Peace
December 26, 2023

Close your eyes—take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Relax around the breathing, so that it feels good coming in, feels good going out. Again, and again, and again.

As the Buddha said, “There’s no happiness other than peace.” And where are you going to find peace in this world? The world outside seems to be bent on everything but peace. But you can find peace inside by developing the resources you have here inside. As Ajaan Lee used to say, this is the problem with human beings: We have lots of capabilities, lots of potentials inside, but we don’t make the most of them.

Simply by the way we breathe we could change the state of our mind, change the state of the body—so that the body becomes a good place to stay here in the present moment. When the mind finds a good place to stay, it can settle down and find some peace. It can talk to itself about how it’s good to be right here. It doesn’t need anything outside for the sake of its happiness.

That’s our problem. We’re looking for happiness in a place that’s not peaceful at all. And so the happiness—the pleasure we get—is going to be only in bits and pieces. Little tiny pieces. If you want something lasting, you have to look inside and develop the resources you have right here.

So make the most of them. Start with the breath.

Ask the body if it needs long breathing or short breathing. Heavy, slow, light, fast. See what kind of breathing is nourishing for the body right now—calming when the body needs to be calmed down, energizing when it needs to be energized.

When you realize you’ve got some potentials in here, try to make the most of them. There’s a lot more than just the breath; there’s the mind itself. The mind can be trained to talk to itself in good ways, to think in good ways—ways that are helpful, ways that are encouraging, ways that provide it with the energy it needs in order to deal with a world that’s not peaceful at all.

So look inside for peace, realizing it’s not going to be just sitting there for you. The potentials are there. You have to learn how to make the most of them. That’s what the Buddha’s teachings are all about. We have good potentials inside and yet we don’t make the most of them. But he shows us how we can, so that we can find the happiness we want, the peace that we want.

When we have some peace inside, then we can begin to spread it around outside as well. That’s our gift to the world.