Do you think peace requires an end to war?
Or tigers eating only vegetables?
Does peace require an absence from
your boss, your spouse, yourself? …
Do you think peace will come some other place than here?
Some other time than Now?
In some other heart than yours?
Peace is this moment without judgment.
That is all. This moment in the Heart-space
where everything that is is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking
that it should be some other way,
that you should feel some other thing,
that your life should unfold according to your plans.
Peace is this moment without judgment,
this moment in the heart-space where
everything that is is welcome.
by Dorothy Hunt
This poem by spiritual teacher Dorothy Hunt had me laugh out loud when one of my wonderful BAMBA colleagues read it out in the middle of a meeting where we were all a bit frazzled with the demands on us. Who says my life should unfold according to my plans, when clearly it’s not?! I know that, but that doesn’t mean I know it all the time… The quiet certainty in Dorothy’s voice brought me back from buying into those habitual beliefs that had taken over when it felt like there were too many things happening at once. Thank goodness for friends and poems that can call me out when I go into that rabbit hole!
I don’t need tigers to eat only vegetables, or my boss, my spouse or myself to be absent. And I will keep practising a radical welcome to all that is…
Photo by Juan Camilo Guarin P on Unsplash