We Do Not Want Riches

Look at me—I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.

~ Red Cloud of the Sioux

Peace

What would we have to
hold in compassion
to be at peace right now?

What would we have to
let go of
to be at peace right now?

~Jack Kornfield

Indifference

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. 

~Elie Wiesel

Peace

The destiny of a nation is too important to leave to politicians alone.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Peace Walk

There is no walk for peace; peace must be the walk.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Doing the Good

Buddhists are encouraged to do good deeds not for the sake of gaining a place in heaven. They are expected to do good in order to eradicate their selfishness and to experience peace and happiness.

~K. Sri Dhammananda

No Disputes

I do not dispute with the world; rather, it is the world that disputes with me. A proponent of the dharma does not dispute with anyone in the world.

~The Buddha

Peace

Dharma is truth. If you reach the truth, there is no big or small, no happiness or suffering. There is peace.

~Achaan Chah

A Beacon of Hope

The Dalai Lama's continuing search for peace and reconciliation in circumstances where most other comparable leaders would have opted for guerrilla warfare stands out like a beacon of hope in a dark world and touches the consciences of many.

~David Brazier

Thich Nhat Hanh

[He] is a holy man . . . a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to world brotherhood, to humanity.

~Martin Luther King Jr.

Calming Our Emotions and Nourishing Our Joy

Mindfulness is the foundation of happiness. A person who is unhappy cannot make peace. Individual happiness is the foundation for creating peace in the world. To bring about peace, our hearts must be peace.

Mindfulness is the practice of stopping and becoming aware of what we are thinking and doing. The more we are mindful of our thoughts, speech, and actions, the more concentration we develop. With concentration, insight into the nature of our own suffering and the suffering of others arises. we then know what to do and what not to do in order to live joyfully and in peace with our surroundings.

Two important practices that help us cultivate the energy of mindfulness are mindful breathing and mindful walking. Our breath and our steps are always with us, and we can use these simple everyday acts to calm our emotions and nourish our joy.

  ~Thich Nhat Hanh 

Salvatore Sapienza, Pastor of Douglas Congregational United Church of Christ, in Douglas, Michigan

Life

The Great Revival

Buddhism has undergone a revival in modern times — in the East as much as in the West. Why has this happened? Because people see a need for a new path to salvation after death? Surely not. Because we need another orderly, conventional, nice, Sunday religion? No. Because we want an exotic pastime pursuing mystic experiences? Perhaps for some this is the answer, but it will not do. No, the real reason is because a wide range of people have begun to suspect and hope that in Buddhism lie things of value for this world: possibilities that restore our faith in life; possibilities of culture without war and intolerance; possibilities of compassion and cooperation in social organisation; possibilities of real community that is not rooted in oppression: possibilities of all the things that people know instinctively are right for this world, but hardly dare risk believing in for fear of yet another disappointment.

~David Brazier, in The New Buddhism

The Sage

(The Blessed One said,)
"Free of craving before [their] death,
   Independent of past and future,
   Not making up anything in the present,
   They revere nothing.

"Free of anger, free of fear,
   Not boasting, not worrying,
   They are sages who, when speaking,
   Teach without agitation.

"Not clinging to the future,
   Nor grieving the past,
   They see seclusion in the midst of sense contacts
   And are not guided by views.

"They are neither clinging nor deceitful,
   Not greedy or stingy,
   Neither impudent nor offensive,
   And don't engage in malicious speech." 

                                                  Purabheda Sutta

The Sage

Neither greedy nor selfish, sages don't claim to be
   Superior, equal, or inferior;
   Being free of comparisons,
   They do not compare.

Taking nothing in the world as their own,
   Having no sorrow for what doesn't exist,
   And uninvolved in doctrines
   They are called 'peaceful'.

                                         Purabheda Sutta

Peace

The Buddha usually describes peaceful people not by what they do, but by what they don't do. They don't crave or cling to anything. They aren't angry, fearful, or greedy. They're not concerned with sensual pleasures. They're not attached to views or doctrines. They aren't owned by or dependent on things.

Peace is present when clinging and craving is absent.

This depiction of peace doesn't rely on doctrines, beliefs, attainments, or metaphysical realms. 

The Welfare of Both

One who repays an angry man with anger
thereby makes things worse for himself.
Not repaying an angry man with anger,
one wins a battle hard to win.

He practices for the welfare of both—
his own and the other's—
when, knowing that his foe is angry,
he mindfully maintains his peace.

                                 ---Samyutta Nikaya---