This was not the book I was working on this week, but after Friday’s events I felt compelled to spread the word of peace and recommend that everyone on the planet read this book. It is also my deepest hope that every family will read and work on it together. Bring it to book club! Share it with everyone you know. Let’s be part of the movement towards peace!

Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World is a manifesto, a workbook and a spiritual guide to peace.

The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese-born Zen Buddhist monk, a peace activist, world-renowned writer, poet, and scholar. He lives in monastic communities but writes for those of us who don’t.

“All of us can practice nonviolence. We begin by recognizing that, in the depths of our consciousness, we have both the seeds of compassion and the seeds of violence. We become aware that our mind is like a garden that contains all kinds of seeds: seeds of understanding, seeds of forgiveness, seeds of mindfulness, and also seeds of ignorance, fear and hatred. We realize that, at any given moment, we can behave with either violence or compassion, depending on the strength of the seeds within us.”

The only way to eradicate violence is through the mind; each individual’s mind! So the book begins with creating a peace treaty with yourself. Using the author’s metaphor – Sow the seeds of peace and compassion and peace and compassion will grow stronger. Sow the seeds of violence and fear and violence and fear will grow stronger.

            “If we transform our individual consciousness, we begin the process of changing the collective consciousness.” “…and each and every individual has a direct effect on the collective consciousness.”

            “Individual happiness is the foundation for creating peace in the world.”   

Each and every one of us can affect a change in the vibrational frequency of the collective consciousness!

This book will provide you with many exercises that will help you understand and practice mindfulness which will help your relationships and your peace of mind. There are suggestions for families and couples, but my favorite part of this book is that is shows you how to create peace in your home with suggestions for:

  • restructuring family time
  • adding family practices
  • creating a safe place for feelings with improvement strategies
  • creating a breathing room; a refuge

Don’t you want to know how to raise peaceful children who know how to handle low-energy emotions and feelings?

There is a series The Five Mindful Training’s and it includes one for sexual responsibility; a real bonus for parents, giving them guidance with an often uncomfortable subject.

You don’t have to be willing to adopt the Buddhist religion to embrace these ideas; universal ideas. Embrace the teachings of a master; embrace peace – inner peace, peace in your life, peace in your relationships, and peace in our world.

“Peace is not simply the absence of violence; it is the cultivation of understanding, insight and compassion, combined with action. Peace is the practice of mindfulness, the practice of being aware of our thoughts, our actions, and the consequences of our actions.”

Would you like to experience more peace, today? Read this book!

May you perceive and receive all your blessings.

With Much Love,

Rev. Michele

Copyright © 2012 Indigo Sky, LLC; All Rights Reserved