empathy–in our personal lives or on a global scale–we may start by cultivating our willingness and ability to converse with one another. For most of us, this is no small feat. Dialog can be a tricky dance, even in familiar conditions. And, of course, the myriad difficulties of interpersonal communication are compounded tremendously in cases involving people from different cultures attempting to navigate intercultural ambiguity, diverse assumptions, and in some cases, deeply rooted animosity. In these scenarios, divisions can appear vast and the task of meeting in the middle daunting. What is needed is a bridge. Recently, Shambhala Mountain Center had the great honor of hosting the summer portion of Building Bridges’ 2013 MEUS (Middle East, U.S.) Program. This incredible, two week program–now in its twentieth year–provides brave, young women from Israel, Palestine, and the U.S. a safe space in which to explore their relationships to one another, to begin to work through obstacles hindering empathetic communication, and to develop …