BETTER Better than a thousand
From the Dhammapada
Hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand
Hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.
Better than a hundred
Hollow lines
Is one line of the law, Bringing peace.
It is better to conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles;
Then the victory is yours.
Dance Life Dance! and you ARE Dance… Dance… Dance… Dance! May it take a moment
Sandie Hum
Sink your fingers into the earth
taste the delicacy of the herbs
Feel the suffering of the world
and send out love in return
Until the pulse of life…throbs within…
the creation and destruction of the universe
With each solider going into war
each refugee wondering where home is
Each child
dancing in the rain
or starving, no energy to move
Or playing, running with a pack of kids in a park
or falling and crying for Ma
or staring in wonder at a birthday cake aflame
with candles and presents beyond…
with the elder, sitting wisely in state
or the one sitting cold, hungry, lonely and in pain
With the businessman barking into his cell phone
as he strides forth with his briefcase
With the mother, wailing, holding the bullet-ridden body
of her son amidst the street’s rubble
with the lava, flowing in the dark
moving, congealing, spreading its fiery river
With each star spiraling out in expanding galaxies
and the drop of rain falling into the Pacific Ocean
With the rabbit, bounding across the plain,
suddenly snatched up and torn apart by the eagle’s talons
with the lovers, tangled, sweaty, heaving
lost in each other’s eyes, united with the universe
With the father, lovingly standing strong against his young son,
who he will see grows into a man
With the board member, feeling into each personality and figure
with her heart, mind and body even as she runs a meeting
With each texture, sound and taste of a moment
letting it engulf you, feel you, inspire you, breathe you
Dance Life, my love, dance
Or a lifetime
To truly feel the texture of a child’s hair against your cheek
to fully embrace the pain of your breaking heart until it cracks open
Until you laugh so hard your stomach is one big clench
and tears run free down your face
Dance
We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come. Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints." To me, this is the most essential practice of peace. From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax and be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we can walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on Earth.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
Paul Hoecker Art All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Once in the dream of a night I stood Shall hope prevail where clamorous hate is rife,
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore love for love's sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
Swami Vivekananda
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Excerpt from Song of a Dream
Sarojini Naidu
Shall sweet love prosper or high dreams have place
Amid the tumult of reverberant strife
'Twixt ancient creeds, 'twixt race and ancient race,
That mars the grave, glad purposes of life,
Leaving no refuge save thy succoring face?
Sarojini Naidu
A Brave and Startling Truth We, this people, on a small and lonely planet And when we come to it When we come to it When the rapacious storming of the churches When we come to it When we come to it Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe When we come to it We, this people, on this small and drifting planet When we come to it When we come to it
Maya Angelou
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace? If they have not, there is something wrong with them / so keep seeking! If what you do has brought you inner peace, stay with what you believe is right.
We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.
When we are capable of living in the moment free from
the tyranny of "shoulds," free from the nagging sensation
that this moment isn't right, we will have peaceful
hearts.
Joan Borysenko
