Peace

Normally I use this blog for humor, but in honor of the holiday season...I'd like to pass this on.  I received an email from my mother-in-law who received this message from a friend so it is not the typical forward.  It is beautiful, truthful and for many a good reminder we are all human and live in this world together.  Happy Holiays. 

"I think Albert Einstein was right - "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved through understanding." My Buddhist friends would say that at its core, peace comes from the recognition that we don't exist as separate selves; from the willingness to see others as not so different, but made of the same substance, which is humanity. Mother Teresa said, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." The same idea is there in the Hebrew word "shalom," which means not only peace, but wholeness, where no part is missing or damaged.

My friend Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, often says that the first act of peace is for each side to recognize that the other side also suffers - possibly as a result of our own actions, or by our inaction, or as a result of misperceptions or lack of understanding - and out of that compassion, for each to have the desire for the other side to suffer less. To do that, it helps for us first to be in touch with all of the things in our own lives that we have a reason to be grateful for. As Thay says, "If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work."

Peace to you.....