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#1610 - Friday, November 7, 2003 - Editor: Gloria  

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To the heavens be peace, to the sky and the earth,
to the waters be peace, to plants and all trees,
to the Gods be peace, to Brahman be peace,
to all men be peace, again and again
--peace be also to me!

-Atharva Veda

From "Teachings of the Hindu Mystics," © 2001 by Andrew Harvey. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

*photo by Al Larus

We invite you to spend a few minutes experiencing our peace meditation, inspired by monk, author, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.      

  Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration  

From: 'Transformation and Healing'
Thich Nhat Hanh


Having one calm, joyful friend who is balanced and can
understand and support us in times of difficulty is a
great fortune. When we feel helpless, depressed, and
discouraged, we can go to that friend, and, sitting with
him or her, we can re-establish our equilibrium and once
again be able to contact the flower and the other wonderful,
refreshing things that exist within us and around us. If we
receive the benefits of the joy that our friend brings us, we
can refresh the seeds of healing in us which have become
weak because they have not been cared for or watered for
a long time.

The seeds of understanding, love, peace, joy, and liberation
need to be sown and watered constantly by living our daily
lives in mindfulness.      

  A Net of Jewels  

"The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Set your mind right
and all will be right. When you know that the world is one, that
humanity is one, you will act accordingly. But first of all you must
attend to the way you feel, think and live. Unless there is order in
yourself, there can be no order in the world."

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

        For the creation of a New Man in a man, the laws
        of another order higher than his own must begin to
        influence and affect a man, just as, for an acorn to
        undergo its latent possible transformation, it must
        begin to obey the laws of oak trees and gradually
        cease being an acorn at all.
        
                                         Paul Brunton

  O Great Spirit of our Ancestors, I raise my pipe to you. To your messengers the four winds, and to Mother Earth who provides for your children. Give us the wisdom to teach our children to love, to respect, and to be kind to each other so that they may grow with peace in mind. Let us learn to share all the good things that you provide for us on this Earth.

Source: The Peace Abbey  

  Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace. Luke 19:42  

  If you see good in people, you radiate a harmonious loving energy which uplifts those who are around you. If you can maintain this habit, this energy will turn into a steady flow of love.   Annamalai Swami

  That's all nonviolence is - organized love. The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.  Joan Baez  

When you're finally up on the moon, looking back at the earth, all these differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend and you're going to get a concept that maybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people?  Frank Borman

Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.  (Carl) Frederick Buechner

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.  Pablo Casals

If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed for.  Chinese Proverb

The idea of absolute freedom is fiction. It's based on the idea of an independent self. But, in fact, there's no such thing. There's no self without other people. There's no self without sunlight. There's no self without dew. And water. And bees to pollinate the food we eat....So the idea of behaving in a way that doesn't acknowledge those reciprocal relationships is not really freedom, it's indulgence.  Peter Coyote

The longer we listen to one another - with real attention - the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.  Barbara Deming

At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by human love. Always decide, "I will combat it with human love." If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it.  Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazo

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.  William James

If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now.  Sister Chän Khöng

Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them...he cried, "Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?"...God said, "I did do something. I made you."  Sufi Teaching

selections from 352 quotes at:  http://www.salsa.net/peace/quotes.html

Joe Riley ~ Panhala & Al Larus ~ photo

Psalm 121  

look deep into my heart,
to the core where wisdom arises.
Wisdom comes from the Unnamable
and unifies heaven and earth.
The Unnamable is always with you,
shining from the depths of your heart.
His peace will keep you untroubled
even in the greatest pain.
When you find him present within you,
you find truth at every moment.
He will guard you from all wrongdoing;
he will guide your feet on his path.
He will temper your youth with patience;
he will crown your old age with fulfillment.
And dying, you will leave your body
as effortlessly as a sigh.  

(Translation by Stephen Mitchell)

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