The Sun my Heart

[rebeka sultana]

I was reading this book 'The sun my heart' of Thich Nhat Hanh this morning while going to work. I was touched by the book as he wrote " ..peace and happiness are the guides for measuring the fruit of practice {meditation}. If we do not become calmer and happier, something is wrong with our practice" So in meditation there is self measurement of change as we do in AIDS competence. And I think we can measure peace as a practice of ACP. See what he wrote " our strength is in our peace, the peace within us. This peace makes us indestructible. we must have peace while taking care of those we love and those we want to protect".

".........peace brings you into the world and empowers you to undertake whatever you want to do to try to help. Struggling of social justice, lessening the disparity between the rich and the poor, stopping the arms race, fighting against discrimination, and sowing more seeds of understanding , reconciliation, and compassion. In any struggle, you need determination and patience. Those who lead a life of social action especially need to practice mindfulness during each moment of daily life."

In ACP we stimulate and appreciate community, we actually stimulate for peace, to recognize the peace in here and NOW.....in accepting, recognizing, inclusion ......peace is at the core of all practices.

I hope you enjoyed reading these few lines.

Peace for you all!

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Dear Rebeka,

Thanks for this rejuvenating message. I am citing a quote from Peace Pilgrim:

“We can work on inner peace and world peace at the same time.

On one hand, people have found inner peace by losing themselves in a cause larger than themselves, like the cause of world peace, because finding inner peace means coming from the self-centered life into the life centered in the good of the whole.

On the other hand, one of the ways of working for world peace is to work for more inner peace, because world peace will never be stable until enough of us find inner peace to stabilize it.”

Warm regards,

Rituu

[Laurence Gilliot]

Hi Rebeka,

Thank you for this reminder :-) Peace starts from within us, in each of our steps, breaths, thoughts, words, actions. We cannot create peace around us if we are not in peace with ourselves.

As development workers, we tend to forget to take care of ourselves first. We give give give and then we get stressed and we do unmindful things.

If you come into our office here in Chiang Mai, you will see this poem on the wall:

Life is every step
Miracle in every step
Healing in every step
Freedom in every step

It helps me to find peace when I walk from the tea table to my desk, from my desk to the bathroom, etc.

Take care

Laurence

[rebeka sultana]

friends,

i send you some flowers from my garden!
sorry the picture is too big, i tried to make it smaller, but dont know how to do it :-)

Rebeka