Tag: peace

Tonight’s War Headlines Remind Us How Our Thinking Becomes Our World

There’s something very important we must all understand. They don’t teach it in schools, but great teachers have said it for thousands of years. Our thoughts create our world. It’s true individually and it’s most assuredly true collectively. When hundreds of millions of people believe something strongly enough and long enough, it’s going to show up in our world.

It’s true of a beautiful new civilization or dystopia. It’s true of war and peace. It’s true of a booming economy or recession. Our mechanistic paradigms have convinced most that what goes on in our minds does not affect what goes out there in the world.

They say when you don’t learn a lesson in life, the universe keeps presenting it over and again. As you look at the headlines tonight, be clear. All of this didn’t just happen. It didn’t just happen because of who is in office or who is not.

It’s happening because thoughts become things. Arrogant thoughts become an inability to listen to each other and solve our problems in ways that move us forward, painting us into a corner where we act from our lowest instincts.

The answer is counterintuitive to people who hold positions of power and authority in our world. They got where they are by listening to ego. They don’t understand the power of thought nor modalities of thinking and listening and solving that could flip the script on this planet in an instant.

So, what do we do now? The results of this thinking are already out in the world causing the problems they’re causing. We all – in every country involved in this unfolding conflict – must make it clear to leaders that this direction is unacceptable and we won’t stand for it.

Finally, we must lay the groundwork for a new, better tomorrow with our thinking today. As Einstein suggested, our thinking created these situations. Only different thinking can shift it and transform it.

Ray

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Peace Affirmation for Saturday January 22, 2022

Good Saturday, my friends. Peace. We all want a little more of it. The world definitely needs a lot more of it.

Peace doesn’t just happen. It takes work. All peace we hope to have in our lives or in the world begins inside us.

This affirmation, used regularly, infuses your mind with that concept and allows you to add peace to the grid.

You can become a purveyor of peace from the inside out.

Wherever you are on your journey today, remember you’re awesome!

Ray

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More Compassion and Empathy

Happy Sunday, my friends. Can I ask a favor of you? Can you really focus and entertain the importance of this topic.

We live in a social media world and a real world at the moment that is crippled by toxic anger and judgment.

Compassion and empathy are the baseline emotions of an advanced civilization. If humanity is to reach its destined potential, we must establish them as our baseline. The easy anger and ready judgment that marks our culture is a step backwards for the human race.

We will never become the enlightened, spacefaring civilization we can become, if we are forever tangled with each other in circular arguments and chronic conflict.

Consider this as a new course for you personally, because that’s where this shift must begin, and for our civilization as a whole.

As you do remember how special you are and how special is every single person you encounter today. Let’s treat each other as such.

Ray

Remembering Who We Truly Are is the Cure

People say our divides are too wide and our differences too much.

Sorry, but I have to call BS on that. If we focus the surface – the masks, roles, and containers – then those people are right.

When we go a layer deeper and remember these forms that seem to separate us are all made of star dust, we begin to see the commonality and unity.

When we go one more step – beyond the material – to the level of consciousness, we smack our foreheads and say, “What was I thinking? Now I remember.”

We remember that we are conscious beings all and call connected to the cosmic consciousness that is our true root system. We remember that we are here playing these games in time and space for the growth, the experience, and the fun.

But, some might counter, “That’s nice but how does it solve inequality, injustice, and suffering?”

To that I reply, no one who has truly understood the truth about who we all are – every one of us – will ever permit any of those ills to be visited upon themselves or anyone else.

Forgetting, separation and the fear they cause are the real problem. Remembering, unification and the love they evoke are the solution.

Ray

Simple Loving Kindness Meditation

Good morning, my friends. The esteemed Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. For the Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful work to bring an end to the Vietnam War.

He called his work “Engaged Buddhism.” While older monks sought to remain above the fray in the the country’s civil war, Thay, as he’s known to his students today, led a group of younger monks who worked actively to stop the war. 

For his trouble, the victorious North Vietnamese exiled him from the country. Their loss was the West’s gain. He established his Plum Village Monastery in France and began sharing his message of peace and compassion with western readers.

My favorite book of his is Peace Is Every Step. The book is filled with wisdom and insight into our struggles as human beings and ways to release ourselves from them.

In that book, Hanh shares a simplified version of a Metta (Loving-Kindness) meditation that I have used off and in for many years. It’s a fantastic mantra for meditation, but is also a fantastic aspirational affirmation.

May I be happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.

May all beings be happy.
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be free from suffering.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are awesome!

Ray