Shatter myths about peace

Once there was a famous wrestler we'll call “Great Waves.” He was muscular and strong and knew the art of wrestling. In private bouts he defeated even his teacher, yet in public was so bashful that even his students threw him down. He was at a loss for words as well as inner peace. 

Troubled, the wrestler decided to visit a Zen temple for help. There, a wise teacher advised him.

“Great Waves is your name,” said the teacher. “So spend tonight in the temple. Imagine that you are water. You are no longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those powerful waves sweeping over everything in sight. Do this and you will never again be defeated.”

The teacher left. The wrestler sat still, trying to imagine himself as water. His mind wandered but soon he began to feel more and more like moving waves. As night advanced the waves grew taller and taller. They swept away the flowers and rushed over the statues. Before dawn the temple was nothing but the tide of a vast ocean.

In the morning the teacher found the wrestler in meditation with a slight smile on his face. He patted the man’s shoulder. “Now nothing can disturb you,” he said. “You are the waves. You will sweep everything before you.”

That day, the wrestler entered and won a big tournament, and was never again defeated by his thoughts.

Contrary to popular belief, no peaceful mind exists. Mind itself cannot be peaceful. Its very nature is to be tense and confusing. Mind cannot have clarity. Peace and silence exist without mind. Never attempt to silence the mind. Only as you understand the nature of mind does your life shift. 

Watch and you observe thoughts but never encounter the mind. Thoughts are not one with your nature. Thoughts come and go like visitors. They are like waves in the ocean. You persist as the host. All thoughts are borrowed. As this enters your visceral experience, everything transforms. Awareness is noticing what arises in gaps between thoughts and being that.

Recall martial artist Bruce Lee said, "be like water."  The most challenging adversary is the thinking mind. True confidence and inner peace do not reside in temples or remote places. As we turn inward, go inside our own hearts, here we find all we seek.

Comments

[Bern]

One could say that the mind is the operating system for the body just as the soul is the operating system for spirit. What is on the mind then is merely instructions or intentions to attract situations or spirit for the body to experience and for the soul to absorb. The soul therefore is where intentions come to rest or peace. And yet the soul, when identified with, is in peace when it is open to incoming spirit. The ego can be said to be the mind soul complex. The ego is that aspect that shuts down or closes portions of the soul when awareness is focused on the mind and asking why are my intentions not here yet in manifestation. Lost in time and therefore resistance therefore creates the feelings of fear equating the notion that something is missing. If one focuses on this divide, such a feeling persists and the soul remains shutdown and quarantined.

[Liara Covert]

Hi Bern, appreciate your reflections. Many people locate the mind in the physical head or assume it is an operating system for a limited body. Every view is valid for the one who holds it. We can also be open to other perspectives to build on or expand our view. Another view is The "mind" implies the "heart-mind" or the psychic centre. To say you have peace of mind does not mean, "I had a headache." rather, it implies you have had a heartache too. From this view, "mind" is a more inclusive word, like the centre for psychic activity, that includes and also operates beyond the purely physical body.