Peace on Earth: Waging Peace With An Awakened Mind

By AJAHN SUMEDHO

War is not real. It is caused by ignorance of our true nature, which is peace. To realise this, it is important to meditate. Meditation brings one into an awakened state where one is able to get in touch with the still point within. Doing this might seem unimportant from the society's perspective, which lays great emphasis on winning wars and making money.

To the unawakened mind, life seems like a reiteration of problems. This is because it sees problems as being caused by external conditions. The US might see Saddam Hussein as the root of all problems, and vice versa. This is because the mind is caught in the trap of right versus wrong, good versus evil. The US might say that Iraq must be like this only, anything else is unacceptable. This happens when one does not realise that the reality and karma of the present moment is not the ideal. It just is.

Meditation opens us to the present. We learn to operate from an intuitive wisdom rather than an intelligence that insists on examining external objects. We gloss over our true nature by identifying with this and that. By forming immutable ideals, we use them to despise ourselves. The reason people have problems with themselves is because they aren't what they think they should be. Life can be only what it is at that point. Yet so much of our energies are spent forming goals or ruing past failures. Being physically in the present but not being open to it creates suffering.

What do we mean by 'peace'? If we are unaware of our true nature, peace can become boring. So many times, peace is available to us but we ignore it, preferring to excite ourselves with TV or shopping or something else. Don't take this to mean that the Buddha was a critic of the world. He just wanted us to live in it mindfully, to recognise its reality.

The mind is conditioned to be forever caught in doubt and uncertainty, so much so that it resists giving them up in meditation. The fear is of losing control; it is what we call 'the dark night of the soul'. It is the point when the sense of being secure in ideals, conventions and dogmas needs to be dropped. This is a stage of growth and needs to be recognised as such.

As we begin to trust intuitively, we learn to let go. Letting go of grasping leads to an insight into our true nature, peace. That brings the realisation that war is something we create. Even if someone is persecuting us, by examining the situation, we realise that it is our own mind that creates the feeling of suffering.

When I began meditating, I would try to control my thoughts and get rid of the ones that seemed 'bad'. The more I resisted and tried to get rid of them, the more power they seemed to have. The states that I was trying to 'get over' emer-ged even more forcefully during meditation. Then I realised that I wasn't being asked to destroy, only to see. The more I received my anger without reacting to it, the more it ceased. And when anger ceases, what remains? Peace.

Consciousness is not a culturally conditioned phenomenon. It begins at birth and is experienced through our bodies. When we are born, we don't see ourselves as Buddhist/Christian, male/ female, and so on. We acquire perceptions of ourselves later. If we judge another culture, it is through values of our own culture, which are relative. Consciousness is what remains when there are no attachments of any kind. Consciousness is not cultural, it is the point where we all merge. That is the only way out of this crisis.

(Ajahn Sumedho is abbot of the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, England. He spoke with Swati Chopra)

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See also: Peace of Mind, Peace on Earth, Life and Beyond, Love and Happiness, Body Mind and Soul)