“Inside you, there’s a stillness and a sanctuary to which you’ll retreat at any time and be your self.” ~Hermann Hesse
Once I work with people who find themselves affected by nervousness, concern, grief, or different difficult points, I prefer to take them by way of a easy train I name “The Noticing Train.”
It’s my first port of name when serving to folks break away from mind-created struggling.
It’s superb how rapidly, and effortlessly, folks can transfer from struggling to peace, merely by way of shifting their focus to being conscious of the current second—noticing the feeling of the physique touching the chair, the ribs increasing on the in breath, or the sounds within the room.
Even deeply troubled people can expertise peace the very first time they do that easy meditation.
How is that this doable?
It’s as a result of peace is already there inside all of us. It’s an integral a part of who we’re. When the thoughts’s exercise subsides, even for a second, peace is what stays.
The ocean gives a very good analogy.
On the floor, the water is consistently in movement. It by no means stops, even for a second. However whenever you drop down into the depths, there’s stillness and peace.
It’s precisely the identical with the thoughts.
On the floor stage, the thoughts is all the time lively however, within the depths of our being, there’s a pure peace and stillness that’s unchanging… all the time current, all the time out there. Being a part of our important nature, it may possibly by no means depart us.
Though this inherent peace is all the time there, it goes unnoticed in most individuals by way of the deep-seated behavior of giving our unique consideration to the floor actions of the thoughts.
We’re so pre-occupied with what’s occurring on the floor that we merely miss out on what’s taking place within the depths of our expertise.
And, in fact, there’s nothing ‘unsuitable’ with any of this.
Spending our days misplaced in considering is the human situation. It’s what all of us do.
Being swept away by the stressed waters of the thoughts is completely regular, notably after we are confronted with intense patterns reminiscent of nervousness, trauma, or grief. And but, the very fact stays that, regardless of appearances, there’s a peace inside each one in every of us that’s untouched by what’s occurring on the floor, nevertheless intense it might be.
Withdraw your consideration from the thoughts, even for a second, and it’s there.
You don’t should create it; simply acknowledge what has all the time been there.
Peace doesn’t depart you. You permit peace.
Stress, nervousness, and unhappiness exist primarily within the type of ideas.
If you’ll be able to develop into totally current within the second, ideas subside, and stress and nervousness are changed by peace and stillness.
After all, most individuals will choose up their painful tales once more as quickly because the meditation involves an finish, however the truth they had been in a position to be freed from their struggling, even briefly, gives us with clues for locating a extra everlasting resolution.
With follow, anybody can be taught to withdraw their consideration from the thoughts for longer intervals of time and thereby lengthen the intervals of peace.
Have You Been Barking Up the Unsuitable Tree?
Most individuals are on the lookout for peace the place it may possibly by no means be discovered—not lasting peace anyway.
It’s a bit like shedding your keys in the home and on the lookout for them within the backyard.
You’re by no means going to seek out them… as a result of they don’t seem to be there.
Most individuals I assist have been trying to find peace by way of the trail of self-improvement, usually for years.
And it makes complete sense.
If my thoughts is inflicting me hassle, then the apparent resolution is to attempt to repair it—to ‘work on myself’ and attempt to convert all my anxious and sad ideas and emotions into nice, blissful ones. Attempt to create a brand new, improved model of myself.
However, for those who’ve been down this path for any size of time, as I’ve, you’ll know that basically altering the thoughts isn’t really easy.
The issue with this strategy is encapsulated within the following quote from the Indian religious trainer, Nisargadatta:
“There isn’t any such factor as peace of thoughts. Thoughts means disturbance; restlessness itself is thoughts.”
Just like the floor of the ocean, the thoughts is consistently in movement. It’s stressed by nature.
And, though there might be fleeting moments of peace right here and there, they’ll inevitably be adopted by moments of agitation and disturbance.
Restlessness is the character of the thoughts. Making an attempt to make it calm and peaceable is like attempting to iron the floor of the ocean. It’s merely by no means going to occur.
Making Peace with The Thoughts Simply as It Is
To discover a resolution that truly works, we should first perceive the true reason behind struggling. It’s not what most folk assume.
Folks imagine, as I did for years, that the anxious, demanding, or fearful ideas themselves are the first reason behind struggling.
They imagine that:
- the thoughts is damaged and must be fastened.
- nervousness, concern, confusion, and many others. are inherently unhealthy or unsuitable.
- there’s one thing unsuitable with them for having these ideas.
- they’ll’t expertise peace or happiness till they’re gone.
These beliefs are the principle cause folks endure.
Because the Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello mentioned:
“There’s just one reason behind unhappiness; the false beliefs you have got in your head, beliefs so widespread, so widespread, that it by no means happens to you to query them.”
What if, as a substitute of spending years attempting to repair the content material of the thoughts, we centered as a substitute on making peace with the thoughts, simply as it’s?
What if, fairly than preventing and resisting concern, unhappiness, envy, or confusion, you had been in a position to settle for them as pure expressions of the human situation?
What would occur to your nervousness for those who didn’t see something ‘unsuitable’ with it?
Or your unhappiness for those who didn’t thoughts it being there?
They could nonetheless really feel disagreeable however, within the absence of resistance, they’d lose their energy to have an effect on your peace.
We will wrap our non-peace within the peace of acceptance.
You Don’t Have to Have a Peaceable Thoughts to Expertise Peace
On the trail of self-improvement, the purpose is to seek out peace of thoughts.
However this strategy is unlikely to succeed just because the thoughts is stressed by nature.
Right here’s the reality:
You possibly can’t cease bothersome ideas from arising, however you possibly can cease bothering about them.
One in every of my academics used to say, “You endure since you are open for enterprise.”
You entertain your ideas and invite them in for tea—have interaction with them, ruminate over them, wallow in them, play them time and again in your head—and create struggling for your self consequently.
You don’t must have a peaceable thoughts to expertise peace.
You might want to cease giving your ideas a lot consideration and significance.
If you’ll be able to settle for no matter seems in your head, whether or not nice or disagreeable, with an angle of non-judgmental acceptance, you’ll all the time be at peace.
Acceptance is like kryptonite to the thoughts. It loses its energy to disturb your peace.
The Two Sorts of Peace
There are two forms of peace.
There’s the sensation of peace, which is a short lived respite from feeling stressed or agitated. Like all emotions, it comes and goes, like clouds passing throughout the sky.
Then there’s the peace that exists within the depths of your being; the backdrop of peace that’s unchanging, ever-present, and has nothing to do with what’s going on in your head.
Even within the midst of essentially the most turbulent storm at sea, within the depths, the ocean stays calm and unmoving.
There’s a peace inside each one in every of us that is still untouched by the actions on the floor, regardless of how intense.
And it’s not troublesome to seek out. How may or not it’s if it’s already who you might be?
You don’t want to repair or change something about your self to expertise what’s ever-present inside you.
You simply must dive beneath the floor and uncover what’s all the time there.
The peace you might be on the lookout for is with you all the time. However you’ll by no means discover it on the extent of the thoughts.