Masterpiece by Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969), the founder of Aikido...
One The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter
Two
One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Three All things, material and spiritual, originate from one source and are related as if they were one family. The past, present, and future are all contained in the life force. The universe emerged and developed from one source, and we evolved through the optimal process of unification and harmonization.
Four
The Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world. There is evil and disorder in the world because people have forgotten that all things emanate from one source. Return to that source and leave behind all self-centered thoughts, petty desires, and anger. Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.
:heart:
riv:::
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Posted February 13th, 2008 07:47 IPThis is something I read awhile back, that has also been very helpful to me, from a Course in Miracles...
"Peace is inevitable, to those who offer peace. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. When the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given in a form each mind can understand. 'I want the peace of God.' To say these words is nothing. To mean these words is everything. The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for this is how peace is obtained. The only way to have peace is to teach peace. Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it? For unless you do, you will not receive it."
In other words, peace is not something we can find, by searching. Rather it's something we must *give* to others, we must share it, just like love. That is the only way to experience it, by creating and sharing it. What does that mean? It really depends on each person's situation, but look around yourself and think about it. What could you do with this person, that person, that would help them to feel greater peace? What can you do for yourself? That's where the answers lie, where peace lies-- in our relationships and interactions with our own minds, and with others' hearts & minds, moment to moment, day to day.
That's how we become instruments for peace in this world.
:heart:
apostrophes
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Quote: The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow.
This is what I have been saying recently. First you have to accept your 'self' exists and then you can refine and train yourself and define a path to follow.
But I am really not sure peace is inevitable. The world is made up of a system of dynamics that push up against each other. Tension is created. Conflicts arise. I don't think it is always a result of a fault in us but a direct consequence of the processes at work, just as the interaction of yin and yang are a creative force.
We can do a lot to move along the path of peace but I think there is a limit. Beyond that Change is too rapid and what we can do is learn to manage it and be ready to cope well with conflict as it arises.
Richard
(Edited by apostrophes)
I dedicate this post to those words that were deleted in the making of it.
apostrophes
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Posted February 13th, 2008 10:00 IPHere is a very interesting article called Is God a Pacifist? from What is Enlightenment? magazine. It's very thought provoking.
Here are the opening few paragraphs:
“Once you start using violence, there is no way back,” the young peace protestor said to me, his eyes shining with conviction. “Bush is determined to drag us into war in Iraq, and we have to stop it.”
“I'm not anxious to go to war either,” I replied, but even as I said the words, I could hear the uncertainty in my voice. “I'm just not sure that peace is the answer.”
Maybe this was a mistake, I thought to myself. Driving through the Green Mountains of Vermont on a beautiful October day, I had come across this small antiwar demonstration in a local town square. Stopping for lunch, I had gotten embroiled in a discussion with the protestors on the hot political topic of the day: Iraq. It was thirteen months after 9/11, and with all indicators pointing to an imminent invasion, peace protests were popping up all over.
“Peace is the only answer,” the man responded, looking at me in slight disbelief. I had the feeling he could sense that I was genuinely uncertain about the issue, and perhaps he thought he could pull me back to the light. “If we use violence, how are we better than anyone else? Violence just feeds on itself. We have to find another way. Peace is the only answer,” he repeated.
I dedicate this post to those words that were deleted in the making of it.
riv:::
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Quote: The term “nonviolence” entered the English vocabulary in 1923 as a translation of ahimsa, a Sanskrit word adopted from Hindu scripture by Mohandas Gandhi. Ahimsa means “the force that comes into play when every vestige of the desire to harm is eliminated,” says Michael Nagler. And force is probably a good word to use because nonviolent resistance is hardly passive. Indeed, in the capable hands of the “half-naked Indian fakir,” as Churchill described Gandhi, the ideal of nonviolence began to define a revolutionary new way of interacting within the political sphere. A whole new method of applying force was born, a middle way that existed somewhere between outright violence and turning the other cheek. Gandhi brought together Jainism's teachings on nonviolence, Henry David Thoreau's idea of civil disobedience, and the Bhagavad Gita's call to “do your duty and fight for this just cause,” and the resulting fusion changed the face of the twentieth century.
This is similar to what Morihei Ueshiba's Aikido is all about, not just philosophically, but as a mode of nonviolent action. It's not about passivity, not the mode of Jesus, which just accepts blows without taking any action. There is a bit of the Jesus approach in what Gandhi taught, individually, but collectively its a method for absorbing blows in such a way that aggressive power structures are weakened, so that they expend their energy and are drawn into the light.
As for peace, I do think its "inevitable" for each sentient being (eventually) cause (in my opinion) its an aspect or characteristic of our true nature, of "te" as described by Lao Tsu, the soul as described in JudeoChristian traditions, or Buddha Nature as described by Buddha. It's like open space, like flowing water, a way of recognizing that one has returned to the source... aka God, Tao, Dharmakaya, Great Spirit...
Eight
The highest good is like water.
Water give life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In daily life, be competent.
In action, be aware of the time and the season.
No fight: No blame.
Sixteen
Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.
apostrophes
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Posted February 13th, 2008 15:45 IPIf peace is inevitable I think the human race is thousands of years from it. It's just a question of what to do about conflict until then.
Here is a long, but interesting, interview about what can be done. I basically agree with it but part of it makes me uncomfortable. Link
Having said that, the idea of evolving dynamics that drive our existence and are also drive by us is very much what is contained within the I Ching.
Richard
I dedicate this post to those words that were deleted in the making of it.
riv:::
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Posted February 13th, 2008 16:00 IPHi Richard. I read the opening, will try to check out the rest later. As for the human race, yeah, that's a big question mark. Thing is, most of the great masters have stressed that a more peaceful and enlightened state can be reached by anyone, individually. Its not something everyone neccessarily arrives at simultaneously. Don't know if you buy into that view, but it does seem to me that what Lao Tsu, Buddha and others taught points to that as a "truth." Returning to the source is stillness, the way of Nature, the final destination for all of us. Its waking up to the realization of who we really are, points of spiritual awareness in the great cosmic sea of change....
:namaste:
Mind
As the fletcher whittles
And makes straight his arrows,
So the master directs
His straying thoughts.
Like a fish out of water,
Stranded on the shore,
Thoughts thrash and quiver,
For how can they shake off desire?
They tremble, they are unsteady,
They wander at their own will.
It is good to control them,
And to master them brings happiness.
But how subtle they are,
How elusive!
The task is to quieten them,
And by ruling them to find happiness.
With single-mindedness
The master quells his thoughts.
He ends their wandering.
Seated in the cave of the heart,
He finds freedom.
How can a troubled mind
Understand the way?
Your worst enemy cannot harm you
As much as your own thoughts, unguarded.
But once mastered,
No one can help you as much,
Not even your father or your mother.
~Buddha,
The Dhammapada
:heart:
apostrophes
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Posted February 13th, 2008 16:28 IPI do buy into that idea. I possibly skewed the point of this thread by talking about the world rather than the individual. Yes, as an individual, I agree entirely.
Richard
I dedicate this post to those words that were deleted in the making of it.
Mr._Opporknockity
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Quote: apostrophes wrote:
“I'm not anxious to go to war either,” I replied, but even as I said the words, I could hear the uncertainty in my voice. “I'm just not sure that peace is the answer.”
Gandhi was so grieved by the violence that erupted between Muslims and Hindus after he led such a powerful and dynamic movement of non-violence, and the British finally ceased their rule of India. And he couldn't stop it.
With the formation of Pakistan, the two religious factions could not stop their hatred and suspicion of each other, and were really only united by a common enemy, the Brits. Peace is not political, its a matter of the heart and the human collective "heart" is just not going to be refined enough to have "Heaven on Earth" any time soon. :(
These aren't the Droids we're looking for. Go on about your business.
apostrophes
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Quote: apostrophes wrote:
Except in the arms of a beautiful woman . . .
Richard
:cheers:
Amen Brother!!! Whenever anyone asks me how I want to die I say "98 years old and shot on the rise by a jealous husband"!
These aren't the Droids we're looking for. Go on about your business.
apostrophes
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Posted February 13th, 2008 19:44 IPLet me die a young man's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns
burst in and give me a short back and insides
Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a young man's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death.
Roger McGough
I dedicate this post to those words that were deleted in the making of it.
riv:::
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In my time of dyin', want nobody to moan
All I want them to do is take my body home
*Well, well, well, so I can die easy
Well, well, well, so I can die easy
Jesus, got to make you, shiver
Jesus, gonna make you
Jesus, gonna make you my dyin' bed
Meet me, Jesus, meet me
Ooh, meet me in the middle of the air
If my wings should fail me. lord
Oh, please meet me with another pair
Jesus, gonna make you, somebody, somebody
Oh, Jesus, gonna make you
Jesus gonna make you my dyin' bed
Oh, Saint Peter, I can make amends
Won't you let me in
I never did no wrong, I never did no wrong
Oh, oh Gabriel, let me blow your horn
Let me blow your horn
I never did no wrong, did no wrong
I only can be young once
I never thought I'd do anybody no wrong
No not once
Oh, I did somebody so good
Somebody some good, yeah
Oh, did somebody some good, yeah
I must have did somebody some good, yeah
Oh, I believe I did, I seen the smilin' faces
I know I must have left some traces
And I seen them in the streets
And I seen them in the theater
And I even felt my feet
And I never tried to be real
Oh, lord, deliver me all the wrongs I've done
Oh, you can deliver me, lord
I only wanted to have some fun
:heart:
Persephone
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Posted February 14th, 2008 01:17 IPThere is an old spiritual song that says, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me."
A good example is the tallest kind of preaching.
African proverb
mystic light
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Posted February 14th, 2008 07:27 IPRiv; great video! I'm in the mood for Led Zeppelin lately.
Jan, even Michael Jackson had a great song about starting with the man in the mirror.
Do you guys still know this one?
:heart:
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
Prepare yourself you know it's a must
Gotta have a friend in Jesus
So you know that when you die
He's gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky
Gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky
That's where you're gonna go when you die
When you die and they lay you to rest
You're gonna go to the place that's the best
Never been a sinner I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
So you know that when I die
He's gonna set me up with
The spirit in the sky
Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best
Go to the place that's the best
(Edited by mystic light)
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/
Mr._Opporknockity
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Six Organs of Admittance Eight Cognition / All You've Left
mystic light
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Posted February 14th, 2008 14:09 IPHi guys, this is a fascinating thread. But we're off topic.And it's worthy of an own topic. So let's give it space to breath and unfold
