News & Updates
Excerpt from the current newsletter:
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PeaceWeaving - February 2010
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When we think of World Peace the first thought is a world void of war, and that is true. However true Global Peace is also a world where there is food and shelter and care for all! This has been the response to Haiti, that recently experienced the devastating earthquake. Help is coming in from people and nations all over the world. And yet again and again we are faced with resolving the impossible with earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and famine continuing on. With all of this turmoil no wonder so many people are convinced they must die first in order to go to heaven.
How can we live peacefully on a planet that has seen so much tragedy and violence? How can we find the ability to put down our weapons, help one another, and live in Harmony? In Zen Buddhism, one of the practices is working with something called Koans - unanswerable verses that are presented to be answered. There appears to be no logical answers to these questions. One initial Koan that you might have heard of is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Not only does the student need to understand the Koan, but is asked to demonstrate it before the teacher. Other Koans are “How do you get out of a 100 foot hole?” or “How do you get down from a 100″ pole?” To resolve these impossible questions the student is asked to drop habit mind. In dropping habit mind, we drop the delusions of fear, separation, greed and ignorance. When the delusions fall away, there then remains clear understanding that allows clear demonstration of our True Divine Nature.
Regarding awakening to Peace we face many Koans - How do we end war? How do we resolve poverty? How do we banish famines? It appears to be an impossible, unending series of unanswerable questions and it is too easy to give up, especially when feeling pain and suffering! And yet we do not live on this Heavenly Body Mother Earth to be punished and then die. We are not birthed into this human realm as a prison to serve out our sentence and then pass away. We are here to Awaken beyond the delusions of pain, suffering and separateness, then we can live in Peace.
To resolve these age old practices of war and violence, we must first admit that we let ourselves be controlled and enslaved by them. Next we must convince ourselves that we do not have to submissively give our power away to habitual fears and reactions. Then we must choose to no longer participate in any actions that do harm to anyone or anything. Our choice is our Awakening.
We are here to Awaken beyond the delusions of separateness, pain, and suffering. When we choose to drop our fearful “habit mind” then we awaken to our Divine Nature, and then we can demonstrate our Noble Spirits. Together with this divine understanding and our noble actions we can rise up like the Lotus Flower and express the beauty of Kindness and Compassion for all Life.
So let 2010 be the year that our collective choice breaks the chains of age old habits, and brings greater Peace and Healing for our global family.
If not in 2010, then when!
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