Tag Archives: peace

You Can Take a Staycation with only 5 Minutes…and its Free!

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“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility.”–Marcus Aurelius

People spend a lot of money and time so they can get away on splendid vacations.  They dream of places like Hawaii, Bermuda, St. Thomas, or maybe a get-away to Europe or Disney World!  Why do they do this?  I think everybody needs a little time to recharge the batteries, to gain a little clarity or put it all into perspective.  Also, I think that the stories we collect from our “get-aways” can last us a lifetime.

For the most part, though, all of the benefit of a vacation is available to you right now.  All you have to do is accept that it is all a game.  It is all impermanent.  Why are you chasing what you are chasing?  To have luxury? So your kids will have riches or security?  Will it help them?  You might be unemployed, so you are stressed about that.  You might have absolutely nothing.  Most of you reading this have at least some level of subsistence, though.  If you are reading this, at least you are alive, which is something for sure.  Even those with some major struggles, have a little time for a vacation, even one for 5 minutes.

You can get away right now.  Retire in your mind, and be grateful for all you have…for your life, your surviving family, the meal you will eat today.  Take a nap, watch a show, read a book, watch a TV movie with the family.  If only for a few minutes you can get away.  Maybe simply to reflect on what is virtuous, or on the impermanence of existence.

Is this guy on a Staycation? (photo by Kimberly Vohsen)

As for vacation stories, your everyday life is full of them.  Especially the small misfortune stories!  These are the blessings.  Like the time you backed into a pole, or your wife hit the side of the garage.  What about the morning you put your shirt on inside-out or backwards?  Yesterday, my daughter came down dressed in green-striped pants, with a pink and yellow checkered shirt.  Now that’s a story!  I collect vacations five minutes at a time.

I don’t think I could pull this look off.

In the end, you will be gone.  Don’t let this frighten you, just know that what you are after, what you are stressing over might not be that important.  Even if it is, you can take a break from it.

You can take your “Staycation.”

Lovingkindness: Gandhi, World Peace, and Family Happiness

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I woke up this morning ready for a fight.  I had some left over resentment from a disagreement I had with someone very close to me…my lovely wife to be perfectly honest.  All the while, I began to prepare for my next post about lovingkindness.  Oh the Irony!  To write about loving all sentient beings with unconditional love, yet holding back even a little to those close to you.   It doesn’t make much sense does it?   And yet, it happens all the time; while we are severe with those close to us, we put on the “happy” mask and interact with civility and agreement with complete strangers.

This got me to thinking (yes, here I go again).  Did Gandhi ever just wake up and decide to be a pain in the rear to those around him that day?  This question sent me on an internet journey to find out.  In retrospect, traveling down THAT rabbit hole consumed far too much of my time, but I finished the journey to my liking and learned a thing or two.  As it turns out, I found this internet entry where it explains that, “[Gandhi] was exceptionally demanding of himself, and demanding of those closest to him.  Whereas he displayed loving kindness to virtually everyone, with his family he could be quite severe.” I also found this Wikipedia entry about Kasturba Gandhi, his wife.  While the article was fair, I think you might come to the conclusion that Mr. Gandhi’s domestic life was far from serene.

After even further internet research, I discovered two very important concepts about Gandhi, the peace-warrior:

  1. Gandhi’s family life was very complicated, and it seems no different than many of our own internal family issues.  In fact, it may be that his extreme views and justice efforts made his family worse for the wear.
  2. Don’t go to the Internet for information if you want a straight answer.  There is a lot of unverified and conflicting stuff.

OK, the second one was not really about Gandhi, was it?  In any case, I think I have come to some closure on this Gandhi question.  If my current view of Gandhi is correct, that he spent far more energy on justice for his community than on tranquility in his home, then I do not want to emulate everything about him.  I think he missed a key portion of “how to live” if he did not convey lovingkindness to his wife and children, as he worked for peace in the macro sense.

In fact, there may be some validity in the idea that tranquility and lovingkindness begin at home.  I have often struggled with the concept of how difficult it would be to attain world peace, when I think about how difficult it is for those who are very close (like family) to come to be “at peace” with each other.  Marriage statistics alone tell part of the story.  In the U.S., around 45% of first marriages end in divorce (see http://www.divorcestatistics.org).  This does not even include those who never get married because they gave up, or those who stay married even if their relationship is violent, miserable, or fattening (I just put “fattening” in to see if you were paying attention).  Rhetorically I must ask, how many brothers and sisters don’t speak to each other?  How many father – son relationships are estranged?  Where is the love?

So what is the point, if I should have one?  I think the big take away is that “we” as humans have a long way to go to showing true lovingkindness.  I know “I” certainly do.  How can we show lovingkindness to all those around the world, when there is so much work to do with those we are closest to?  This REALLY seems like bad news!  Indeed, it is the bad news.

Now for the GOOD news!  Because there is such a gap between the kind of lovingkindness we strive to attain and what the reality of the situation is, creating more of it in your life is LOW HANGING FRUIT.  It should be very easy to send out even a little more to those close to us.

Well, as for my agitation with my wife, it’s gone; it was just silly.  In the end, it was more my faulty interpretation of things that really created the problem…I’m over it, except that I’m a little embarrassed about feeling that way.  As for the rest of my day, I am committing myself to conveying lovingkindness to those closest to me.  World peace will have to wait.

I am not worrying about “World Peace” today.

Will you join me?

Anchor #7: Lovingkindness

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Lovingkindness (Metta) is sometimes shortened (even by me) to love.  This is fine; it’s easier to remember, but I think to absorb the true meaning of lovingkindness you have to remember that it is so much more than “love.”

Not this Metta!

Lovingkindness is to wish good will and happiness to all sentient beings.  First and foremost of these are humans…not because they deserve it, but probably because they don’t.  Seriously, when is the last time a bison or a worm ticked you off?  In other words, people can be much harder to express lovingkindness to, precisely because they are so complex.  That darn neocortex (see triune brain)!

In any case, the lovingkindness I focus on is that for those in the human species.  Like compassion or sympathetic joy, you can express it for

  1. Yourself
  2. Those you already love
  3. Those you don’t know
  4. Those you can’t stand
  5. Those you absolutely hate (you know there are a few, yes?)

As soon as you master these five, then maybe you can expand towards all sentient beings.

Lovingkindness is not that Eros kind of love, where the passion is returned.  It is a selfless love extending out as brotherly (remember philia?) love, and then all-embracing unconditional love, possibly an agape (godly) love.

You can meditate and wish lovingkindness to your world, person by person, being by being.

It all starts with a quiet moment and contemplation…

(Feature “Hands” photo by Penny Mathews)

A Little Knowledge? (Moderation Part 7)

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Part 7 in the Moderation Series.  To See Part 1, click here.

It seems like the more we know, the more we don’t know.  I have lived my life never tiring of learning more.  I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and I don’t think I’ve ever lost it.

I think one of the greatest things my parents ever did for me was purchase a set of World Book Encyclopedias.  I would flip through those things devouring knowledge.  Facts, figures, history, I wanted to know more and more.  It was one of the ways I could explore my world around me.  Searching for knowledge is inherently human, I think.  However, I also think I may be obsessive about it.  I am addicted to the pursuit of knowledge.

My obsession with knowledge was fueled by these.

In comes the internet circa 1993ish.  What a treasure-trove of information, and it never ends!  Never, never, never, never ends.  Never!   Sometime, about 10 years ago, I realized that I had literally burned out, completely overdosed on all the information the internet had to offer.  I spent life saying “Let’s find out,” to unknown answers.  With the internet, I had Yahoo, Lycos, and Google to answer all my questions.   It overwhelmed me.  At some point, I realized I had to slow down.  I couldn’t possibly know everything.

My Desk: Sometimes I wonder if I still have “too much” information.

So is there such thing as too much knowledge?  Well, I think the answer lies in comparing knowledge with wisdom.  By definition, knowledge is the state of knowing something, particularly a fact.  Wisdom, on the other hand, is the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting.  So, there is a lot of information out there, and it is my job to have the wisdom to tell what parts of that knowledge are useful, true, or correct.

In essence, I have to filter the knowledge I receive to gain wisdom.  Wisdom, then, is the moderation of knowledge.  You might argue, aha, then you don’t need to moderate your wisdom!  I would tend to agree.  Wisdom, in and of itself, is a moderating word.  To say we only need wisdom in moderation, is like saying we only need moderation in moderation.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

“…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference…”  from the Serenity Prayer attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr

An End to War…World Peace is Possible!

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I want to fix the world, it’s really messed up.  Sometimes I think I can.  A lot of people do.  A special class of people who think they can fix everybody’s problems pretty much all the time, are the politicians.  They think that they can make the world a better place by compelling others to fit their view of the perfect world.  I suppose there will always be those who think that not only do they know better, but they can force people to accept their view.  These people are annoying when I meet them, but they are dangerous when they have power (like those in the government).

You will agree with me, I will make you!

But that’s not me.  I DO know better (just ask me), but I reject the notion that I can force any individual to think the way I think.  In fact, this is a fundamental belief that I have:  that I have no right to compel any person to think, do, or not do anything, as long as they are not interfering with another person’s life, liberty, or property.

A few days ago, I posted a short quote from a Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, about how the roots of war are within us each individually.  You can read it here.  I’ll admit, I purposely posted it to foreshadow this post.  I already had a general idea of what I wanted to share about how the individual mind is where the “seeds” of peace are planted.  Just like Thich Nhat Hahn, I feel that peace is best won by changing the individual, not the masses.  Moreover, that change is a result of persuasion and then introspection, not coercion.  That’s the way I share here.  I throw some seeds out to you, and if you can see the logic, then the seeds germinate into an idea or some enlightenment.

So here’s the seed I’m throwing today.  If an individual can be at peace with herself, then she has peace in her own world.  You see, peace is in your own thought, in your view of life.  If more and more people find tranquility for themselves, less conflict will occur among groups of people.

World Peace…One Post at a Time (Get it?)

So, I guess that’s my goal; lead one person at a time to tranquility one post at a time, one page view at a time.  The Stoic hero accepts what is around him.  He has a tranquil mind because he recognizes that nothing is permanent, but still has a duty to himself to maintain his integrity.  The Stoic hero I envision also recognizes that each individual has a right to choose their path, even if it means misfortune for that person.  As I try to be like this hero, I can try to help as much as I can, but in the end each individual is responsible for their own destiny.

I will never forget the power of individual liberty–this is from my personal creed.

World peace, one mind at a time.  Go internet!