Define ‘peace’.
T.

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Hey Douglas.
It’s interesting you would equate the word peace to monthly living expenses, having ‘enough, what you ‘have’ or don’t ‘have. You come into the world with nothing, and when we die who wants to be the richest guy in the graveyard? I expect you mean like peace of mind, the ability to sleep well because the wolf is away from the door. Thinking over my life I have always worried about money, I’ve never had any. We rent, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a month when there was spare cash after. In the U.K. it has become very ‘trendy’ for rich footballers to get attacked and robbed because they go on Instagram and show off their $200,000 watch, then post their locations, so the local ‘scrote’ will get on his bike and relieve him of it. Can you imagine that, on your wrist, something that costs the same as a house?
. Death is coming for everyone, no one escapes death. The when or where or why, that’s up in the air. My own best friend went to the doctor with a bad cough, same day she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given THREE days to live, she lived nine days. Everything that sucks air or water right now has a time for reincarnation. A bee lives a month and spends its entire life participating in the work of a hive, a domestic ant can live a remarkable 15 years, again works well with others. - “We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years” George Carlin.
I interpret peace as the ability to live without experiencing fear. When the bill lands, you don’t get that stab of fear in your chest. If your kid is late home you don’t descent into worse case scenario thinking. Instead of thinking ‘what if what if’ all the time, you think ‘why not? If the house next door goes up for sale I don’t start thinking my rent will rise. Well that’s a lie, I still do panic! You can choose peace in a moment, in your mind. Don’t have to wear white robes and ting a little bells smiling beatifically. You watch your body is doin inside, get real about how fast your heart is beating, if your thoughts are racing, or are you breathing too fast and spend a minute taking back control. The jail might own your shell and make decisions for it, but what goes on inside is all you. Being overwhelmed is a fatal mix. The most together looking/sounding person can become overwhelmed. Control the things you can change, and accept the things you can’t, easier said that done, You may feel you are ‘nowhere’ in life, but two million of your fellow Americans are there with you. It’s a place. Perhaps outside you would have passed already, perhaps death row extended your life, in an ironic way.? Like I said to another blogger on here, I can’t download case notes because it is prohibitively expensive to do from here in London.
T

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Hello Douglas
Hope you are enjoying the Christmas season. As Buddhists we don't celebrate, or I say that but as I have children we do buy them presents and tuff to open on the day because of the friends they have who also get stuff. I cook a Christmas dinner and we sit in front of the television all day because the shops are shut! This year will soon end and we will be into another decade.
I am quite addicted to Netflix at the momemt. Loads of movies, series and documentaries. In the UK we have to pay for UK station the BBC, and now there are all these pay tv companies like Amazon prime, Apple 🍎now TV all trying to clear out our wallets. Lots of choice and .no choice at the same time. When I was younger, here in the UK there was only three television stations! It's weird that a device has so much control over a person's life, so influential.
Well we just had our election, and the Conservative got in again. Honestly I am too old to care what they do. I see Trumps impeachment seems to be going full steam ahead. I am sure I read that if he is accused of anything he has the power to pardon himself? These are strange days. It's like the worst of the worst are in charge of things. Have you watched the programme 60 days in? They sneak people into county jail so they can report from the inside what jail is like and how drugs etc are getting smuggled about. Very violent environment. UK jail isn't like that we don't have the colour and the gangs bollocks. I expect it will come though. We tend to copy the USA. How can people change when they are placed in a hostile microcosm that has its own rules and laws? It's a system doomed to fail. But no one cares because they don't want to see no at spent on it.
Hopefully they send this today and you get it qyickly. Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year.
All the best
T