Monthly Peace Challenge: Mad Men   This month, be Don Draper and construct an advertisement for peace (using any medium you prefer – words, photos, video, etc)

Mad Men? Madison Avenue, I know, but what about Mad and Angry Men? Anger is the most destructive emotion. You can ruin a relationship, destroy trust, and cause serious pain to others. Sticks and stones can break bones, but words can cause injuries that never heal. Anger is the most difficult emotion that threatens our inner peace.

Kelsang Gyatso (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be achieved unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called ‘peacekeeping forces’ into areas of conflict, but peace cannot be opposed from the outside with guns. Only by creating peace within our own mind and helping others to do the same can we hope to achieve peace in this world.”  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, from Transform your life: A Blissful Journey. 

World peace starts with ourselves, with each of us, individually,

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”― Margaret Mead

Who has changed the world? Who has created more peace in our world? A google search will bring up websites like this one, with names that probably just came to your mind too – Mandela, Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Tolstoy, Gorbachev, Mother Teresa. John Lennon, and so many more. These are people of inner peace, of belief in the importance of a kinder and gentler world. These are not people who lash out at others, who pick up weapons in anger. They are people who believe inflicting pain is tragic. When we think of world peace we think of kindness and love, and people who live by these principles.

If you want a more peaceful world, do you want to have the energy of the picture above, or this one? 

Screaming red man? Or the peaceful river? Lets come and enjoy the river together, so we can come back and treat our friends and family and community and world with this calm peace. This is a good energy.