Excerpts from The Meditation on Peace
by Namgyal Rinpoche
“There’s not
much that you as an individual can do about the
wars that are taking
place in the world at the moment. Yet the
big ideas of peace and the
efforts of the UN are certainly not
effective. But I declare that
the little change in the individual
that overcomes war within, and
then another, and another, will
create a radiance of peace and
eventually this radiance will have
the power to stop the big wars. If you want a new society, it starts
with you. If you want to change
this society, the most logical
thing to do is change yourself. The
most powerful thing you can
do is change your own being. In order to
get peace in society,
you have to get peaceful beings.”
“When there
is true
aspiration for peace, that aspiration is
fulfilled peacefully. Peace
is not like some bovine animal
dully chewing away. The mind of peace
is extremely intelligent.
There is strength to fulfill the
aspiration and the fulfillment
comes softly.”
“The Buddha
taught
to first calm the body, then calm the mind.
The great mistake is to
think you can deal directly with the mind,
that this alone will
change the form. But in truth you must calm
the body first, then
calm the states of mind that have built the
body. It is the agitated
mind that causes the body to speed up,
retain and manifest warring
tensions. If you want to still the mind,
go for a run; that will
blow away the agitation or restlessness.
You don’t have to
suffer on the path if you first calm and balance
the body, bring
order to the body. When
you do the work in
an
orderly way there are signs of progress and these will manifest
directly in the body. In meditation you will see through the eyes
of
compassion, hear through the ears of compassion , smell with
compassion, taste with compassion and touch with compassion.”