Trying To Find Peace

Me in charcoal, agonising

I've been trying to live in the now to avoid the truth and pain of the past. I have started meditating regularly to help with anxiety. I have been practicing Tonglen, a form of Buddhist meditation where you focus on drawing all the darkness and fear from the world and pulling it into your own heart. Once you've absorbed it (like the chap in Green Mile) you send out serenity and joy. I like the idea of this most of the time.

I've had a lot of betrayal in my life, and honestly, it's been a bit much. There's been days when I have been trapped in a horrible thought bubble of rage and fear and could not think about anything but the bad guys demise. (I want to thank Squid Games for the minor amusement I found in this) On the whole, it ate away at me like an infected wound. I was essentially a dog barking at the moon, wasting my energy on nothing. Anger really does do a number on your morale.

Tonglen requires you to include the whole of humanity in your meditation, (even the pricks... sigh) In order to do this, I have started imaging every horrible person who has hurt me as a child of around five years old.

The reason I focus on this age is because when I was aiming to be a primary school teacher in 1997, I worked with this age group, and I bloody loved them all.

I got into uni and everything. Bloody Tony Blair's "New" Labour got rid of grants and brought in tuition fees. I didn't have any financial support from my parents so I didn't feel like it was any longer a viable option. I voted for John Major that year, and I think time has proven me right on that choice, morality wise... anyway, I digress

While I was doing my A Levels, to prepare for a teaching degree, I spent a year doing work experience in primary schools around Croydon. They varied from the more middle class primary to a school mainly accepting the council estate kids. One thing I realised while being a sort of useless Mr Poppy from Nativity class assistant, was that five years olds are bloody delightful. They are not yet programmed to see difference in colour, class or looks. They are innocent and don't hate anyone. Their main goal is to piss about and let their imaginations run wild. I don't know if you remember being this age, but for me it was one of the last periods where I didn't feel like an outsider. I danced and ran and rolled down hills and watched fascinated as newts grew legs in my cousin's pond.

The one thing I know, is that we don't start off hateful. We learn it. I don't hate my abusers when I imagine them at this age, I feel sorry for what they will become, and would like to remove the messaging and abuse that took them there. I really would.

Despite the Buddhist insistence of no god but reincarnation which makes no blinking sense. I admire their resolve to be kind, calm and gentle. It takes bottle to live like that.

Buddhists believe that desire and ignorance are the root cause of suffering. That by craving constant pleasure, material goods and things like eternal beauty, we are left in a constant state of misery. Chasing wants and needs that can never be satisfied. All the external stuff that's pushed onto us. You get your new car, and two weeks later, it's just another thing you own, and suddenly you realise your lips aren't quite full enough for your Insta selfies.

I think they have a point.

By mediating and focusing on improving your own state of mind, they believe you can reach nirvana. I'm not quite there yet, but it is starting to bring me much longer periods of mental peace. Buddhists only believe that the now exists, and that the past no longer exists. It's a helpful thing to focus on when you've been through trauma. Much like radical acceptance. Another concept that has helped me dramatically.

You don't have to believe in God to find inner peace, but the radical acceptance prayer goes as follows:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Exclude the God bit if you're not into that.

I understand why Buddhists have rejected the notion of god. From a non religious perspective, religions and having the best god have caused endless wars and suffering, and as I've said before, I don't think God gives a shit if you believe, as long as you're a decent person. Religion for sure doesn't guarantee decency. The first genocide on record was initiated by a ruddy Pope. Pope Innocent (he doth protest too much) in 1209 in Languedoc (France now) killing an estimated million people. Having a God, often seems to mean using that God to justify your own desire for power, war and shiny stuff. Religion historically and today, really has been tedious and long standing in its relentless justification for mullering other people.

Plato an ancient Greek philosopher was around 427 years before Jesus, and he came to the same conclusions all that millennia ago. In his Laws 631 he had a good old think up about what brought humanity happiness. It really has been a long standing issue for us all. He decided that there are two types of goods: human and divine. The human goods are as follows

• Health

• Beauty

• Strength

• Wealth

The same things modern society thinks will bring happiness. He suggested that if you receive any of these without the divine goods:

• Wisdom

• Self-control

• Justice

• Courage

Then you will just waste them, and fuck it all up. Like that bloke who won the lottery and spent it all in a couple of years on cars and obnoxious jewellery.

Plato obviously wrote about this in a more profound and detailed way, but the theory as far as I can tell is pretty similar to the Buddhist point of view.

I find a lot of solace in these thoughts. When I feel loved, listen to music, dance, read, make art, have enough to eat, can get out into nature, can laugh, have a warm bed and a clear conscience and feel useful, I feel rich. I don't care about the stuff anymore. It doesn't bring me happiness, it's a trick, it's an albatross. At the end of Citizen Kane, it isn't the palace full of riches and treasure he longs for, it's Rosebud his humble childhood sledge that he had so much fun on. (Sorry for the spoiler)

We've all forgotten what really makes us happy because our lives revolve around screens repeatedly telling us it's external.

Some find words from another brilliant mind.

Johnny Cash - Satisfied Mind (youtube.com)

Happy Saturday, The Minotaur (Em)