3252: Peace Is Your True Nature by Richard Paterson of Think Less and Grow Rich on Meditation

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[00:01:36] Peace is your true nature. By Richard Patterson of ThinkLessAndGrowRich.com And I'm Justin Mollick. Welcome to Optimal Living Daily, OLD or Old. The show where I read to you from articles that I believe are amazing with permission from the authors.

[00:01:52] So with that, let's get right to the post as we optimize your life. Peace is your true nature. By Richard Patterson of ThinkLessAndGrowRich.com Quote Although hundreds or thousands of explanations are given, there's only one thing to be understood. Know the one thing that liberates everything.

[00:02:17] Awareness itself is your true nature. Dojam Rinpoche When I offer free meditation taster sessions to the public, it never ceases to amaze me how people who have never meditated before often experience profound peace the first time they try it.

[00:02:34] Even deeply unhappy people are able to experience peace and inner calm the very first time they meditate. How is this possible? It's because peace is already there. It is your true nature no matter how troubled you may be. We simply don't notice it because we are so fixated,

[00:02:54] so compulsively preoccupied with the mind. The mind is like a noisy radio station that drowns out the peace that's always present in depths of your being. If you're suffering from anxiety, depression, sadness, or other debilitating patterns,

[00:03:10] the mind will naturally tell you that peace is far away or impossible to reach. In truth, however, there's no distance between you and the peace of your true nature. It only appears so. If you can find a way to still the mind even for a moment,

[00:03:27] you will discover that peace is always there waiting to be noticed. Quote, Peace is not something to find or create, but something to recognize. End quote. Stress, anxiety, unhappiness, etc. exist in the form of thoughts alone.

[00:03:47] When we are fully attentive to the present moment through meditation, for example, thoughts subside, for a moment anyway. And in the absence of thoughts, what remains is peace. Of course, most people will pick up their unhappy stories again the moment they leave the meditation session.

[00:04:04] But nevertheless, the fact that they were able to be free of turmoil for even a short time is quite revealing. With practice, you can learn to deepen and extend these moments of peace. Looking in the wrong places. Quote, There's no such thing as peace of mind.

[00:04:23] Mind means disturbance. Restlessness itself is mind. Nisgidada Maharaj. Most people are searching for peace in the wrong places, in my humble opinion at least. When you're experiencing negative thoughts, it makes total sense to believe the solution lies in trying to fix or change them.

[00:04:42] You look for peace of mind through attempting to convert anxious, sad, or angry thoughts into peaceful, happy ones. I tried this approach for many years and discovered two things. It takes a huge amount of effort, hard work, and perseverance for very limited returns. And it takes years.

[00:05:01] When I had an awakening experience in 2004, peace arrived in an instant, like a thunderbolt. Actually, it was me that arrived. Peace had been there the whole time, patiently waiting. There was no need to change a single thing about the mind.

[00:05:17] I discovered what I now call making peace with the mind. As Nisgidada stated, the mind is restless by nature. Trying to find peace in a mind that is inherently restless is like trying to iron the surface of the ocean. Thankfully, there's a far simpler, far quicker way,

[00:05:36] an approach that doesn't require changing or fixing the mind, and which takes no time at all. The moment you connect with your true nature, peace is instantaneous. Your true nature and peace are one in the same thing. The peace of your true nature.

[00:06:00] When you're sitting in the cinema waiting for the movie to start, all you see is the screen. When the flickering images of the movie begin, you soon become immersed in the story and lose sight of the screen. The screen hasn't gone anywhere, but absorbed in the movie,

[00:06:14] you no longer notice it. In this analogy, the flickering images are your thoughts and the screen is your awareness or consciousness. We can use different words to name this. Essentially, there are two parts of your experience in any moment.

[00:06:29] The part that is constantly flickering, constantly in motion, the mind, and the unchanging screen that it plays out upon. We are in the habit of identifying with the flickering part rather than the substratum. The substratum, your true nature, is ever at peace.

[00:06:48] In the Indian tradition, they use the term sacchitananda, which means truth, consciousness, bliss, to describe who we are. In the absence of mind, this is what remains. Let's take the screen analogy one step further. When there's a fire in the movie, the screen doesn't burn.

[00:07:06] When it rains, the screen doesn't get wet. The awareness that is your true nature isn't touched at all by the thoughts, feelings, or emotions that pass across it. It is still, unchanging, and always at peace. This is why no matter how turbulent or agitated the mind may be,

[00:07:24] peace is always available, and why it takes no time at all. There's nothing to fix. The simple solution. When you're looking for peace within the restless mind, you're fighting a losing battle. The mind is restless by nature. Also, as thoughts are constantly changing,

[00:07:41] even if a peaceful thought does temporarily appear, it won't be long before it's gone again. At best, you can find a flicker of peace here and there sandwiched between restless thoughts, nothing that will last. Feelings of peace come and go.

[00:07:55] The peace of your true nature is eternal and unchanging. This is what the Indian spiritual master Papaji means when he says, Don't try to be a peaceful person. Be peace. Peace is who you are, no matter how far away it may seem. It's your true nature.

[00:08:12] What's needed to access it is a vehicle to take us from the surface level of the mind into the depths of our being. The ocean provides an excellent analogy. On the surface, there's always movement, but in the depths, it's calm and peaceful.

[00:08:33] You just listened to the post titled, Is Your True Nature? by Richard Patterson of thinklessandgrowrich.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Think it, Richard always has wise words covering happiness and meditation and how they relate. And in my experience with meditation,

[00:08:50] it's exactly how he describes it. It's funny how something really small happens. Then our mind goes to a story, whether true or untrue, and it makes us feel some sort of pain. Not physical pain, but mental. Either makes us sad, scared, worried, ashamed, guilty, you name it.

[00:09:10] Again, set off by basically nothing, just a random event. But our minds decided for whatever reason to go down that road. And using an analogy like Richard did in this post, when you're on that painful road, you have two options really. Keep going down that road of pain

[00:09:28] or try to take a different road. For me, meditation builds a path to a new road. Without meditation, it's really difficult to turn back around, walk back to the intersection and take the other road. Instead, meditation sort of teleports you to that other road.

[00:09:45] So if you haven't tried meditation and this sounds interesting to you, I'd recommend it. I can also provide some places to start if you want. You can get in touch with me at oldpodcast.com or by replying to my weekly newsletter, also at oldpodcast.com.

[00:09:59] Have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.