I once explained to a friend I couldn’t vote for the current president because it struck me he has a warring mind and warring minds beget warring acts.  Violence begins with violent minds and violent minds express violence leading to violent acts.  It is too late for this president to decry violence just because it is directed at him personally.  Of course it was wrong for the shooter to do what he did. but once a president sanctions* violence on the national and international scene, it cannot be contained.  Right now we are not a peaceful nation.  We have leaders who internally and internationally are politically courting the dangerous edge of violence.

Peace within, Peace in the World are the words of Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh.  Like much of his writing, the phrase seems simple to the point of childishness.  But if you listen for truth, you will find truth can be disarmingly simple which is why sometimes children seem so wise.  We tend to bury our own wise sense of good under hard packed crudely designed cognition.  But violence is a magnet that attracts other violence and the relationship between the mind and the act becomes an addiction of the worst kind.  Conversely peace attracts peace which in turns becomes a skilled, intuitive practice of the best kind.

Confident Suggestion for Good

Practice peace.  Remember wars are for the rich who can insulate themselves from the dangerous consequences of their own lack of skill and remorse.  If you are reading this you probably know you are the potential collateral damage of the rich person’s war games. We are a democracy and our job, for our’s, our children’s, and future generation’s sake, is to grow peace and non violent life skills. King, Gandhi, Tutu and Mandela might seem out of date right now, but they have lessons, good lessons, critical lessons for this warring age and its warring minds.

*I discovered while writing this the word “sanction” is a contronym which means a word that has two opposite meanings.  In this context sanction means “to give approval, but in another context sanction can mean to prohibit. How many years did I let the contronym confuse me before I looked it up? Life lessons for the young; Most answers are no further away than a good book. 

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