February 2006

            It has been nearly two years since our last “official” update on the Assisi Peace Project.  Certainly it has been mentioned many times since then, yet we have not added a recent report to our website.  What has been happening with this project during that time?  The two shorthand versions might be:  “Very little” and “A lot”!

            We might report “very little” if we are looking at actual progress toward acquiring a site in Assisi and beginning work on opening the Center.  We do not have the site; we do not have the money to purchase one.  Our “Dollar for Peace” campaign that so excited us – millions of people all over the world making the Center possible with a donation of one unit of their currency – has so far yielded just over $9,000, far short of the one million and more we will need.

            However, if one looks at the attention that has been turned toward this project within Living Compassion and where we are in this beginning of the year 2006, much has happened in furthering our vision of serving peace through an international Center for Peace.

            You will remember that we had our eye on a particular house in Assisi that would be a wonderful home for the Center.  We especially loved its garden and the view out over the town and valley.  We spent much of 2005 negotiating with the owners of that house to lease it for a year with an option to purchase it at the end of that time.  It seemed to us that if we could get even a rudimentary version of the Center open to the public, the 4-5 million people who visit Assisi each year could see our vision and would each leave a euro or pound or peso and we would have all we need to complete the vision.  Although the owners were open to that idea, they raised the purchase price significantly (from 750,000 euro to 900,000 euro) and we did not want to agree to that raise.  So we dropped the lease idea, trusting that when the time is right, the perfect site will be available.

            Seeing that there might not actually be a Center for Peace in Assisi in the very near future, we began attending to our vision in a larger context.  Immediately, it became obvious:  we already have a Peace Center – we actually ARE a Peace Center!  Our very own Zen Monastery Practice Center has been teaching peace since we stepped foot on the land.  Reflecting that realization, we have renamed it the Zen Monastery Peace Center and we intend to specifically incorporate the vision for the Assisi Center right here in Murphys, CA.  We will bring in teachings from many traditions, and make space for displaying the stories of peace from all over the world that we hope to tell one day in Assisi.  We need not wait for a new piece of property to serve peace in the way Cheri saw when she had the first vision in Assisi. Many of you have read the moving story of peace Cheri told in her November 22, 2005, email and of the suggestion to name our soon-to-be-built meditation hall after Ahmed Ismail Khatib.

            We also began to turn our attention to other ways to spread the stories and practices of peace beyond the people who will make their way to Murphys. 

            We are creating a virtual online Peace Center that needs no physical location and no funding.  There we’ll post interactive peace practices that you can do in your own home or with your own group of peacemakers.  We’ll tell all those stories of peace for you to read on your own time and pass along.  Our goal for 2006 is to have this virtual Peace Center live before mid-year (sooner) and to add to it indefinitely as we discover more and more stories and practices of peace.

            In addition, we are already planning a walking retreat in Italy for 2007, giving us the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis.

            Living Compassion’s everyday commitment is to live practice and serve peace.  We are as excited by the vision for a Peace Center in Assisi as we were the day we first heard it from Cheri.  We are equally ecstatic about bringing this vision to life where we live.  If you share our enthusiasm, there are many ways to jump in.  There is the ongoing opportunity to donate to our Dollar for Peace campaign (link) and to do fundraisers in your community (link).  Above all, we hope you will take every opportunity to practice and serve peace:  come to a retreat at the Zen Monastery Peace Center, join the next email class, listen to the Open Air radio show every week, commit to a regular sitting meditation practice. 

            We have seen that establishing a Peace Center is not a “project” of Living Compassion; it is not separate from all that we do, all that we are.  Living Compassion is a peace project, a Peace Center.  At center there is peace.  From there, all that we project onto and into the world is peace. 

<-Back to the main Assisi Updates page

Receive a free Peace Quote screensaver with any purchase from Keep It Simple, or purchase the screensaver.