Noble Truths

When we look at the Buddhas' (Siddhartha Gautauma) writings known as The Sutras we discover his first noble truth that he taught.  There were many people seeking wisdom and enlightenment in his time and that is crucial to understanding his context fully, but for our purposes I will simply write briefly concerning two of the Four Noble Truths.  The first one is "that life is suffering", that is to say we struggle and suffer in this life regardless of status quo, race, creed, rich or poor we will experience struggle and suffering in our lives.  His second Noble Truth is that we "struggle because of desire" that tendency to cling and become attached to that which we desire.

This brings me to saying a word concerning APCIA (A Peace Community in Action), we will lean towards health and healing consciousness.  That is  we will learn and practice exercises and teachings concerning the reality we live in.  Every day I see or talk to those who are in poor health and are full of fear and anxiety concerning their life now and in the future.  None of us miss out on these experiences, but rarely do we find relief from our pain physical, mental and emotional.  Just as Carl Jung spoke about human beings' main drive is towards wholeness and in the words of Jesus who  came to bring "life' including "salvation" (more of a St. Paul use of language), but none the less these both are about wholeness and healing which involves living a life of peace, hope, compassion (love) and community.  A life devoid of clinging to things or concepts and maintaining a "beginners mind" (Suzuki) new mind without over thinking, and a Seung Sahn has written "only don't know mind".

As we get together and meet one another we will be able to explore these teaching in more depth and focus on specific conversations concerning the wisdom from these different spiritual traditions and the change of languages among the youth of this generation.  We can't wait long to train and teach the younger (and older more conservative of those who welcome change and growth in their spiritual journey) population of our community the simple facts from a positive perspective concerning the ancient and traditional with a big twist towards the advances in the technologies available to us today.  We (those of us who aren't computer literate) who tend to be older can use the help and energy our youth have to share.  In short the community will be a group of leaders, not one or two leaders where people gather around a certain individual in the center of the circle, but we are all part of the circle open to that Spirit which is holy and life giving.