BEING PEACE 

The intention of daily practice is to go about in the world being peaceful within ourselves and then with others wherever we are, doing whatever we’re doing as we do it. The Third Practice of the Sāntimāggā Four Insights offers a path. As a foundation for your daily practice, please consider these suggestions:

  • Study the rational views regarding values and personal responsibilities outlined in the philosophy of the Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for New Planetary Humanism, available in (Open Library - free online read after registering) and on (Amazon - to purchase). —UPDATE 2022: Since the manifesto’s issue in 2000, and disappointingly, many remaining Twentieth-Century leaders of political parties and deity religions (and their members), East and West, are vigorously resisting changes that advance personal and global peacefulness. This is all the more reason for individuals of every age, political, and religious stripe to practice peacefulness for themselves and the good of all others. Practicing peacefulness isn’t about the survival, protection, and preservation of political and religious ideologies that ebb and flow with the powers of an ever-changing few. It’s about ensuring the survival of the human family and protecting and preserving our planet.

  • Study Secular morals as principles on which to base judgments of right and wrong: ways of being that condition and facilitate wholesome mental factors and peaceful behaviors.

  • In so far as it’s safe to do so, choose peacefulness responses to your experiences. Three behaviors serve this practice:

  1. Listening and Speaking: The phrase “words matter” is an understatement. Speaking and listening starts with yourself. You spend more time in conversations with yourself than with all others. How you speak and listen to yourself is at the heart of personal intelligence and the practices of meditation, contemplation, and introspection. Peacefulness begins with yourself and how you view yourself. When you have a solid sense of self-understanding, you cope better and grow from the difficulties and mistakes in your life.

    Listening to and speaking with others is a primary survival skill; they are to peacefulness what inhaling and exhaling is to living. Besides the Buddhist practice of loving speech and deep listening, use empathic listening and nonviolent communication to speak, write, and amicably argue your beliefs with others. Respect their needs and feelings and your own. These skills make your intention to practice for yourself and for the good of all others a realistic possibility.

  2. Empathizing and Responding: Use empathy and perspective-taking to imagine yourself in another’s frame of reference or situation. This practice helps you recognize and understand their feelings and why they have them, and respond to their needs and feelings appropriately.

  3. Wise Livelihood and Consumption: This practice is critical for the well-being and preservation of all life forms and our shared planet’s biosphere. Identify and follow various economic, behavioral, and environmental science organizations to stay abreast of their findings. Then, apply your understanding to your livelihood and mindful consumption and how doing so influences all living things, global peace, and planetary preservation. And as far as practical, incorporate their guidance into how you produce and consume material goods and services. 

    Again, as far as practical, avoid consuming goods and services from suppliers and producers whose processes contribute to environmental pollution and global warming.

    Wise consumption also includes what you put into my consciousness. What you read, see, and hear through various media and social networks can be as damaging to your mental well-being and peacefulness as industrial pollutants and forever chemicals are to your body and the planet’s environment.

Few of us are likely to influence peace on a grand scale because our sphere of influence is limited. We’re one among billions. But, as a daily practice, billions of ones being peaceful with other ones is how we collectively share in the responsibility for the peace we all want.