Tuesday

inner peace

you hear all over that the way to peace is to start with inner peace. uh huh. it's no wonder that there are wars all over the place. i can see why the buddhists believe in reincarnation. there isn't any way to achieve inner peace and enlightenment in one lifetime. it's hard. in the interest of full disclosure, i am a newbie to the world of buddhist tenets- and i struggle daily. i seem to have the first noble truth down pat- 'life is suffering' but when it comes to the second- 'the origin of suffering is attachment'- well, i get bogged down there. it is tough to rethink one's behavior- and i admit to still flipping off stupid drivers underneath my dashboard- and to change one's behavior.

the biggest area of attachment is my family. i know that most likely within the next year to two years- i will lose both parents and my sister's 20 year old cat to death. and the suffering is pretty intense. i can only try to imagine the suffering that the iraqis and the kurds and the afghanis and the sudanese as a people are undergoing. their entire world has collapsed and they have lost their culture, country, families, friends, jobs, homes, etc., and it makes my spirit uneasy.

i don't have any easy answers to the elusive 'peace in our time'- hell, i don't even know how to soothe my own soul right now. but i think it's worth thinking about- is a reason why we choose to devalue other human beings a result of our own elusive inner peace? are we so willing to kill others as a way to run away from ourselves?

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