Thay Phap Nhat
I would like to tell you a story that is taking place several hundreds years ago. In that time, the surface of the earth was covered by thorns and sharp stones, and the people's feet were often hurt by them. The King wanted to protect his people, and therefore he invited several wise men to come to his palast in order to find a solution for the problem. One of the wise men suggested that the whole earth could be covered by carpet, so the thorns and stones could no longer hurt the people. The other wise men also liked that idea. But it seemed that it was impossible to play out that idea., because oodles of carpet would be needed. Luckily another wise man had another proposal to offer: Each person could get one pair of shoes. The thorns would not be removed, they would still be there, but the people would be protected from injury by their shoes. The king liked that idea, and everyone agreed.
This story reminds me of the peace in oneself and the peace in the world. We have the idea that we want to make the whole world become peaceful, and that is really a good idea.
At the moment many people are following that idea, and they are founding a lot of movements and organizations that are aming to create a peaceful world. Looking back in time, we can see that people have been trying already for thousands of years to reach this goal. That is really a beautiful idea, but it seems that it is impossible to play it out. We can see that until today there are wars taking place on our planet. There is another way to create a peaceful world: Each of us can produce his or her own shoes. If we first create peace inside ourselves, the world will become more peaceful as well. It often seems that in the world there is no true peace. The time of peace often seems to be just a time of preparation for the next war. But if every human being has peace in him- or herself, peace in the world will be possible. If we ourselves are a peaceful person, we will radiate the energy of peace, and this energy will effect the people around us. Hence, our family will become a peaceful family. When in our society there are many peaceful families, there will be a bigger amount of peace in our society. Even our country as well as the whole world will become peaceful, once everyone of us is peaceful and is radiating that energy in his or her environment.
The difficulty is that most human beings are not aware of the way they are influencing their environment. We cannot give something that we don't have ourselves. We really want to bring peace into the world, we want to bring happiness and peace to the people we love, but how can we do so if we don't have peace inside of us? It is not possible. That is why we ourselves have to be the first person that learns how to create inner peace and inner happiness. This is possible with the practice of meditation. These are really good news! Many generations of practitioners who have lived since the time of the Buddha could confirm this by their own experience. If the Buddha and many other spiritual masters succeeded in generating inner peace, for sure this is possible for us as well. We develop the capacity to do so from inside, by practicing meditation. Peace is not something that we can get from outside.
There are many wars in the world. I would like to use an image to explain the situation. A big fire is burning on the earth, there are many conflicts, a lot of frustration and suffering. We would like to improve the situation, but inside of us there is a small fire burning. We also have inner conflicts, we feel frustrated and we are suffering. But how can a small fire destroy the big fire? It is not possible. We have to become the nectar of peace, the nectar of happiness. This nectar is like a special water that is able to make the fire become smaller. Therefore we have to cultivate our inner peace in our daily life. How can we do that? And when can we do that? The best way is to start everyday in the morning when we wake up, when we are still lying in our bed. When we wake up in the morning, we can already start to produce our inner peace. The meditation practice of the day is to smile. Our smile can be an ambassador of happiness, peace and freedom. Our body also benefits from our smile, because in our face there are hundreds of muscles that can relax naturally when we smile. Then we also look more beautiful and kind. Suddenly, our children and our grandchildren enjoy very
much being near to us, and we will have better relationships to the
people we love. To me, meditation is life. Life is not just a part, life
is the whole. Life is available only in the present moment. If we
want to meditate and cultivate our inner peace, we have to fully live
our life. We have to be the whole.
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