It is raining again this morning. Last night there was a 40 day deluge in just one night. A large limb broke off the pepper tree overhanging my redwood deck, and it crashed down during the thunder storm. It smashed the glass table top, bent several very nice chairs, broke the pots of narcissus, and snapped off a number of potted plants. Too bad. I had not noticed the weakened limb before.
So, there are things to do today – when the rain abates. Get an estimate on a new table top. Buy a new chain saw (the one an acquaintance sold me last year is frozen solid), clean up the severed branch, deposit leaves in the recycle bin, donate the logs to my neighbor, repair potted plants, and enjoy the rapturous scent of narcissus while doing all this.
Am I angry? No. Am I distraught? No. Am I distressed? No. Would I have preferred the limb had not fallen? Of course. However, I am delighted the puppy was not under it when it came crashing down, that it didn’t break the window or injure the remarkable deck railing.
No, I am not phlegmatic. I am not unaware, nor am I insensitive.
Limbs fall in storms. I might even have insurance to cover it. Nobody was injured, and the rain did not pour into the house during the night.
I am at peace.
What a blessing it is to be without conflict, without a sense of persecution, to have ceased fighting anything or anybody – almost.
Peace of mind might just be the highest state a human being can achieve on the planet Earth.
It does not come easily, however. Finding peace of mind is not just kicking back and letting go. There is much hard work in unlearning, learning, experience, wisdom, conditioning and balancing to be achieved before there can be peace in a troubled mind in a troubled world. The road of happy destiny can, nevertheless, be a joyful and peaceful experience given the proper form of trudging.
I am reminded of the parable of the fruit orchard. It goes like this….Life is a fruit orchard, and each of us has an allotment of lemons to be tossed into our lives. Many of us think this is pretty unjust, and we throw them back. Oh, oh. Lemons thrown back are returned to us as grapefruit. There is no fooling around with Mother Nature, you know. Eventually we learn to take our lemons, but we don’t take them in good grace. We put them in a big see-through bag and stagger through life showing the whole world how unjust our destinies have been. We devote our lives to polishing our injustice trophies. At some point in this life of travail, we realize it need not be so. Life can be happy, joyous, and free. So, when life throws us the next lemon we catch it in our hand (rather than the puss), and we make lemon-aid. Of course, we donate the lemon-aid too passersby.
I hope you heard the trumpet fanfare and accolades at the end of that one.
Early in the path to peace is the detection and removal of our shame and guilt. Yes, I did some things that injured others. I had some hard feelings, too. And there were the fears. Some of my self-deprecation was false, and I got the help of a dear friend to sort out the real from the fancied. There were also some surprises – things from my past that I had not realized were harmful to others. I emerged with a list of my defects of character, a list of the persons I needed to forgive, and a list of the persons to whom I owed amends.
I have taken the steps I was instructed to take, to repair the damage I have done to others, to forgive (in the presence only of God and myself) those who have offended me, and I have kept watch on my thoughts, actions, and inactions lest one of my defects of character creep into the world. My defects are just like my body without exercise – they get flabby and ineffective. After enough neglect, they atrophy to the point where only their shadows lurk in my consciousness, provided that I pray them away.
But, peace of mind requires more than removal of what wrongs me.
My negatives need to be replaced by positives. I need to become generous, self--sacrificing, sensitive to the needs of others, sober, helpful, honest, humble, patient, loving, understanding, considerate, kind, tactful, tolerant and modest. Golly! What an order – but I must go through with it.
I suppose the basic source of peace is the lack of conflict – where my perception of how things are is not too far from my perception of how things ought to be. The easiest things to change in this equation are my perceptions. Some of the things I think I see, hear or feel are the consequence of fuzzy thinking and old habits of distortion. I learned to ask my close friends to share their perceptions with me. What an eye-opener that was.
Next in ease of correction are my standards, my goals, the oughtas and shouldas against which I measure myself. Many of my standards were hangovers from well-meaning concepts planted in me by parents, schools and friends. I had some of them twisted around. Others just didn’t apply to my life in these advanced times and years. I shed a few tears as I tossed out cherished concepts of right-and-wrong that just didn’t fit.
Finally, the variable I used to keep my finger pointed to, the actions of others and the state of the world, can use some improvement. However, nature, the world and other people are not ready for my improvement. If they only knew how much better things would be if run my way. Alas, they prefer to remain unenlightened boobs.
A Taoist Master and a Jewish rabbi have both explained to me that the world, the nation, the community, and the family are not appropriate first targets of my improvement. The place to focus my corrective mechanisms is right on good old Thomas. Once Thomas is improved, through example the family tends to shape up, and the process snowballs in a circle. Tomorrow the universe!
There is much joy and great virtue in turning the seemingly tragic into a cherished moment, even if the good we can find seems insignificant. It comes down to this: what are we seeking? Do we seek lingering sadness and the justifiable resentment? Or, have we learned to seek the joy of life? I think the Master was correct when he said, "Seek and ye shall find."
Yes, instead of roaring my way over the lake of life in a noisy powerboat, I am choosing the silence of a friendly canoe. I see the star to which I travel, I dip the paddle ever so gently, and the whole world is placid.