I’m halfway through This Week in [Peace] History and, to be honest, I’m shocked, genuinely shocked, at how little this valuable resource is about peace and how much it is about violence. I’m no stranger to violence. In fact, it was in the midst of a horribly violent domestic abuse situation that I learned that my mission was peace!

At a particularly drastic and dangerous moment, a soft whisper filtered through my mind, “You can have peace in the face of this.” I was struck dumb at the realization. One of the things that I allowed to create great suffering in me during this experience of violence was the silence I kept about it. I thought of it as our dirty little secret.   Read more...

One aspect of everyday Japanese culture that has always fascinated me is how the folks here seem to have a built in sense of trust that life will take care of them. I first noticed this by observing how people cross the street. When the green walk sign lights up, without even looking to either side, people step off the curb and head confidently into the road. Pedestrians know that drivers have a responsibility to keep them safe, so they proceed without a care in the world.

When I think of the many experiences I have had in other parts of the world, where cars fly around corners at top speed, the drivers only concerned with getting to their destinations and having no concern whatsoever for anyone else, I am doubly amazed by the utter trust of pedestrians here and by the caution and courtesy of Japanese drivers.   Read more...

The popular saying, “Sleep over your problems” is not a cliché. Latest research shows that sleeping over a problem is the best thing to do when you are ridden with doubts. This theory has a sound scientific basis. When you are faced with hard choices and the problem is so overwhelming that it defies every logic or calculations, just go to bed and let your gut instinct become active. A modicum of research evidence suggests that unguarded cerebral activity may do a better job than the conscious raking of brain, to find a solution for your problem.

There are basically two modes of thought: Conscious and Unconscious. In conscious thoughts we contemplate a particular issue or question, mentally list all the relevant information, weigh up all the pros and cons, and then come to a rational decision.   Read more...

Todai is anothr day in our "fast moeving" world. Todai most pieple woked up and desided to do a lot and to therepie realize themselvez.

Why?   Read more...

It's always very interesting to read and hear all the pieces written and spoken about 'peace'. The vast majority seem to speak either of peace in opposition to war or violence (and therefore still caught in the dualistic way of thought), or as having to be 'imposed' by whatever means possible on violence (which is an act of violence itself!).

Is peace perhaps beyond all of this, beyond opposites, beyond imposition, indeed beyond any word or description? Might it be the ground, or source, in which everything is allowed to be, just as it is, without any thinking required? Reality always seems 'peaceful' enough in itself, but then becomes violent when our thinking about it starts to run riot and separates us from reality. Belief in our thoughts as reality, rather than recognizing them as a tiny part of it, remains unexamined, like a crime which nobody has approached to solve. With deep investigation of these beliefs, entrenched in humanity for millennia, the truth is revealed and reality is allowed to be, and Life flows without interruption, in peace! Then there is no imposition of any sort: things (including people) are allowed to be, yet action flows clearly from this peace, when there is recognition of the wholeness of Life, without division, without the separation of 'what is' and 'what should be'. Without the wish/need to impose anything on anybody/anything, where is the need for violence? Violence may still happen, but action can take place fearlessly and effortlessly to bring it to a peaceful end. How can peace be brought about by the violence of imposition, which is as much dictatorship as any we have previously chosen to call by that name? When Life is allowed to live itself totally and unconditionally, then there may be the arising of and living in a peace beyond all concepts, beyond all thoughts.   Read more...

All We Need Is… Peace
Posted on July 14, 2008 by Marcus
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.   Read more...

‘A sense of wonder, so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years - is the best gift one could bestow on oneself.’ ~ Rachel Carson

What snuffs out our sense of wonder? What kills that inner child in us?

A night at seaside revealed to me, splendors of ‘the ordinary joys’.   Read more...

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the headline caught my eye at once: Give Peace a Prance. Don’t you just love those clever wordplays? I do.

But then I thought about what it would mean to walk in peace, walk as peace, walk for peace, walk by peace, walk over peace, under peace, through peace. Pick your preposition. Any one will do.   Read more...

Poverty, scarcity, minority, lack of... there are all kinds of ways to emphasize the not being enough of something. And most of the times, that is considered as a problem; There shouldn’t be poverty of this something. And this something has even more variations. If we look at world issues you can see poverty of food, money, fresh water, resources, love, understanding. All of them are big issues and millions of smart and not so smart people have been thinking about solutions to get rid of this poverty of whatsoever.

Problem is, most of the people who are thinking about solutions do not experience the poverty themselves. They are not the victim, and even worse, they consider the person is impoverished as the victim. I could and would like to say a million things about that, but at least, they are talking about it, while there are even more people who are not thinking about that at all. They have given up, are cynical, resigned and bored to death because "it will never work, go away, make a difference or solve anything."   Read more...

During my two years in South Africa I lived with a host family in a rural village. My host family was the best part of my Peace Corps experience. Despite our disparate backgrounds, we connected on a soul level, on that human level that exists beyond the innocent interference of culture or even language. This intimacy revealed itself at any variety of moments, but a shared look of amusement or perplexity or grief is all it took. Connecting in this way was incredibly exhilarating; it proved the existence of a realm where our usual tools to describe reality no longer have relevance. All those adjectives that could distinguish my host family and me became utterly meaningless: black, white, South African, American, poor, rich...and simply fell away in place of a more accurate adjective: human.

In South Africa I learned how to speak frankly about race and racial tension. I learned how to provide practical insights on American culture to counter the glamour and violence of popular American TV shows, movies, and music. But poverty was tricky. I never considered my host family to be living in poverty, but I know that some of my possessions and actions probably labeled me as “rich”. I had a digital camera and I traveled to Cape Town on vacation. An animal lover, I spent money on cat food not only for my pet but also for the other stray felines who had found their way to me.   Read more...