by George A. Boyd ©1988
A Buddhist prayer says, "As I wish to be happy, may all beings everywhere
find happiness; as I wish to feel peace, may all beings everywhere know
peace."
In the remembrance of the year past, and meditation upon the year to
be, people's thoughts turn almost spontaneously to a wish for continued
world peace. They remember their loved ones and wish for a year of safety,
freedom from harm, and success and prosperity. At some very deep level
they also wish to be happy, and to know a peace of minda freedom
from stress, care and pain.
It is when you turn your thoughts to the collective sense of humanity
itself that you write these silent wishes grandly, nobly for all men.
It is a great dream, a wonderful dream. Though you see that in everyday
life there are continual wars, thoughtless violence, blind prejudice,
intractable poverty, lingering injustice, religious intolerance, and seemingly
unending suffering in this world. It is your choice to rise above your
own problems and to do something about the collective misery that gives
rise to the possibility of something better for us all. Thus there is
hope.
It is when you as an individual take responsibility for establishing
the groundwork for peace in your relationships, your mind, and your Soul
that the possibility of peace becomes real.
Social or Interpersonal Peace
At the foundation of your social behavior is the drive to fulfill your
desires. Your relationships in day to day life, be they casual or meaningful,
are an ongoing negotiation with others for fulfillment of your desires:
the things you want to have, to do, and to be. Your values demand, your
wants demand, your dreams demand, your truth demands, and you pressure
others silently, relentlessly, patiently or impatiently until you have
what you desire, or perish in the pursuit.
When you recognize the impact this ceaseless pressuring and demanding,
this ongoing manipulating and squeezing for what you want has on others,
you come to realize that what you do and say creates suffering and pain.
You also come to discover that you have a choice. You notice the results,
the behaviors you use to achieve your desires have on other's lives, and
you find new ways to achieve them. You come to discover the eternal values
of truthfulness, non-injury, compassion, understanding, tolerance, patience,
kindness and love as the bedrocks of your character and as the touchstones
of your life.
As each man lives and touches other lives, so spring our families, our
communities, our nations, and our world. It takes but a single person
to win another heart by patience, by kindness and love, to begin to create
a new relationship. Out of relationship, a new world is born.
When kindness, understanding and love come to govern the affairs of men,
you shall not have to fear nuclear wars, nor violence in your streets
or your homes any longer. It means that man must choose to live dharma:
ethically, righteously and consciously. Not out of fear, but by seeing
what is true and living it.
Ethical systems in the world's religions, the yama and niyama of the
yogin, were all put in place with the practical aim of avoiding the creation
of interpersonal friction and strife. For, how shall you turn to the inner
life, if your outer relations torment you, and your personal affairs are
in a shambles?
Personal Peace or Peace of Mind
You know personal peace by its effects on your subjective or inner life.
- Physically, peace is an absence of stress, where the rhythms of the
organism are governed by the parasympathetic nervous system; the brain
waves are generating serene alpha patterns.
- Vitally, the energy of the body is in a condition of homeostasis,
the organs in health, the chi (life force) balanced in the meridians.
- Emotionally, peace is experienced as the letting go of suffering and
desire, and the appreciation and acceptance of life as it isin
this perfect moment.
- Mentally, when tasks are done and reflection is complete, the waves
of the mind come to rest; reflected like a full moon in a still lake
is the Self Supreme.
- Volitionally, peace is when the goal has been reached, effort ceases,
and one can fully enjoy the moment; in enjoyment, the ray of will returns
to the innate bliss that is the self.
When you meditate to calm your body and breath, bring tasks to completion
or reach a goal, you experience the peace and joy that is your self. This
peace and joy is the whole basis of the internal reward system that makes
your life meaningful and worthwhile. When you are proud of yourself, satisfied
with your work or an accomplishment, or are complete with an action, you
taste this reward that is the self. At your personal core you are pure
pleasure. You are joy.
Nirvana, or Transpersonal Peace
When you transcend the personality altogether in deepest meditation,
you touch the Transpersonal sphere. Here, by sustained inner work you
will reach the completion of the Soul's evolutionary purpose, re-immerse
of the spirit in its origin, and develop the full range of abilities and
gifts in your Superconscious Mind. This leads you to that Highest Peace,
the Mystic Union or Nirvana. In this Timeless State, the microcosm of
man is united with the Macrocosm of Universal Life. You are One with Everything
that Is. You become a Master.
Creating World Peace
When you are at peace with the world around you, at peace within yourself,
unfolding the supernal peace that is your Soul, you are creating world
peace. When you return to the harmony of your Tao, your natural rhythm,
you cease to harm. You cease to crush through life like an icebreaker
in Arctic seas, leaving wreckage in your path, leaving blood on the ice.
You become a peacemaker, and heal the hearts of men and the nations of
the earth.
Peace is your heritage, may you begin to make it now.
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