Bringers of Peace
Peace in my heart brought peace to my family.
Peace in my family brought peace to my community.
Peace in my community brought peace to the world.
There is peace on Earth, and it began with me.
We are called to tame our savageness, enhance our kindness, and restore sanity in our world. This transformation begins with each one of us. Mindfulness and other similar practices that include silence, slowness, stillness, solitude, and simplicity, develop our inner peace, our understanding that we are all together in this world, our compassion, our generosity, and our reaching out to those who are lonely and hurting. We become healers. We become bringers of peace.
The world needs peaceful people, and we can be the people the world needs. Let us cultivate peace, and do what needs to be done to protect this calm energy. Let us avoid all that disturbs it, and be vigilant in order not to be another one of those who bring more agitation, anger, violence, and hatred to the world. Let us expand all noble qualities, such as understanding, compassion, and love, because this is the most effective way of reducing the ignorance and the injustices in our world. As we know, hatred is not overcome by hatred; through love alone is hatred overcome. We must live lives that uphold the well-being of others, and see ourselves as bringers of sanity and peace, the ones whose mere peaceful presences bring energies of concord to places of discord. Let us be kind to one another, and be, as Gandhi recommended, the peace we want to see in the world.
There’s a lot we can do to make this world of ours a better place for all. So, let us go ahead and ask ourselves,
What can I do to help create the just world of my dreams, the world I want to live in?
What, given my attributes and my personality, can I do to make this world a better place?
What do I have to offer?
What changes, given my talents and skills, do I have better chances of bringing about?
And what, among the many things that must be done, do I feel called to do?
The answers will vary because each one of us is endowed with different qualities, but certainly one of the best things we all can do, if not the best, is to take care of preserving and growing our own inner-peace while guiding and supporting others to do the same, without ever forgetting that being generous and serving others is fundamental for our transcendence.
We, those of us who are aware and concerned with the impending ecological catastrophe that is looming over us, need to get together in groups and seek answers to the same questions:
What can we do to help create the world of our dreams, the world we want to live in?
What, given the strengths of our group, can we do to make this world a better place?
What do we have to offer?
What changes, given our strengths, do we have better chances of bringing about?
And what, among the many things that must be done, do we feel called to do?”
Many of us, given the immense magnitude of the challenges humanity is facing, feel that we don’t have the capacity to affect any change. Many of us do not want to leave the comfortable refuges that we have created for ourselves. We are fearful of exposing ourselves and face the powerful to demand changes more forcefully. Well, we have to keep in mind the admonition, “This is your life. This is it. This is not a dress rehearsal,” and do what needs to be done. Our job is to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,” and in order to do this we have to face our fears and go beyond our protected and comfortable zones. If we are not feeling somewhat uncomfortable, almost certainly we are not doing enough.
In this endeavor, we have to set goals and do our best to achieve them while also letting go of the desired outcomes. We have to do what we can do, while knowing that no matter what we do, it will never be enough. We have to do what we can, without knowing for sure if what we are doing will bring about the changes we want.
We need to become the living expressions of good.
In Buddhism, “The Three Poisons” are greed, ill will, and ignorance. They are considered the roots of all evil. And the antidotes to these poisons are generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom. We are called to take the cultivation of these good qualities seriously. It may be difficult to do so, but we must be magnanimously generous. We must be loving, kind, friendly, and affectionate. We must do the work necessary to overcome ignorance, by applying ourselves to look deeply in order to see clearly, consciously unlearn the falsehoods we have unconsciously learned, and develop wisdom.
So, considering the roots of evil, we will be doing a service to the world by becoming living expressions of generosity, love, kindness, friendliness, affection, and by practicing the inquisitiveness necessary to attain clarity.
Pondering about the good qualities that we should cultivate, the Buddha and Jon Kabat-Zinn have additional recommendations. The Buddha encouraged us to dwell in The Four Divine Abodes: Loving-kindness, Compassion for the suffering of others, Joy with the happiness of others, and levelheaded Equanimity. Jon Kabat-Zinn exhorted us to consciously cultivate the following nine attitudes: Beginner’s Mind, Non-Judging, Acceptance, Patience, Trust, Non-Striving, Letting Go, Gratitude, and Generosity.
So here’s our assignment: to set the intention to develop these qualities; to commit with all seriousness to the work of developing them; and to exercise the necessary self-discipline to stay the course.
Our mission is to become living expressions of:
Contentment
Gratitude
Compassion
Care
Generosity
Love
Kindness
Gentleness
Friendliness
Affection
Sympathetic Joy
Beginner’s Mind
Curiosity
Wisdom
Equanimity
Non-Judging
Acceptance
Patience
Trust
Non-Striving
Letting Go
Let’s do it!
Our goal is to move from selfishness to selflessness; from self-centeredness to other-centeredness; and to be of service to others. I like to say that “Contentment, Gratitude, and Generosity are the keys that unlock the gates to the Queendom of Happiness.” Without feeling satisfied and grateful, and without being of service to others, we cannot be happy.
Let’s do it!
Piero Falci teaches Mindfulness Meditation and Mindful Living, leads Insight Meditation Silent Retreats, and organizes Silent Peace Walks. Piero is an educator who believes that the inner work that leads to personal awakening and transformation is indispensable to create a better world. He aspires to live a life that matters and hopes to inspire others to do the same. He is devoted to helping individuals have insights that may expand selflessness and compassion and lead to the growth of kindness and care for all sentient beings and the natural environment. He is a promoter of peace who believes in advancing the idea that Heaven is here if we want it to be. This essay is from his latest 3-book series Mindfulness for a Better Mind, Life, and World. For more information, visit www.PieroFalci.com