If you don’t believe this, picture the scene when you last felt totally at peace… lying in the sun on the beach; curled up with a good book; strolling hand in hand through the park with the person you love… Are you there, completely, in your mind? Appreciate it, because I’m about to spoil it.
Now remember something that annoyed you… the person who always leaves their dirty coffee cup on your desk; the people who pushed onto the train or bus before you had a chance to get off; your boss giving you yet another ridiculous deadline… What’s happened to your total peace?
Try it again from the top, only this time, before you picture your peaceful scene, tell yourself that your peace is the most important thing, that peace is like a calm sea, that you can keep it with you come what may, that you can stay serene, with a stillness in mind. Go to your peaceful scene and feel good. Then let that annoying thing into your thoughts, but also keep in your mind the calm sea and being serene. Chances are, you’ll be able to think about what annoyed you but it won’t get you worked up.
So, you might find peace watching a sunset, or sitting on a beach or by a lake with the water lapping at your feet, but peace can also be a barefoot walk in a local park with the roar of traffic only a couple of hundred yards away, or sinking into the seat after you’ve just rushed for the bus.
Peace is an attitude of mind. And the key is one mind. The trouble with your mind is that it’s everywhere; and all at once. You can’t literally think of two things at the exact same moment, but your mind flits so fast from one thing to another that it seems like that. It never stops. There is something going on all the time. What’s more, it often doesn’t have much to do with what is actually happening or what you’re actually doing. It’s babble. If you’re lucky it might be sensible commentary, but it’s more likely to be something from the past, or it might be something you’re guessing about the future, but it probably isn’t connected with right NOW.
If your mind is completely focused on what is around in the moment, they are either aware of what you are doing and keeping it going, or you’re reflecting on what you feel. Those are the only two possibilities.
Go back to your feeling of peace. You were bringing up a memory, which gave you your feeling of peace. If you wanted to, you could stay with this feeling and then the tale of that person who just annoyed you is just that… a story about something, which has gone and didn’t have to disturb your calm.
This fits in with how we think of mindfulness. When you are being mindful, you have your attention on what is immediately happening for you, without even making an issue of whether you like it or not, just being aware of what it is and how it’s happening. If it’s something which you are actually doing yourself, then you are simply focused on doing it, like the Zen maxim, when you’re sitting just sit, when you’re standing just stand, when you’re washing up just wash up! (The last one is mine.)
Just doing something – one mind, without the background babble – is being mindful. And it brings peace.
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