Thank you for being part of the “world peace community”. We are all “peacemakers” in our hearts and souls. The Institute envisions and is working for a “world peace movement” that is made up of people such as you. You can make a difference in this world today and we have a tool for you to use as you promote world peace, a Peace Charter.
This Journal, organized in four basic sections corresponds to our World Peace Charter:
- Daily Prayer & Meditation For World Peace
- Basic Human Rights For Everyone On Earth
- Warmth Of Heart Toward Everyone
- Daily Nurturance Of Self, Others, And The Earth
We can have the kind of world we wish for our children and those we care about. We have to focus on this vision and work for it, not necessarily one hour a week, but not necessarily by doing anything different in our lives or taking on anymore doing. Simply keeping a constant focus in our minds, “how can I help bring world peace”? Or by keeping a constant focus, as best we can with, “I pray for world peace”. Or daily meditation on “how can I work for world peace today”; letting our deeper humanity speak to us from within. Our deep humanity will guide us from within on how each of us can be part of a greater community for good in the world.
Senator Mark O. Hatfield once told me: “The December 10, 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is the most important document in human history, it is more important than the Magna Charta or even our constitution”. This document which seeks to guarantee human rights for all people on the earth is our path to world peace. Without human rights for all, there will be only diminished human rights for some. We must all work daily for human rights, in our families, communities, cities, nations. We must not be afraid to speak out for human rights. You have an incredible opportunity this weekend to come to a free Summer Peace Institute at Lewis & Clark College where you will hear the former Executive Director of Amnesty speak both Saturday and Sunday on human rights. Amnesty won the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize and is acknowledge as the world’s foremost NGO for human rights.
Warmth of heart toward everyone is also a tool for you to use. For myself as a person with a full time job, a single parent, and Executive Director of this non-profit and volunteer Institute the demands of juggling and the stress it produces. There have been times in the course of all of this I have said things I have regretted and always it is the stress that creates these situations. Yet without the basic value of warmth of heart toward everyone; we will only confuse situations. This leads to the last of our charter: “Daily nurturance of self, others and the Earth”. Unless you nurture yourself, you will work too hard; you need to daily nurture your loved ones, for you need them as our support group and sounding board; and finally we must all nurture the Earth for it is our home. Growing a garden and nurturing it daily, is nurturing the Earth, and there are many other ways.
Please come this weekend to Lewis & Clark College, Albany 218, either Saturday, June 3rd, 9am to 4pm or Sunday, June 4th, 9am to 4pm, for our free Summer Peace Institute. To register just email me at worldpeace@canby.com The room holds 60 people; so register for one or both days, as soon as you can. Do not miss this opportunity to hear a “world leader in the human rights movement speak”.
Peace To You Gary Alan Spanovich
Daily Prayer & Meditation On World Peace
I would like to ask all of you to join me in starting a world peace movement that starts right here in Portland and engages people to create a “community of peacemakers”. A “community of peacemakers” who believe that the only way to peace is through the path of non-violence and one that spreads throughout the world.
Citizen peacemakers, just like you, who believe world peace is possible and who have faith that if we can engage enough people in the world to believe world peace is possible, we will be able to accomplish it. Faith is the key, we must have faith that world peace can happen, faith in ourselves, faith in each other and faith in the greater mystery that brought us together in community for higher purpose. In our faith we must see the value of “prayer and meditation” to help us. For in prayer we speak to the divine and in meditation, we hear the divine. It does not matter what your spiritual path, whether it be one of the world’s large religions, Christianity, Judaism, Muslim, Buddhism, Hinduism; or one of the lesser know paths; or the path of being in the mountains or the out of doors on a weekend, drinking in the beauty. Pray and mediate on world peace when you feel moved and inspired that is how to begin. Then try to do it daily.
The Wholistic Peace Institute’s work is about faith and our faith that a more peaceful world is possible. The world needs peacemakers today; the world needs you and it needs you to see yourselves as a peacemaker. There are many ways to work for world peace. The Institute does an annual concert for world peace and with this event we hope to inspire a cultural approach to world peace. The Institute is also working with the City of Portland on an International Peace Garden that will provide contemplative opportunities for visitors to be inspired, transformed and motivated to work for world peace, and where if you choose, you can “pray and mediate” for world peace.
A Poem About World Peace
My religion is of the Earth, of the sky; to me the Earth is holy
To me all people on the Earth are holy; they are all sacred brothers and sisters
To me all the birds are holy, all the animals, all that swim in the sea or walk are holy
The Creator has given me life; I am here to serve the Creator
All creation has come from the Creator, we must respect all creation
Within each of us is a deeper humanity of love, wisdom, & Divine guidance
Deep within us the Creator speaks to us as a “still small voice”
All is holy and all is from the Creator and our work here is to love
A great light shines within all of us; we must follow our own light
Remember just saying the words “world peace” to another or to yourself is like saying a prayer, the words go out to the entire Universe where they are heard by those are listening. Saying “world peace” is like lighting a candle in a dark room, and every candle that is lit is like a little seed of hope. Every seed counts, every time you say the words “world peace” you plant a seed of hope in the Universe.
The Institute encourages you to come to our monthly World Peace Lunches, the third Friday of every month at Abu Rasheed restaurant near Portland State University, at 1921 SW 6th Avenue. The May 19th World Peace Lunch Topic Was: How We Can Build Portland into a Center for World Peace. The lunches are organized by the Wholistic Peace Institute and sponsored by the Hatfield School of Government (PSU) and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Our next World Peace Lunch will be Friday, June 16th, at noon and feature Comm. Erik Sten of Portland who will discuss both “What We In Portland Can Do To Facilitate World Peace & Our Joint Project of the International Peace Garden & Linus Pauling Square”.
Basic Human Rights For Everyone On Earth
The Wholistic Peace Institute has been working with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on world peace issues since 2001 when he first visited Portland, Oregon and we engaged with him and 5 other Nobel Peace Laureates on how to achieve world peace. The Dalai Lama discussed the “human approach” as a key to being successful in the Middle East. In the last few years there have been three major Middle East Peace Plans all representing different approaches. Each of these approaches offers strengths. The Wholistic Peace Institute is proposing that all of the approaches and the proponents work together to combine the strengths of each approach and each plan; refocusing the plans into one whole document which has as its goal, “basic human rights for all Palestinians and All Israelis”. We are proposing in this study a new approach, a “Wholistic approach”. This is an approach which favors “wholeness” and a whole solution as the only viable way to achieve peace in the Conflict. As “human beings” we are bound by four main characteristics: physical, emotional, thinking, and spiritual. When we as an individual are “in balance” and “whole’ with each of these aspects, then we are in peace. Likewise, countries to be in peace must also be in “balance” with these four aspects. With this approach we would have to be effective in four main areas in the Conflict, as follows: Physical Boundaries; Emotional Healing; The Right Way Of Thinking; and Religious Reconciliation.
“Physical” Boundaries To Protect Basic Human Rights
There must be physical changes to the borders of both countries so that two intact and self-functioning and self-governing countries can sustain and maintain themselves. There must be two whole countries, with defensible borders to keep the criminal elements out and at bay. Only two whole countries can live in peace together. The Institute suggests that all of the signatories of the Road Map To Peace focus on this “physical” issue almost exclusively.
“Emotional” Healing To Protect & Create Basic Human Rights
An emotional process must be put in place to heal the emotional trauma, cycles of revenge and hatred that have plagued these two countries for over 50 years. Unless a “collective emotional process” can be found, for both countries and institutionalized, especially in the school systems, the underlying hate will sabotage the best peace plans. The Institute suggests the proponents of the Geneva Accord come together monthly to define a national healing process and that they work in coordination with the religious leaders who authored the Alexandra Declaration.
The Right Way Of “Thinking” To Protect & Create Basic Human Rights
It is clear that the wrong way of thinking has been going on for fifty years; otherwise there would have been peace long ago. The Dalai Lama has written that the western mind does not realize the effect of hate and anger on the body. He has compared these two to the same effect of blood poisoning in the body, which western medical science has adequately documented. The Institute believes that the key to the “right way of thinking” revolves around being able to undertake processes which will address the sense of hate, anger and injustice that exists in both populations. New ways of thinking must be found to think about each other, as the “neighbor or brother and the sister”, not the enemy. The Institute suggests the proponents of the Geneva Accord come together monthly until a set of instruction manuals on how to properly see the other side can be worked out and published.
Religious & “Spiritual” Reconciliation To Promote Basic Human Rights
It is clear that Jerusalem must be known as a “world city” one which belongs to all of humanity and not to anyone country, much as the way the United Nations land in New York City functions. In order to accomplish this, a way must be found to bring into the diplomatic peace-seeking process, compassion, reconciliation and forgiveness for a “whole” solution can only emerge with these “human principles” in play.
Warmth Of Heart Towards Everyone
“Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man”.
Mohandas K. Gandhi: October 2, 1869 to January 30, 1948
When Mohandas Gandhi said the words: “nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind”, he was serious and he proved his point by his behavior and his political movement overcame the British Raj. Nonviolence is a weapon and it is stronger than the United States nuclear arsenal because it can take the human finger off the trigger of the weapon. Without the human motivation to rain down nuclear horror on an adversary and the adversary’s children and children’s children (radioactive decay can kill for thousands of years); the United States nuclear arsenal can become a dead arsenal; as can every other nuclear arsenal. Help the Institute to dismantle the world’s nuclear arsenals, first by motivating and inspiring people and nation leaders to embrace “non-violence” as a value, and then when a nation has truly embraced this value, the world’s arsenals will be reduced first, then eliminated.
We have a vision for world peace: that it is achievable; that an approach is available that can work; and that you can assist in this vision no matter what country you’re in, what religion you practice or what circumstances you live in. Our vision is that we will all live in a state of inner peace and from that place of inner peace we will be able to reach out to others in peace and to develop, nurture and maintain peaceful relationships. From these peaceful relationships we will then be able to bring ourselves into balance with the earth and that in the process we will remember how to nurture others, the earth, and ourselves.
The Institute’s work is focused on both promoting a Wholistic view of the world. One which sets as it’s goal, peace-making processes and plans that recognize the inter-dependence of all life and one that the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Dalai Lama calls a “human approach to world peace”. His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls us to action to first form a human relationship with our adversary and then in a second step to talk about and reach agreement on the issues separating us. But to first form the human relationship and to remember our humanity and his or her humanity before we go any further. He also calls on all of us to take a more Wholistic view of reality, understanding that we are all inter-connected and what affects one will affect all.
His Eminence Beru Khyentse Rinpoche; Karma Tharjay Chokhorling; Kagyupa Vajrayana Buddhist Monastery; Bodhgaya said at our first World Peace Conference: “As we are gathered to reflect on world peace, it is only natural to examine the root and cause of peace. In fact, that which is called peace and happiness is sought by all human beings. The source of this peace and happiness is the enlightened attitude, which is ‘whatever one does, is done for the benefit of others’. If, over time, one develops this attitude, the benefit will multiply for both oneself and others”.
“In order for oneself to achieve peace, one needs to be able to pacify ones owns conflicting emotions, for example, attachment, desire, greed, hatred, anger, etc… That is the basis for being able to help sentient beings. Moreover, practicing the enlightened attitude to help other beings will naturally pacify the internal conflict. This will result in not having the wish to harm others, and harmony will spontaneously arise. Achieving peace and happiness must be first cultivated at an individual level. Only in that way can it spread, person by person. For example, if one member of a household truly develops the enlightened attitude, there will be harmony throughout the household. In the same way, if we as individuals develop this inner peace, then naturally peace will expand throughout the country, and ultimately the world. Here at these World Peace Conference’s, we are fortunate to have a number of eminent speakers and Nobel Peace Laureate presenters”.
Daily Nurturance Of Self, Others, The Earth
The daily nurturance of ourselves; others; and the Earth is a fundamental aspect of achieving world peace. Without in a sense, taking care of ourselves, our universal brothers and sisters, and the Earth both as a whole and locally, we cannot hope to bring world peace. How we do that is based on our individual personalities and sensitivities; whether we do it, is not an option. We must learn how to nurture and nurture deeply if world peace is to occur in our lifetimes.
As a human being, nurturing ourselves means nurturing our four mains aspects:
- Our physical bodies
- Our emotional selves
- Our mental selves
- Our spiritual selves
When we nurture all four on a daily basis, we undertake to empower our “natural wholeness” as a human being. As a whole human being, our deep humanness comes out in our thoughts, words, actions and inner thoughts. This creates the type of world we wish to live in, more less, naturally. So daily nurturance of these four aspects is our quickest way to ensure the world we wish to live in.
Daily nurturance of others, our families, our friends, the acquaintances we meet each day means that we learn how to nurture others, so that we become their support group. Likewise as others in our lives nurture us, as the other, we begin to feel their support. As we as a global “community of peacemakers” committed to non-violence, nurture one another, we give each other strength to walk this new path, the path of world peace and ultimately be successful in creating the world we wish to live in.
Finally the daily nurturance of the Earth is critical for humanity as a whole. In as sense when the Institute works to create our World Peace Conferences with multiple Nobel Peace Laureates, engaging in dialogue and thinking about “new approaches to world peace” we work to nurture the Earth. These Nobel Peace Laureates have a special knowledge, a special skill and a special wisdom. By holding world peace conferences in our most dangerous conflict areas and bringing fifteen or more together and asking them to propose a peace plan. We tap into their knowledge and offer to the world a “Nobel Peace Initiative” which could prevent great violence from taking place; much as they did once in their own countries and for which they won their Nobel Peace Prize.
The Institute’s World Peace Conferences are needed because new ways of looking at peace-making and world peace must be defined now, in this age of weapons of great destructiveness. The coming of an awareness of world peace and that world peace as a goal is achievable and is needed today. With a fresh look and new approaches it maybe that a world peace movement could prove very inspirational, especially with our college students our future leaders.
At the 2001 World Peace Conference, Dr. William Schulz, of Amnesty & our Summer Peace Institute keynoter, said in relation to those in the world who help work for human rights, sometimes at peril to their own lives:
- “It is something you cannot plan, it is a tidal wave. When a tidal wave comes over a village you just feel lucky to be alive and to be able to save people-you just do it, You don’t sit down and ask yourself, “can I do it”? It is simply part of your body-the will is part of your body-you just feel it and you do it.”
Let’s start a tidal wave here in Oregon!!