The paradox of finding peace.

[blueberry pastry]

I was looking out my window today, looking at the trees as I drank tea. I watched the leaves gently rustling against the wind as I looked up at them.

I recalled a memory of me doing the same thing as a child. I recalled how peaceful and how in the moment I was. The world narrowed down to just that point. Just those trees. It felt very vivid. A sense of congruence with the moment. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. I quickly realized the contrast between then and now. I notice that while I am doing the same thing as an adult, I am not quite here as fully as I was a child. Rather, there is an odd distance between me and the moment. I was observing myself watching the trees, not watching trees. In neuroscience, I believe (take this with a grain of salt) this is mostly because of the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the default mode network (DMN), the area in the brain that handles metacognition or "thinking about your thinking". At 20 years old, this part of my brain is still maturing, but as a child— and this was the main difference between then and now, is that it wasn't completely online yet. There were no thoughts that were pulling me from the present. I literally could not have these thoughts. I was simply there, in the moment, watching trees.

It's been some time since OCD had a complete stranglehold on my life. I haven't felt the anxiety that once compelled me to keep me ruminating for hours in some time. But, there was always something off. I always felt like I wasn't done. Like if I looked up at the trees, I wasn't completely at in the moment and at peace. I kept searching for answers. Hoping I'd find something that would help me get the perspective I needed to find out why I couldn't just be at peace. Eventually I realized something crucial and despite knowing exactly what the issue was, the exact way to follow through was difficult to understand. Here is my note:

Experiental means experience. Experience is the conscious process of living through events

Every moment I don't actively try to understand (problem solve) experientally. The more I don't need to.

The brain updates through lived contradiction, not analysis (this is the basis of ACT and ERP therapy).

The direct 1:1 solution to my dilemma is not in written word or analysis. In fact, to use further written word or analysis is to add more road in front of me. The solution simply lies in experience, right now, in the present as I actively stop problem solving.

Thus I stop speaking and I go do something else.

Loslassen.

---

There is a concept in Eastern thought that describes something that cannot be explained. That being the idea of the "Tao" from Taoism. It reminded me of my note.

The Tao is not something that can be understood or described with language, logic or any kind of analysis. It is present in all things. The closest way to describe it is that it is a lack of friction moment to moment. It's like a boat flowing quietly down a river at night. It doesn't fight the current. It flows seamlessly without friction. The boat does not question or argue with the water, it is in harmony with it. It doesn't do anything and it's perfect. In Taoist thought, this is described as "wu wei" or action through inaction. The boat does not force anything on it's own and yet it moves seamlessly and perfectly.

Something I learned long ago is that peace creeps up on you the way sleep might. You don't realize you've fallen asleep until you've woken up the next day. You cannot force peace in the same way you force yourself to fall asleep. It just... happens. Likewise, you don't realize you're at peace until after it happens, typically when you become self-aware again (metacognition activates).

What I've been doing for so long is trying to force peace. That perhaps the right understanding— the right thoughts might deliver the kind of presence I had as a child. I was fighting the current of a river, paddling against it and exhausting myself half to death in doing so.

---

I felt quite tired as I contemplated why I could not feel peace as I looked up at the tree. I gave up for the day and went to reach for my cup of tea, knowing I'd be trying to figure it out some more later like I always do. I drank my tea and in this moment of surrender I felt my shoulders relax and the tension leave my head.

Then it struck me like a lightning bolt.

It is the very pursuit of peace (being without friction) that pushes you away from it. If I give up on finding peace, I find it. The pursuit of peace is in it of itself friction. It suggests there is a problem that must be solved. If you give up on finding it (searching, rationalizing, analyzing, optimizing), you gain that very peace. This is the paradox.

More broadly, intelligence evolved to solve novel problems, not everyday life. I was simply misapplying my intelligence towards feeling peace and life in general (leaning into somatics [the feeling of your feelings] is easier in this regard. Feelings are mental shortcuts/heuristics).

From a Taoist perspective I see it like this.

If I give up on finding the Tao, I find it.

And likewise:

If I give up on finding peace, I find it.

---

I was a fisher on a boat who somehow felt like through their own effort could reach their home. They exhausted themselves completely in padding against the current of the river. So they tried to find the most optimal way to paddle. They read books on paddling. They argued with the paddle. They prayed to it. They asked the paddle to discuss it's feelings. It wasn't until they gave up and threw the paddle into the water that they realized the river's current had already taken them home.

Action through inaction (wu wei).

---

The funny thing is that of all of this worked only because I genuinely gave up, not because I intentionally deployed surrender (all of this is isn't really knowledge in the usable/spammable sense). You can't genuinely give up intentionally just like you can't intentionally be spontaneous. It will just happen, again, like sleep. And much like sleep, it can happen quite often if you let it.

The Tao/peace comes when you stop trying, so I'll stop and just live my life. I'll live my life whether if it sucks in the moment or doesn't without expectation. If peace/Tao comes, it comes. If doesn't, that's cool too. Peace is no longer a possession for me to secure and my own metacognition is no longer a problem to be solved. I'm just glad I don't have to search for anything anymore, ironically I find it more when I don't.

Regardless, I'll enjoy my fish.

Thanks for listening, I hope this helps someone out there. Do note these are only my opinions. What applies to me may not apply to you. You should question everything.

[KathyLauren]

Well done, Grasshopper!

It is the very pursuit of peace (being without friction) that pushes you away from it.

In a Buddhist context, this is the Third Noble Truth: the cause of unsatisfactoriness is grasping.

Thank you for the lovely meditation!

[Lori Dee ✅]

Thanks for this, Blueberry.

This has been my own experience as well. Peace is not a thing that you can find and hold; it is a condition. Which implies, like trying to sleep or trying to relax, becomes counterproductive effort. Instead, the answer is to just allow it to happen.

[Dances With Trees]

Thanks, Blueberry!

I'm in the early stages of cognitive decline. Among the few silver linings is anticipation of a gradual collapse into NOW.

Gardens have always been a huge part of my identity. I learned long ago that if I walked through the garden in search of peace, I seldom found it. But if I focused on pruning and planting, weeding and watering, I often did.

[Stottie Girl]

And you are just 20 years old? I wish I had come to that level of understanding at that age!

I find I can more easily attain peace when out in nature. My mind can just sort of switch off. I have a place not far from me where there is a very quiet river walk and I have a regular spot where I sit, right by the waters edge and I can listen to the water bubbling over the remains of an old weir. I rarely see anybody else there. I go there to take photographs but more often than not I just lie back and close my eyes and zone out. It's one of my favourite places to be as it completely clears my mind, I think of nothing but the sound of the water, it's so lovely, time seems to stand still. The same is true when I'm in the mountains or a quiet woodland. Or where the only noise is birdsong. Unfortunately in modern life I find distractions are everywhere and it is rare to find somewhere that allows you to find peace.

At home I can only get that level of peace by lying on my bed and donning a pair of ear defenders, closing my eyes, slowing my breathing and I eventually achieve a similar effect though it's much harder and sometimes not possible. I guess removing one or more senses helps.

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

Very lovely words and enjoyed reading them. I don't really know what peace is to understand if / when I've experienced it.

[Dawn Kellie]

If this is to depressing for this thread I apologize in advance.  I'm in a bit of a depressive funk.
Peace is just what you are happy to live with.

[Stottie Girl]

If this is to depressing for this thread I apologize in advance.  I'm in a bit of a depressive funk.
Peace is just what you are happy to live with.

I found I could not sufficiently switch off my mind when I was sufferring with depression. But give it a try Kellie, try and find your happy place. Personally I found keeping the mind active and distracted was the best way to combat depression. For me, the mindfullness stuff was for dealing with stress and anxiety.

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

If this is to depressing for this thread I apologize in advance.  I'm in a bit of a depressive funk.
Peace is just what you are happy to live with.

I kinds agree althougb wouldn't say its the level youre happy to live with, but more what your mind allows you. I have only felt true peace whilst under certain substances.

Charlotte

[blueberry pastry]

@Dances With Trees

"I'm in the early stages of cognitive decline. Among the few silver linings is anticipation of a gradual collapse into NOW."

I'm sorry that you have to carry that burden. It is unfair that you have to, but what I admire in you is that despite that you still look for a silver lining. I feel like many people would probably fight and curse against something like this.

I can only give this (unsolicited) anecdote of mine from the little life experience I have. One of the most helpful things I've learned is that the main root of anxiety lies in uncertainty.

The crux of my problem was seeking certainty in an uncertain world where certainty cannot be found. If I couldn't change the fact of uncertainty, then the real problem lay in my relationship to it.

If I kept trying to achieve perfect understanding— perfect certainty. I'd suffer needlessly. The anguish that comes from just being human is inevitable, but the suffering that comes from struggling with the former can be made optional I reckon. I believe this is called the two arrows in Buddhism.

I love this very much:

"Gardens have always been a huge part of my identity. I learned long ago that if I walked through the garden in search of peace, I seldom found it. But if I focused on pruning and planting, weeding and watering, I often did."

One because I love gardening . Two, because it just helped me understand the role attention and immersion has in peace. You put it beautifully and succinctly, thank you! And three, because I think it underscores the value presence has in our lives. Neither the past or future exist, they are only mental abstractions. Worry has its uses, but we humans tend to overapply it. Thus pulling us out of the only real reality, that being the NOW. Quite frankly, I think it's the only thing that really matters.

On that note:

@Dawn Kellie

"Peace is just what you are happy to live with."

I agree with you, but I think that caveat (in my opinion) is that it doesn't necessarily need to entail bitterness.

Humans are the only animal on Earth that endlessly torture themselves long after something painful has happened. Unless we are taught otherwise, I think it's in one way or another our natural inclination. One day, I'll lose my beauty and youthfullness. One day I will lose those who I love. The grief will be very real. But I won't torture myself wishing what is, isn't.

For me, that entailed understanding how my mind works. When I did so my life changed drastically.

A quote I live by is:

"If you don't make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate."

By that extension, the Buddha said that the root of all suffering is ignorance. If I were to hand Minecraft to someone who never played video games, they'd suffer playing it. They'd throw the control in anger and give up. It's only until they watch some tutorials, experiment and learn to play the game that it becomes easier and enjoyable. The game perhaps is your mind and what becomes enjoyable after learning to play is life.

Anyway, just a thought (thoughts?). Thank you for sharing with me!

[Pema]

@blueberry pastry, I love that you're contemplating your experience of peace and what allows it to arise within you. And I think you're asking yourself the right kinds of questions.

You can't genuinely give up intentionally just like you can't intentionally be spontaneous. It will just happen, again, like sleep. And much like sleep, it can happen quite often if you let it.

Ah, but you can learn to surrender to peace at will. As Kathy said, Buddhism describes the cessation of suffering as the Third Noble Truth. Eckhart Tolle talks about letting go of what does not serve you at length in his books Stillness Speaks and The Power of Now. "Unhappiness" results not from our circumstances but from our own thoughts, and we can literally choose to get out of our heads and be present in the moment - and thereby experience peace and joy.

I say this as someone who became fascination with metacognition when I was around 6 years old. I'd watch my mind just absolutely fly through every imaginable topic, and I'd wonder "Why do I do this?!?" I was also severely asthmatic, so at the same time I learned to be extremely aware of my breathing and to relax and let it (whatever it was) breathe as naturally as possible. I discovered that I couldn't do both at the same time - focus on breathing and live a vivid life inside my mind. It was a means of quieting my mind. In that sense, asthma was a gift.

I eventually grew out of my asthma and wound up in an extremely mind-focused way of life where I mostly forgot everything I had learned as a child. Every now and then I'd get some reminder and find my way a little bit closer to that path. Then, last year, I read Eckhart - and it all clicked into place. This was something I'd known. And that was when I realized I'm transgender.

It sounds contradictory, but surrendering to peace takes practice. Most of us have been conditioned, both explicitly and implicitly, throughout our lives not to surrender and be in peace. We believe that we're supposed to "manipulate the world" to conform to expectations (ours and others'), and if it isn't already that way, we should be displeased about that. All we have to do is accept what is and choose to be in gratitude. It's literally that simple. And every time we do it and feel the peace (and the joy!), we make another dent in the lifelong conditioning and forge a new neural pathway.

Some things can't be coerced by the mind into being. In fact, I think some of the best things of this life fall into that category. We have to get out of our minds to be truly free.

[blueberry pastry]

Thank you @Pema for your thoughtful response!

Eckhart Tolle talks about letting go of what does not serve you at length in his books Stillness Speaks and The Power of Now."

I feel like I've been hearing about Eckhart Tolle's work, specifically these two books, too often to not start reading them. I'll absolutely pick up a copy of them. Thank you!

"Unhappiness" results not from our circumstances but from our own thoughts, and we can literally choose to get out of our heads and be present in the moment"

You've mentioned that quote to me before and I've held onto it these past few months since you've told me. It's gotten more and more relevant as I've circled closer to what peace is. I think I've been taking the quote a bit too figuratively instead of literally. As I discussed before, I did come into the paradox of chasing peace being the thing that makes it go away. I think in the spirit of what you said, there is a distinction between forcing peace like I was doing and letting go intentionally. I think the weird cognitive thing I was fearing when I wrote this:

You can't genuinely give up intentionally just like you can't intentionally be spontaneous. It will just happen, again, like sleep. And much like sleep, it can happen quite often if you let it.

Was forcing the letting go of peace, which sounds paradoxical. But as you rightly pointed out, you can learn to surrender to peace at will. I assume at both a micro (mechanically in meditation) and a more macro (mentally in awareness and understanding) level if that makes sense. In my caution, I overlooked that which brings me to this:

I was also severely asthmatic, so at the same time I learned to be extremely aware of my breathing and to relax and let it (whatever it was) breathe as naturally as possible. I discovered that I couldn't do both at the same time - focus on breathing and live a vivid life inside my mind

I just tried this right now and you are 100% right in that you cannot do both. I've tried meditation before, but not with this kind of framing. I suppose I kind of blanketed meditation as a means of forcing. I'd like you to know that what you just illustrated for me is actually very pivotal for me. Thank you, truly. Also what an amazing realization to come at six years old! I'm glad you rediscovered it.

In that sense, asthma was a gift.

I feel the same way about OCD. I've always viewed it both as a blessing and a curse. A curse because it used to be genuinely debilitating and added a huge cognitive load onto just daily life. But an absolute blessing, because it forced me to look inward and understand my own mind. On peace specifically, I think OCD sharpened the question of peace to the point where it could not be ignored. That is why I seem unusually aware for my age. The question just happened to force itself onto me earlier in life. It sucked initially, but I'm glad it happened.

It sounds contradictory, but surrendering to peace takes practice. Most of us have been conditioned, both explicitly and implicitly, throughout our lives not to surrender and be in peace.

I think this is what I had been circling without knowing for a long time. Every OCD theme or general questioning against what I've been implicitly or explicitly taught has been about surrendering into peace. Whether it was accepting anxiety with ACT, bruteforcing ERP and intentionally exposing myself to triggers or just questioning what I've been taught about creating circumstances forcefully or conforming, it's always been about letting what is, be, without struggling with it. It's why I found Taoist thought to be so interesting because the only real way to find the Tao is to give up. More specifically, it's to neither suppress nor grasp onto things, rather to just let things be. That would apply to one's own nature.

This was something I'd known. And that was when I realized I'm transgender.

The way I personally read this— and you're welcome to correct me, is you simply let your nature be. You neither suppressed this nor did you grasp onto the idea tightly. It's just... you, in the same way a leaf floats down a stream or moonlight reflects in water. It ties back to what Kathy said about the Third Noble Truth:

In a Buddhist context, this is the Third Noble Truth: the cause of unsatisfactoriness is grasping.

It's surrender into what... is. Which I now know thanks to you can be intentional. Thank you again.

Some things can't be coerced by the mind into being. In fact, I think some of the best things of this life fall into that category. We have to get out of our minds to be truly free.

I agree. You put the idea more succinctly then I when I spoke to Dances With Trees and Kellie. I think this is sort of the crux of it all.

Thank you for sharing this with me, you've given me something important here.

[Sarah B ✅]

Hi blueberry pastry

Great one, young Padawan.  You have a lot of wisdom in you for someone so young.

I found a similar kind of peace back in the early 1980s, not by thinking my way into it but by doing something simple.  Swimming lap after lap with nothing to look at except that black line on the pool floor.  Somewhere along the way the mind stops trying to solve the riddle of life itself and you just, swim.  I used to half-smile and wonder, where does that black line go?  And with no music, mind you.

Later I stumbled onto another "religion of peace" via HHGTTG and of course the venerable answer to life, the universe and everything: 42.  Funny how often the best answers are the ones that stop you from overworking the question.

For me the deeper peace arrived 37 years ago, not with a grand revelation but with a quiet settling. These days I still find peace from small ordinary moments, swimming in the morning, living on my property and a morning cuppa in hand, looking out over the countryside from the patio.  No chasing.  No forcing.  Just being here and there.

Therein lies "The paradox of finding peace."  It is different for everyone and sometimes it shows up only after you stop trying to manufacture it.  Maybe that is the point, life is not a problem to solve but a moment to inhabit and peace is what arrives when we finally stop arguing with the moment.

After years of searching for the meaning of life I found it was not a number at all.  It was this, sip the tea, swim the laps, stop arguing with the universe, ignore Marvin and if life still insists on being weird, call it 42 and go and live the good life.

Best Wishes Always
Sarah B
Global Moderator
@blueberry pastry