Disentanglement comes with the calm patience and attention that illuminates those places and moments where we founder, learning to let go and establish ourselves in the simple truths of each moment. Being present does not imply that we erase our past and the impact it has had upon us. Being present invites us to allow the memories and the stories rooted in the past to be just whispers in our minds that we no longer solidify with unwise attention. We free ourselves to turn a wholehearted attention to this moment.
Calm simplicity and peace are not only reserved for those with fortunate lives, bulging spiritual portfolios, or for the karmically blessed. Serenity, compassion, and stillness are not accidents but consciously cultivated paths. They are possible for each of us, born of wisdom, dedication, and the willingness to clear the dust of entanglement. It is there for all, born of wisdom, dedication, and the willingness to see clearly.
If a group of people were taken to the foot of a mountain, each person intending to climb to the top, every individual would approach the ascent guided by their own personal story and by their inner sense of possibility or limitation. There would be the person who takes one look at the trail and retires in despair without even taking a single step. There would be the person equipped for every eventuality with parachute, pitons, rations, and a hot water bottle. There would be the person who throws away the map and attacks the hardest route, driven by the ambition to be first to the top. There would be the climber who manages to ascend halfway before getting lost in the pleasant views, quite forgetting the rest of the journey. There would be the climber who has spent countless hours rehearsing and planning each step of the journey. There might also be that rare person who sees how far there is to go, but remains unhurried, carefully placing each foot on the ground; who delights in the views and the sounds but never gets lost; whose journey is completed in every step.
This last is the path of simplicity—always available to us in each sight, step, event, and moment. It is a path of peace and completeness. The habits of our lives become solid and familiar with time through endless repetition. We see them in our relationships, work, speech, and choices. We learn where these habits lead to agitation, complexity, and entanglement. We also discover that just because these habits have a long history, this does not imply that they have a long future. The willingness to bring to these habits a calm, clear mindfulness has the power to open the door to new pathways of response, speech, choice, and ways of relating. The present, unencumbered by the past, becomes simpler, more accessible, and free.
The Middle Way
In the story of Siddhartha’s journey of awakening, after leaving his palace of luxury, security, and pleasure, he commenced an ascetic path of meditation that involved complex practices of severe austerity. Punishing his body almost to the point of death, he found himself recalling a time in his childhood when he sat beneath the shade of a tree, watching the farmers tend their fields. He remembered the quiet contentment and happiness found in the simplicity of that moment. Nothing special was happening; the birds were singing, the sun shining, his mind and body were at ease, yet that moment was filled with a powerful sense of “enough.” Nothing lacking, nothing to be added, nothing needed—simply seeing, listening, being, and a profound happiness and stillness. It was a powerful memory, reminding him that simplicity of peace did not lie in another dimension, nor could it be gained through mortifying or manipulating his body or his world.
The recollection of this simple peace was the beginning of his search for a “middle way”—not one rooted in avoidance or gain, denial or ambition, but through turning a wholehearted attention to shine upon this moment and discover the freedom he longed for. We need to find the “middle way” in our own lives. It is the art of finding balance. Reflecting upon our lives, we soon discover what serves us well—nurturing calmness, ease, and simplicity. We also discover what it is that leads to entanglement, confusion, distress, and anxiety. Wisdom is being able to discern the difference, then knowing what we need to nurture and what we need to learn to let go. Foolishness is the belief that we can continue treading the same, familiar pathways of confusion and complexity, hoping that at some point they will lead to a different outcome.
The Buddha said, “This is the path of happiness leading to the highest happiness and the highest happiness is peace.” He never said that the path of meditation was a path of misery in pursuit of greater misery; it is a path dedicated to the discovery of peace in each moment. To understand this deeply, we are called upon to reconsider our understanding of true happiness. Happiness is more than the roller coaster highs we experience through excitement, success, or gain. We all encounter these moments in our lives and they bring a delight to be savored and appreciated. But they also remind us to discover a deeper happiness that is not dependent upon such circumstances. Happiness that is dependent on pleasant experiences is a fragile happiness which can trigger an inner busyness that only thirsts for more sights, sounds, tastes, and experiences. Living a life governed by the pursuit of the pleasant experience and the avoidance of the unpleasant rarely leads to a sense of ease and simplicity but instead to a complex web of pursuit and avoidance. Once, when I was teaching a retreat for young children, we spent some time talking about the nature of wanting. I asked the group what they felt would happen if they went through their lives always wanting something more, never feeling that they had enough in their lives to be happy. There were a few quiet moments, then a five-year-old voice piped up, “Trouble.”
Just as moments of delight will touch our lives and hearts, we will also be asked to respond to encounters with loss, failure, blame, and pain. There will be times when we are separated from those we love, face disappointed dreams, experience loneliness and tension, or are hurt by others. Can we be at peace with all these moments? Can we find a simple, clear understanding within our hearts vast enough to embrace the variety of our experiences? Speaking to a community of monks and nuns, the Buddha said, “Any monk or nun can be at peace when showered with praise, kindness, and adoration. Show me the one who stays serene and balanced in the midst of harshness and blame; this is the monk or nun who is truly at peace.” If we do not know peace in our hearts, it will elude us in all the areas of our lives. True peace is not a destination projected into the future, but a path and practice of the moment. Thich Nhat Hanh, the wonderful Zen teacher, once said, “Buddhism is a clever way of enjoying life. Happiness is available. Please help yourself.”
Peace is not the absence of the unpleasant or challenging in our lives. Peace is most often found in the absence of prejudice, resistance, and judgment. Learning to live with simplicity does not mean that nothing difficult, unpleasant, or challenging will happen to us. Meditation is not an attempt to armor ourselves against life’s realities. Instead, it is about learning to open, to discover a heart as vast as the ocean that can embrace the calm and the turbulence, the driftwood and the sparkling waves. Peace is not a denial of life but the capacity to be wholeheartedly with each moment, just as it is, without fear or avoidance. We learn to simplify, to strip away our expectations and desires, to let go of our fears and projections, and see the simple truth of each moment. Out of this simplicity is born an understanding and wise responsiveness that manifests in our speech, actions, and choices. We discover what it means to embrace our lives.
A woman once came to me wanting to be taught how to meditate. She was understandably distressed by the tension, struggle, and conflicting demands present in her life—financial hardship, an alcoholic partner, and a hostile stepson. She said, “All I want is some peace.” After receiving some instructions she went home to practice only to return a week later even more distressed. She spoke of how, as her mind began to calm down, she became even more acutely aware of the nature of the conflicts in her life and what she would be called upon to change to bring the tension to an end. Puzzled, because it seemed that the meditation was indeed working, I asked her what the problem was. She answered, “I didn’t ask for awareness, I only wanted peace.”
Awareness and understanding have real implications in our lives. We need to be willing to be changed by the insights that come to us. When we recognize our habitual pathways of complexity, we are invited to find new pathways
