A Peaceful Existence

Monastery, originally uploaded by Der Hannes.

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking on peace and how we can cultivate it in our lives. What brings me peace? What brings peace to my family? Our home? Our relationships with each other? Our relationship with the earth?


One of the things I've found a lot of inspiration and guidance from is A Quiet Mind. Robert offers a lot of food for thought and some great insight on how to find peace through acceptance. It is from a mostly Buddhist perspective, although I think anyone who has an interest in peaceful living and/or meditation would find a lot of good in it.

So, back to the point. How do you cultivate peace in your lfe? Do you cultivate peace spiritually? Physically? Is mental peace different from emotional peace? What about peace in our lifestyle, living simply?

I have so many thoughts on this that I am going to have to do many posts!! There are a lot of times where I am striving for peace in my life and failing miserably. How about you?

Some things I've been finding inspiration in right now are:

Mama Om - a blog by a mama of 2 boys, trying to live and parent peacefully.

Mindful Kids - I haven't had a chance to properly look over this website, but it looks very promising.

Peace

Sorting Out

So, I have this post on peace and how we can cultivate it in our lives that I've been working on. Of course, I have been anything but peaceful since I started writing it. The truth is, there is just so much (too much) to cover. The possibilities are endless. Where do I even start?
While I figure that out, I am doing a lot of reading. Books I've got out right now are:


Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu I've read this before a time or two, but I have finally bought my own copy.

Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh The author was recommended by a friend and this is the only one of his books I found at the library.

Awakening to the Sacred by Lama Surya Das I got this book from the library because it looks really interesting. It is a sort of "how to" manual on 'creating a spiritual life from scratch'. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

The Zen of Creativity by John Daido Loori I am not sure I'll read this whole book, but it looks interesting and has a lot of quotes and stories in it.

Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School Pretty self-explanatory here, I think. It gets pretty good reviews and our library didn't have it.

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious Because really, have you seen all the other stuff I'm reading? Everybody needs a trashy novel to break up all the learning!

Hopefully, I'll get a little perspective and be able to return to that bit of writing that is causing me so much irritation.

Peace