Peace

[Aloka]

This is a Thich Nhat Hahn quote:

"Peace can exist only in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say, "Wait until I finish this,
then I will be free to live in peace." What is "this?" A diploma, a job, a house, the payment of a
debt? If you think that way, peace will never come. There is always another "this" that will
follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you will never be able to.
If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise, there is only "the
hope of peace someday."

Excerpted from The Sun My Heart, by Thich Nhat Hanh, Parallax Press, 1988, p. 125.

Any thoughts?

[Laura lou]

I find my own peace to be more impulsive than that. There is the moment to moment peace I feel at home with my husband, and the sudden lack of peace that will arise when I allow my ego to get involved in disagreements with family. And afterwards, the admonishment I give myself for sort of disturbing the peace. I don’t look for peace. Peace for me is about trying to understand others, having control over my temper, and knowing when I need to remove myself from a situation. There’s no waiting for peace to happen, when peace is in our own hands.

Then, there is social peace, which is a whole other subject. There are peaceful protests and angry riots. I have no control over war, except for my little bit of good karma perhaps.

[Esho]

We live in the middle of a personal drama, so we don't have peace. Peace will happen naturally once we accept things as they are. As the fog in the morning our drama will vanish having peace in the present moment.

[Laura lou]

There are times that I think I shouldn’t accept things the way they are....that I shouldn’t allow certain things to be spoken without correction, for instance, and, while I know this is not peace, could it be more important than peace at that moment? Or, maybe, if my ego were not also involved, peace would not need to be disturbed. I would just be quietly, peacefully, stating my truth. I’m sorry if I’m wandering off topic. It seems peace and lack of attachment to self are very tied together.

[Aloka]

We live in the middle of a personal drama, so we don't have peace. Peace will happen naturally once we accept things as they are. As the fog in the morning our drama will vanish having peace in the present moment.

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.

~ Ajahn Chah

[Aloka]

It seems peace and lack of attachment to self are very tied together.

Yes, I agree Lauralou - and I think this excerpt from "The Strategy of a Peaceful Mind" is relevant to that:

When the mind isn't at peace, that's because it doesn't let go. It holds onto things as its self or belonging to its self. As a result, it suffers. It feels stress. The mind takes its stance in form, in feelings, in perceptions, in consciousness. It seizes hold of these things, but these things are inconstant. When they change, they lead to disappointment. The mind then thrashes around and piles on more stress and suffering. So we have to view peace as our strategy — the peace we try to give rise to — seeing it as a high level of happiness. As for any lack of peace, we should view that as suffering. The mind lacks peace because defilements disturb it. This happens because the mind isn't skillful, and the mind isn't skillful because of delusion.

So we focus on peace and on the stress of disturbance as our strategies

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/...tegypeace.html