“There is no path to peace; peace is the path.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh~

in this critical moment of eternity, we must commit to truly being peace; to follow this call, listen generously to some of the sage words from the Plum Village community’s Open Letter for Peace:

“Our community’s own roots lie in the tradition of Engaged Buddhism in Vietnam, where more than three million people died in a war that lasted nearly 20 years and some two million fled as refugees. We know from our teacher that war is never a solution. It leads only to division and hatred that can last for generations.

Our teacher worked tirelessly for peace in Vietnam by never choosing sides. Instead, he appealed to adversaries to look deeply into each other’s pain, anxiety, and existential fear, and to consider the war’s horrific toll on all victims. Forced into exile, he became a spiritual leader of a global movement for peace, reconciliation, and disarmament. We believe our teacher’s universal message of peace can offer hope at this pivotal time…

The Buddha tells us that our true enemy is not to be found in others but in our own fear, anxiety, and sorrow, our anger, greed, ignorance, and hatred. War is made possible by dualistic and discriminative thinking, and by the idea that only by eliminating our so-called enemy can we have peace and security. But as the Buddha said, hatred cannot resolve hatred. Only understanding and love can transform hatred.

As our teacher has said, when there is peace in ourselves, there will be peace in the world… We pray, too, that precious global resources can be redirected from war to where they are most needed, namely, to tackle disease, poverty, hunger and malnutrition, human trafficking – including exploitation of vulnerable children – environmental stress, and climate change.

Our world needs a culture of peace. Our human family needs to accelerate to a higher stage of evolution; to a “cosmic” spirituality and ethic that can unite all peoples and nations, removing separation and discrimination. In this spirit, as a community of Engaged Buddhism, we renewed our commitment on New Year’s Eve 2021 to practice mindfulness for peace on earth. Below, we share with our love this solemn vow.

The work of peace is the work of great and noble beings… our most urgent task is to invest all our energy and skills in exploring every viable option for peace at this time of great danger for humanity.

All our ancestors and descendants are counting on us.”

let us rise to the call by being peace with every breath…