“The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yea’ to it all.”
Joseph Campbell
In Part 1 of this series, “What is Inner Peace?,” we learned that inner peace is revealed when we receive all of our experience without resistance. The path to peace is actually quite radical. It means turning our attention inward to become conscious of everything that arises – thoughts, physical sensations, emotions. It is the end of unconscious habits and unexamined belief systems. It is a ruthless longing to know the deepest truth about everything, to question, to investigate, and to persevere until we are no longer affected by anything that arises. No more clinging or avoiding, we are free of attachments to situations, people, even life itself. And in this process, triggers naturally release and emotional knots unravel. Life flows with whatever happens, and we are free.
Realizing peace requires a commitment beyond all commitments – wanting to know the truth so completely that we take the risk of losing everything. This is not a journey for the lackadaisical or those willing to accept the status quo. It is a journey into the unknown where everything we take to be true is up for grabs. It requires the qualities of the warrior.
Willingness
Willingness means we are ready, available, and open. It exemplifies the tenacity of the warrior. As we investigate all our stories and emotional and thought patterns, we invariably come up against strong conditioning. Like a train barreling down the tracks, our habits take control, driven by forces we are unaware of.
We need to be so willing to investigate everything, to want to see these patterns and drill down to the essential truth, that our conditioning cannot continue. Investigating deeply held habits is not about fighting with them. It is about wanting to know them so much that the clenched fist of the habit begins to relax. This is the power of the truth.
Courage
Courage is the warrior’s ability to face difficulty despite the presence of fear. At bottom, fear fuels all of our conditioned tendencies that take us away from peace. We’re afraid of succeeding or of failing. We fear committing to a relationship or being alone. We have addictions which are motivated by fear of what we will discover if the addictive behavior should cease. We fear death, weakness, the unknown, emptiness, loss. And each of these fears instigate strategies and manipulations so we can keep ourselves feeling safe.
True peace comes only when these deepest fears are brought out from the shadows and welcomed into the light of awareness. And this requires courage: the ability to turn our attention directly to that which we most wish to avoid, to know fear intimately – its nuanced manifestation in our thoughts and bodies – and to welcome it in the most loving embrace.
Taking Responsibility
Warriors don’t blame, accuse, or identify themselves as a victim. They take responsibility by seeing all their reactions as an opportunity to know themselves more deeply. There is no focus on what the other should have done or what should have happened as, frankly, this is a waste of time. Warriors teach us to take things are they are and accept them as is.
When a situation arises that brings about an inner reaction, taking responsibility means bringing our attention directly to it and welcoming it with tenderness and compassion. Say you feel stressed. Investigate what that experience of stress is like, what it is made up of, and allow each component to be as it is. You might notice bodily sensations such as tension, vibration, tingling. Meet them as if for the first time and be curious to know them more fully. Putting your attention here opens up the pathless path, the way to peace that is never not here.
Perseverance
Warriors stay with it until the job is done. They don’t give in to their urges to give up or complain that it’s too painful. On the journey to discovering peace, we commonly wake up to notice that we have been lost in a conditioned pattern and all our good intentions to be aware have fallen by the wayside. This is a key moment, a choice point, with the choices being: demean yourself and create a story about how you will never “get it” – or take a breath, reconnect with your true heart’s desire, and welcome in your experience in this moment. The decision is ours, always available to us.
Self-Sacrifice
Warriors sacrifice themselves for a greater purpose. Sacrifice means to surrender, give up, or let go of something we desire or love. This ruthless path to peace asks us to let go of our individual wants, including our strategies, defenses, and expectations. We try to preserve a sense of control by wanting what we want out of other people, situations, even ourselves. Have you noticed that what we desire can bear little resemblance to what we actually get?
On this journey, we recognize the futility of holding on to our personal desires and the way in which they distance us from peace. For peace is not to be attained at some future time. It is revealed as eternally present, here right now, once our attention moves away from reinforcing personal habits and needs. It has nothing to do with any effort to sustain ourselves. Peace comes with the end of all strategies – letting go of the need for security, belonging, power, connection – and surrendering into the flow of life, being, which can be completely trusted to provide us with exactly what we need.
Living in the Unknown
Just as a warrior charges into battle not knowing what the outcome will be, when we live in surrender to life, we live in the unknown. The activities of the mind – categorizing, planning, predicting, imagining – attempt to structure reality so we think we know what to expect. Our minds partake in all sorts of mental gymnastics with the goal of quelling our most fundamental fear – the fear of dissolution, of death.
Meeting the fear of death directly, of losing everything including our own lives, reveals silence, peace, the essence of life itself. Our personal lives are seen as manifestations of the whole, like a wave emerging from the ocean. Life as the impersonal flow takes us where it will. Our fear-based efforts have very little to do with what it offers us. When we surrender into the unknown, every single arising is seen as so very precious and everything is received as is. Love is. Truth is. And peace beyond peace is revealed.
Mackeran says
Interesting and informative. But will you write about this one more?
Gail Brenner says
A warm welcome to you, Mackeran. I would be happy to write more. Do you have any specific questions you would like me to address?
jean says
Dr. Brenner, thank you for another insightful post. It really touched (quite literally) upon a concern I’m currently experiencing.
My once cherished peace of mind has been recently challenged by an ever-present noise (a humming) within the vicinity of my home. Neighbors are not bothered or aware of the disturbing sound – though, I can hear and feel the noise in their homes).
You write: “You might notice bodily sensations such as tension, vibration, tingling.” I can attest to this 🙂 The very tension (and vibrations) present through this noise give the mind/body little rest.
This has been a year of much release, letting go of relationships, long-held securities without a foreseeable replacements. Sometimes this feels freeing, other times it is frightening. Through much time and energy, I have tried to release the tension that results from this persistent disturbance, to relax into it – with no true success. To the best of my abilities, I’ve also taken different avenues to investigate what could be the source of the noise. It remains a mystery.
Perhaps this “hum” is a manifestation of a deeper symptom? A summoning for me to release even more. Be it no surprise, I have been volleying the idea of selling my home long before these pesky events.
I question whether the peace of mind I believed I possessed was “real.” My doubts arise as I am currently finding it impossible to sit for meditation amidst the noise.
Overall, I’ve been saying, “yes” more to invitations – particularly those outside my usual filters. Yet, I’m going to need some sleep soon in order to show up for life 🙂
Gail Brenner says
Welcome, Jean, and thank you so much for sharing your insights. I don’t know why this hum is in your life or even what it actually is. What I do know is that it is an invitation to welcome in something challenging, and as you are seeing, it takes the qualities of the warrior. I wish you well…
Lana says
I loved this post. Non-resistance to anything that arise. This is something beyond positive thinking, this is the acceptance of everything even shadows, because they are part of life too.
Gail Brenner says
Yes, exactly, Lana! Very well said. This is beyond positive thinking – it’s about including the whole of life. When we accept everything, we no longer need to strategize to keep some experiences out and let others in. There is tremendous relaxation because whatever comes has the space to be.
jean says
Gail, thanks so much for your caring note. My apologies for so cryptic and twisty wording to my comment.
Yes. There has been an actual, audible “humming” sound that is so distracting and so physically un-nerving that the only recourse (until finding its source) was to “embrace it” with non-resistance – which frankly proved unsuccessful.
The resulting paradox was that the “hum” became the center of all focus – underlining the power of the present moment 🙂
The question I had intended; “How does one get past/walk through the challenges that surround them?”
Or maybe I’m seeking an answer from an “inside-the-box” perspective. Perhaps being a warrior does not always guarantee victory?
Gail Brenner says
Great, Jean. So your question is: “How does one get past/walk through the challenges that surround them?”
The next post I publish will address this question directly, but I’ll give you some thoughts now. The way I see things, it’s not about getting past challenges. The only way to be at peace is to welcome our experiences as is. You say that you did “embrace it with non-resistance” but that proved unsuccessful. This makes me wonder what you embraced and what “success” would look like to you.
In the situation you describe, the experiences to embrace are your reactions to the hum – frustration, irritation, whatever – and embracing them means accepting them fully, unconditionally, as is. When we “accept” experiences, even though we want them to disappear, we’re negotiating with them and not really accepting them. It’s like: I don’t really like you, but I’ll embrace you for a while if you will go away. This is not very welcoming, and the thing about our challenging emotional reactions is that, paradoxically, when they don’t feel welcome, they might go underground, but they still continue to be pesky (love that word you used!).
Our emotional reactions need real, unconditional love to come out of the shadows. When you say: OK, frustration, you are here, you can stay as long as you want, I want to get to know you, I will love you no matter what…then everything has the possibility of being different. The frustration may or may not go away, but it is so much less distressing to you because you are with it in love. And when all of experience is allowed to be present as is, layers and layers of peace open up endlessly.
I love your question, Jean, and your wanting to not suffer anymore. The key is moving toward whatever arises 100% with an open heart. Feel free to let me know how it goes.
Sending love,
Gail
jean says
Gail, thank you so much for your thought-provoking and encouraging message. I had a hunch this was a ‘heart-centered’ issue 🙂
I embraced the dilemma by first claiming it was indeed an annoyance, putting aside all excuses and half-hearted decisions to settle, leaving me feeling intruded upon. It’s when I decided to change my belief about “why” this was happening and “who” was causing it, that I began to see/feel progress toward some relief. I further faced it by asking questions, LOTS of questions, involving county officials, engineers, development planners who are as mystified and curious (for their own reasons) as to what is causing this disturbance.
All said, in choosing the journey to “be in” the hum, to allow my senses of touch and audio to observe the cycles of the noise, I was able to connect that the agitation did indeed stir up issues that have left me with a sense of powerlessness in the past. The noise remains, yet my peace has increased. I can’t explain how this has occurred. It’s like trying to describe the taste of a strawberry; my efforts may come close to accuracy, but not quite. It’s all about the experience.
So far into the “investigation,” I’m developing an even deeper appreciation for the wonderful channeling of energies that everyone has provided to me in answering my phone calls – in addition to one blog post 🙂 Who knew that such an annoyance would also reveal an abundance of caring souls within my radar, ready and eager to assist in finding resolution.
Today, I came across a page from “Saying Yes to Life,” (Ezra Bayda), a small book tossed upon my library gleanings last week. The directly quoted text from page 124:
“You’ll never be free from discomfort and fear – yet liberation comes from not needing to be free of them.”
Opening up your email today further confirms a rich and powerful message. Perhaps my initial question was so convoluted as I was not yet conscious of how to ask the question that would garner me the best of what can be learned from this experience. I loved that I took the first step: Asking.
I truly appreciate the time and insight you have offered, Gail. You demonstrate sincere compassion and a gift for discerning the true nature of an issue, clearly evident by this:
“I love your question,Jean, and your wanting to not suffer anymore. The key is moving toward whatever arises 100% with an open heart.”
Bullseye – spot on, Gail! 🙂
I have bookmarked your blog and look forward to reading more of your perspectives regarding various topics. Thank you, again, for putting such care into your work.
Peace in your day,
Jean
Rocky says
“Realizing peace requires a commitment beyond all commitments.”
That is a great line, Gail ! Definitely borrowing it, if you dont mind ?!
Gail Brenner says
Hi Rocky! A warm welcome to you….I don’t mind at all if you borrow that line – so glad it resonated with you.
vincent esprit says
thank you Gail for this information. It is very helpful, again thanks!
blessings
vincent
Gail Brenner says
It’s my pleasure, Vincent. So glad you find it useful.
Thanks so much for stopping by…I wish you well…