Peace
Legacy, 24×30” acrylic and collage, 2015, detail.
My dear friends, I haven’t written anything in a while. Producing some artwork for my solo exhibition is taking priority. The exhibition isn’t until August 2025, but I need to produce twenty to thirty works. The working title was Shapes of the Universe (anything and everything!) and that has shifted to Dreams of a Caged Bird (I feel caged sometimes). But I’m experiencing great freedom in experimenting with textiles. I love to crochet, but there’s only so many gifts you can make for family! The I had the exciting realization that I could make art with my crochet skills. It exploded from there. I also feel like I’m channeling my mother, whose macrame and dyed fabric pieces I admired growing up and many women of generations past, sewing, knotting, weaving, and more. It’s very satisfying. And a little addictive.
Crochet bits for a 3×6’ panel
More crochet bits for the panel
I last wrote a blog in July and I recall promising to write about peace next time. It seems that peace has become a controversial idea in the past few months. Even in my meditation circles, peace has been debated among people who identify strongly with one side or the other. There are folks who don’t want peace because it means giving in. And folks who feel that peace is an unachievable dream. Peace is a huge topic and we would need a skilled and wise philosopher to speak to the layers and depths and true meaning — if there is one — of peace.
But maybe here, I can keep it simple and personal. There are plenty of wars in the world for which we can wish or act for ends to conflict. Really, though, do we have control over any domain other than our own heart? When I painted Legacy, top above, I was at war with the world. Difficult relationships, MS symptoms, overworked with a tyrant boss, overreacting to petty little irritations, severe aversion to doing anything I didn’t feel like doing, and so on. I had taken the mindfulness course, MBSR, however, and I knew there was a way to be that was healthier for my physical and mental wellbeing and for those I loved, lived with, and worked with. I was also passionate about a few things like the environment (Legacy is about that too — we are leaving a legacy of garbage). It is great to have passions, but mine also came with the desperate conviction that I needed to convince anyone who didn’t see things my way; this was stressful because most people also have their own viewpoints and are unwilling to give them up. It was a relief to let that go! Not the passion, but the erroneous view that I needed to change others.
Sunrise wall/window hanging, macrame & weaving, cotton cord and mixed fabric
Gradually, I’ve developed something called equanimity. It’s a word I was not familiar with years ago. It implies balance — as in equal and equality. It’s the ability to respond to any situation with calm and without getting so caught up with our, or others’ convictions. It’s become a beautiful word to me because it, like grace, means one has fortitude and yet is soft and undefended. Fortitude because one is not inundated with all the stories the mind has about inadequacy, unworthiness, resentment, or doubt. Undefended because there is a curiosity about life, people, and nature; a curiosity that is willing to be surprised, to let life in, to let people in. Equanimity means having a deep well of peace in one’s being that cannot be disturbed by challenges life presents, difficult people on the attack, or the daily burden of caring for ourselves and families (it is work to keep everyone including ourselves sheltered, clothed, fed, clean, and reasonably happy).
Equanimity also implies a wisdom that sees the larger picture. Like viewing the earth from space and realizing there are actually no boundaries, this wisdom knows every person — about eight billion points of view — is doing the best they can to live the best life that conditions allow. One difference between an equanimous person and an unbalanced person is recognizing those conditions. Seeing that everyone is subject to a set of conditions that began in childhood and continue to shape their experiences. We often ask the question in our meditation groups, “If I were subject to that person’s set of conditions, would I not behave as they have?” Perhaps we like to think not, but it’s worth pondering that question. If I’d been raised, for example, in an alcoholic family, I would likely have also become an alcoholic. The conditions in that case can be both genetic and learned; a powerful combination. How often have we come to realize in recent decades that a schoolyard bully is the victim of abuse or neglect at home.
I find it sad, and it pains me to know, that children who were born in the wrong place and the wrong time, who don’t get loving and nurturing families, can often end up in juvenile centers. We want to help them and teach them that it’s 1. The situations in which they grew up are not their fault and 2. There is something they can do about it. We would teach them that forgiveness is a skill that will heal them. We cannot change their past, but we can teach them how to cope with it better. — Eva Kor, Holocaust Survivor
It’s not always clearcut; there is a myriad of causes and conditions that result in a given experience, moment, or thought or action. The good news is that condtions are workable and equanimity sees this too: conditions are always changing. Nature is a great example of this: the weather, the seasons, the wind, the flowers, butterflies, and spring peepers. To name a small fraction of our ever-shifting environment. Lately, sadness has been arising for me as my mobility is such that I can’t get outside to enjoy nature. This has been especially painful in this gorgeous fall weather we’ve been having — you know what I mean! The urge to get outside and enjoy the last warm days is very strong. At one point, I realized with a flood of gratitude that my body is also nature. As I’ve taken refuge in beauty, wind, water, earth, warmth, and trees, I can just as meaningfully take refuge in this miraculous system of rivers of blood, how they are enriched by the winds of breath, the muscles, bones, and nueral networks built from the nutrients of the earth and the energy of the sun. These are the elements that all traditions recognize; earth, water, fire, and wind, make up all of life whether it’s a tree rooted in the earth and reaching for the open air and the sun, or us human beings, upright, limber, thoughtful, and breathing in as the the trees breath out. This is true for every human being whether they’ve thought about it or not. What makes us similar to each other is helpful to remember. We are all completely dependent on these elements. This is equalizing and also examining our experience internally and externally — again, where is the boundary? Close examination reveals there isn’t one.
Fractal Basket, macrame — square knots, 6, 4, and 1mm cotton cord
There is equanimity in my response to being a caged bird (house-bound). These are my current circumstances and past conditioning might have had me at war with them — angry and resentful and thrashing around like that bird desperate to get out. Being at war with circumstances, with family, with ourselves, will tend to solidify around causes and conditions until they become immovable views, beliefs, and concepts like “this is horrible, painful, unfair; I’m so hard done by, I blame you or them, I’m never going to be happy again; I hate this, I hate you, I hate myself; a whole host of judgements and reactions that are actually fabrications based on our past conditions. It’s convoluted! In my case with missing being in nature, I was constantly told as a young person to “get outside!” So, do I really enjoy being out there, feel a need to be out there, or is it just an automatic, ingrained, and unexamined belief? But as sadness around it is arising now, there is also calm, the ability to reflect, and a spiritual wisdom that guides me to realizations like, “I am nature.”
For the most part, I have stopped the war (within) and I have tapped that legacy of kindness I painted about years ago — kindness toward myself and others. Peace, equanimity, kindness… they are different faces of the same essence within each of us. I often hear the argument, “I don’t want to be a doormat” and “Isn’t that indifference?” Equanimity is not indifference; it actually allows us to be better resourced so we have the where-with-all to respond. Contrary to the assumption that peace means giving up, giving in, being walked all over, peace and its cousins wisdom, compassion, equanimity, forgiveness, gratitude, and kindness, have an unexpected power to undermine anger, resentment, hatred, fear, even, I would suggest, war and terror. There are anecdotes, contemporary studies, and ancient wisdom to back that up (see below).
Sunrise Basket, macrame, cotton cord and rattan
But start with your own heart. Is there any way in which you are at war with the way things are? In the myriad of causes and conditions that make up a life and experience, we can hold up our hands like stop signs or to raise an umbrella in a hurricane or to shake clenched fists as though we could grab life by the collar. Or we can open our arms like the thousand-armed Chenrezig with an eye in the palm of each hand — to witness and respond with compassion, no matter what. This may not sound easy, but this is equanimity, wisdom, kindness, and compassion. This is the Tao. This is our essence. This is peace.
As my friend and teacher, Carolynn, ends her emails and classes:
May there be peace.
May there be peace.
May there be peace.
“Anger is a seed for war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace.”
“Let’s work together to heal the world through forgiveness. Not bullets, not bombs. Just forgiveness.”
“On January 27, 1995, we were standing by the ruins of one of the gas chambers. Dr. Münch's document was read and he signed it. I read my Declaration of Amnesty and then signed it. I felt a burden of pain was lifted from my shoulders. I was no longer a victim of Auschwitz. I was no longer a prisoner of my tragic past. I was finally free. So I say to everybody: ‘Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your soul and set you free.’”
— Eva Kor, Candles Holocaust Museum and Education Centre, Terre Haute, IN
Loving-Kindness and Political Divides, Mind & Life Institute grant recipient
“…a key factor for [peace, compassion, and happiness] is to really cultivate a peace of mind, a peace within. And if we have built peace within, then there is a real chance we will be able to build a peaceful, happier humanity that can live together by learning from past experiences.”
— His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, opening remarks, Mind & Life Dialogue: “Interdependence, Ethics, and Social Networks”
“Why Seeing Beauty Matters, Even in the Midst of War”, Greater Good, Science Centre
'He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,' — in those who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.
'He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,' — in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.
For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.
The world does not know that we must all come to an end here; but those who know it, their quarrels cease at once.
— The Buddha, The Dhammapada
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so it 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 business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
— Tao te Ching, chapter 8, translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
Here is a relevant commentary from one of my teachers, Matt Flickstein, regarding the line above, “In dealing with others be gentle and kind”:
We need to let go of believing that we know better than others what is right and true. We now know that winning and losing have no meaning. We have realized that love and kindness are stronger than hatred and aggression. Gentleness and kindness naturally occur when there is the realization that there is no doer, and only doing remains. We now see others as being the Tao in various disguises.
“The Ordinariness of Peace in the Tao te Ching,” an interesting read on peace and the Tao; here is an excerpt referring to the lines from chapter 79, “Thus the wise grasp the side of the debtor / And make no claims on others. / The virtuous manage the accounts / And those without virtue insist on payment.
“How could a country behave as the debtor in international conflicts, and so on? But then I started thinking about the value of apologies and forgiveness. Every time I have sincerely apologized to another or they to me, mystery abounds. What was under dispute disappears from awareness and often even from memory. Yet more, the energy returned to both parties is often astonishing and humbling.” — Rosemarie Anderson, PhD
Prayer flags in the rain.
