Peace doesn’t begin with another person.

It begins with me. 

“Peace.” Hearing the word, our thoughts often turn to another one: “World.” We smile. Then sigh. It’s a lovely ideal, but one which feels utterly beyond us.

Finding ourselves unsure what to do about world peace, let’s consider an alternative: peace in our little corner of the world. Granted, many days this also seems beyond us, but it is at least it’s something we can work towards. Indeed, it’s why we learn Buddhism and cultivate ourselves.

How?

We cultivate self-discipline to refrain from speech that would disturb others.

We cultivate broad-mindedness to better appreciate and respect others’ viewpoints.

We cultivate compassion to see a stranger’s suffering as clearly as our own and to seek a way to alleviate it, humility to realize we acted improperly and need to apologize, generosity to share our good fortune with those who have less than we do.

Succeeding in these, we will help bring peace to those around us.