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A Peaceful Life
And what is not peaceful
Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones Deck prompts — The Buddha, a historical awakened human being, said peace is the highest good. What is peaceful in your life? Dig deep. You might have to warm up: What is not peaceful in your day? Go, ten minutes.
In upsets, I say, is this worth my peace
if it isn’t, and most of the time it isn’t, I cease
to be upset. Sometimes it is about release
of upset to get to a place to decrease
pent-up emotion. Living today will increase
my peace. No worries about tomorrow or my masterpiece
~~
What is not peaceful? — Politics. Mainly politics. War, the economy, racism, what is changing, hurting people, and beginning to make things difficult for me and mine. Job loss. All of this and more can make my life not peaceful.
So what do I do? I watch very little news, stay out of political debates with everyone. Especially my closest family. I can listen and not respond or tame it down, change the subject, all tools that I know and have used.
A daily gratitude list is so helpful in taking the focus off what is not peaceful. Not in a Pollyannaish way, but rather in seeing things more broadly. There…
