The ultimate implication of the words “peace on earth” is to remove altogether the ideas of peace and war and to open yourself equally and completely to the positive and negative aspects of the world. It is like seeing the world from an aerial point of view: there is light, there is dark; both are accepted. You are not trying to defend the light against the dark.
The action of the bodhisattva is like the moon shining on one hundred bowls of water, so that there are one hundred moons, one in each bowl. This is not the moon’s design nor was it designed by anyone else. But for some strange reason there happen to be on hundred moons reflected in one hundred bowls of water. Openness means this kind of absolute trust and self-confidence. The open situation of compassion works this way rather than deliberately attempting to create one hundred moons, one in each bowl.
The basic problem we seem to be facing is that we are too involved with trying to prove something, which is connected with paranoia and the feeling of poverty. When you are trying to prove something, you are not open anymore, you have to check everything, you have to arrange it “correctly.” It is such a paranoid way to live and it really does not prove anything.
Chögyam Trungpa
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