Praying for peace

Praying for peace

I think this time I will write the blog in English, because I would like all my friends to be able to read it, not only the ones in Holland.

Lately I have been on a news diet, as I do ever so often, when I notice it feeds my feelings of despair too much. Today i was on the phone with a good friend and whilst we were philosophising about humankind and the state of the world (she is almost 90 and a very intelligent, well read woman, a very good conversationalist); she told me about the advice of government to store water, candles and food for an eventual attack of foreign powers. 

The longer she talked, the more I noticed that utter shock crept up inside of me. 

She, having lived in a war, said it was wise to be prepared and talked quite matter of factly about it. I wanted to come up with a counter argument, how giving too much thought on an eventual escalation of political situations only feeds into fear and since I believe that thoughts manifest into action, I'm not keen on dwelling too long on such matters. But the shock had taken the wind out of my arguing sails and I decided to rather talk about more personal things. After the conversation however, I did order petroleum for my extra heater (which I needed anyway) and looked on the net for filters to clean rainwater, since I have a lot of rainwater storage in my garden. Turned out it was too expensive. 

Then I decided to look inwards and see with my inner eye, what was happening. Fear was what was happening. My heart beating a bit faster, and my mind a bit more restless, even more than usual. I took a deep breath and thought about what I wanted to do to counter the fear energy and help send out peace into the world. “Ohm mani padme hung “ came immediately to my heart and mind, and I started reciting the mantra for the rest of the day, whilst I was finishing my chores. Only after an hour or so, I noticed myself “feeling” the peace of the words. And my thoughts went out to the many people who don't have a spiritual refuge, or who don't know how to calm their fears and are led into despair by the media. Who don't know that peace in the world starts with peace in ourselves and in order to be able to feel that, we need to nourish our feeling of love, joy, gratitude and connectedness on a daily basis. 

Later I went for a walk (-ing meditation) with my dogs and whilst I placed my feet on the earth, reciting “Ohm mani padme hung “, nature helped me to deepen my sense of peace. After a while I sat down on a bench, while my dogs, blissfully oblivious to all men’s woes, were sniffing around in the twilight. I opened my arms and lay them on the railing of the park bench, looking up to the blueish-grey sky, opening myself to the universe. Reciting the mantra, and looking up, I felt the timelessness of the universe and a boundless light of love awakened in my heart, first timid, softly warming my whole body until it was strong enough to fill the neighbourhood and from there flowing out into the hearts of beings everywhere. I sensed the love of many beings, gone but also here and together we touched all beings in despair, may it be victims or aggressors everywhere. May they / may we, realize that all our troubles are made by thoughts, which cause feelings of being separated, which cause the need for greed and power and so on; like ants scurrying about being busy, not realizing that a big rock that hits the colony will crush everyone and destroy all, aggressors and victims alike. 

Let’s remember that we are intrinsically linked, the whole cosmos, that love can heal everything and truly feed our souls. In gratitude for all the beautiful thoughts, people and nature in my life and in yours I'm sure, let's feed each others joy, love and gratitude. Like a beautiful song from the Plum Village community of Thich Nhat Hanh “ for i am in you and you are in me”

Ohm mani padme hung _()_