“4 Simple Ways to Cultivate Peace Daily”

We can cultivate peace and heal the world if we take the time to cultivate peace in our daily activities. Here is a short story about Buddha and cultivating peace in his followers. And also 4 powerful ways that everyone can cultivate peace in their daily lives.

Once Buddha was talking to his followers about the Four Noble Truths which had come to him while sitting under the Bodhi Tree… and all his followers where enthralled with his words. And then a group of hecklers came by and started taunting Buddha saying he didn’t know what he was talking about, and they left yelling terrible things at Buddha. And this made his followers extremely mad and one of them said to Buddha. “We will go after them with sticks and beat them for being so callus and saying such terrible things”. And Buddha replied, “No they are enjoying themselves, they are happy being angry with me. For you to get angry with them will not change anything, allow them to indulge their pleasure. As you love listening to me, they also love getting angry with me, so allow both to be happy by either listen to me or taunting me”. So the followers sat down and listened to the Buddha and allowed the hecklers to go their way.

There is a lot to be learned from what Buddha said. We can get angry at others for taunting and causing problems. And this will only cause more anger, and in the end both sides will become full of hatred, and then hatred escalates to loss of life. So does this really end the problem? No— in fact it causes more challenges and does not create peace. When we combat anger with anger, we only create more anger. And thus the world becomes full of anger, and the escalation of emotion sooner or later moves towards violence. And then violence escalates to greater violence, and at some point greater violence grows to the point of killing and loss of life. And at some point revenge takes over and groups gather together to retaliate, then wars ravage countries and millions of people die. And if war escalates, war escalates to the point of nuclear war and billions of people die.

All of this means that at some point we have to say “NO” and be at peace no matter what anyone says or does. Anytime we turn to violence because of what someone is saying, it doesn’t make anything better. In order to have peace we need to have peace in our heart… before we can give peace to the world. And most people are too busy to cultivate peace, but everyone can cultivate peace if we take the time. Here are 4 simple ways to cultivate peace daily… and thus feel at ease.
4 Simple Ways to Cultivate Peace Daily:

Taking the time to go to silent meditation retreats can be very powerful. Going within is a process that opens the heart and also the mind. Opening up all the baggage we don’t even know we have, thus we bear witness to it all, thus cleansing the conscious and unconscious mind… thus peace filters in. And make it a point to have some time daily to be in silence.

If we create a ritual of writing out our feelings every night in a diary. That too has a great ability to defuse anger and allows the past to be settled and the future to be free of all guilt, shame, and anger… thus feelings of peace take over. And when we have peace within, we attract peaceful people thus everything changes.

And taking the time to see ourselves and our challenges from a 3rd party perspective can be powerful. Looking at all situations from a place of peace can change everything, perhaps we’re angry at someone. But if we step outside of ourselves and become a spectator with no emotional interest in what’s going on, we can learn a lot from the process. When we remove the emotional component thus seeing everything in a whole new way, we grow as people. And the more we do this on a daily basis… the more peace we cultivate in our heart.

Also to be mindful of peace with ever breath we take is important. To consciously tell ourselves to breathe in peace, and to breathe out peace. And when something stressful comes up we are ready because we are cultivating peace with every breath. Thus we can consciously derail anger and allowing peace to be a regular part of life.

Thus with regular practice we can cultivate peace… and change the world.

Many Blessings to Everyone

Dr. Paul Haider