527 Being at peace with ourselves Nov 10th 24

                         Being at peace with ourselves.A Zen perspective

In the following, “peace” is synonymous with harmony, stability, contentment towards,  eventually equanimity of our state of mind.

How often your mood is restless / jitter?

Surprisingly, most studies show that our emotional default mode is, to various degrees, 

on a “non-peaceful, restless state”,  mostly in our subconscious state.  

How is that?

Because we are creating many self-generated, ego-driven emotional triggers.

Here is a short list in a non-specific order:

1- Subconscious fear of death.

2 ”I want, I don’t want” are typical, and very common restless mind triggers.

3- Being in the past triggers regrets and guilt.

4- Feeling of not being in control, or trying to be in control, or fearing losing it.

5- Having frozen feelings, opinions, beliefs, judgment, and labels about someone, or something. 

Their contents are not necessarily based on factual reality, and, therefore may cause a wrong understanding of life with its negative consequences. 

6- Being too hard on ourselves, that is without having enough self-compassion, and forgiveness.

7- Complaining and being reactive against x, y, and z are also other favorite triggers of our “non-peaceful mood”

What Zen is offering?

The Zen approach is always the same:

Practicing mental awareness, that is learning to access, assess, and accept  ( the 4 A )

that our emotional mind is at peace or not.

If it is restless, as it is frequently, we should accept our “non-peaceful” mind, and forgive 

ourselves for not being at peace as Thich Nhat Hanh used to teach over and over. 

You will not die from it even if your ego does not like the words “acceptance & forgiveness”.

On the contrary: 

“The moment we completely accept, in a mindful way,  our “non-peace” mind, it is translated miraculously into a peaceful one. Don’t look immediately for the causes. Thich Nhat Hanh. 

This is the miracle of surrendering, which we have talked about many times in other situations.

Remember that, in Zen, surrendering has nothing to do with being weak, cowardly, 

or lazy. It means “accepting” as a mental tool to achieve serenity.  

Is there a difference between happiness and a peaceful mind? Absolutely: 

Happiness depends almost exclusively on external conditions that we are looking for endlessly, whereas a peaceful mind depends only on ourselves. This is part of Awakening.  Thanks