I remember when I used to dismiss the bumper sticker "PRAY FOR PEACE". I realize now that I did not understand it, since I also did not understand prayer, which I now know to be the active affirmation in the physical world of our inseparableness from the divine; and everything, especially the physical world, is divine. War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited. Love will overflow every sanctuary given it. Truth will grow where the fertilizer that nourishes it is also truth. Faith will be its own reward ... God answers prayers. Which is another way of saying, the Universe responds ... Only as we have reason to fear what is in our hearts need we fear for the planet. Teach yourself peace. Pass it on.
A simple mind is not mysterious. In a simple mind, awareness just is. It's open, transparent. There's nothing complicated about it. For most of us, most of the time, however, it is largely unavailable. But the more we have contact with a simple mind, the more we sense that everything is ourselves, and the more we feel responsible for everything. When we sense our connectedness, we have to act differently... When we can sit and meditate with a simple mind, not being caught by our own thoughts, something slowly dawns, and a door that has been shut begins to open... We see that the present is absolute and that, in a sense, the whole universe begins right now, in each second. And the healing of life is in that second of simple awareness.