Confessions of an Inner Peace Junkie

The last few weeks have been a little rough. I crashed my new car, have a loved one who is very ill, and a mother who is suddenly showing the signs of extreme old age. All at once these things happened, as if a dark storm with my name on it moved in and floated in place too long.

I’m no stranger to pain. With life comes loss, comes hurt, comes worry, comes illness, comes death. I’ve grappled with it. My family had little money early on, and we struggled. I grew up in a troubled household. My father was a scary, angry, unpredictably violent man. Memories of my mother are of her just running around terrified. Their strife resonated with us, their children, who for years sought a semblance of equilibrium, a measure of sanity we could live with. It was a tough start to life.

Yesterday, I read a news story about a puppy that was tied to a tree, doused in gasoline, and set on fire. He died a few days later, anguishing in pain. There is never a time when a story like this doesn’t torpedo me into days or even weeks of sadness. For a spell, I lose hope in the human race. It feels like a punch in the gut, an uppercut to the jaw, an amputation without the benefit of anesthesia.

In 2007, I took refuge in the Buddha and started ngondro - the preparatory practices or disciplines of Tibetan Buddhism. I knew my path as a Buddhist was to be of service to others. I know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless. I have a hard time seeing others feeling the same way. Compassion buds in the hearts of those who have known suffering. It seems like a strange comeback, but it’s true.

Suffering, as raw as it is, is transformative. The calamities, as they happen, seem unfair. But the gifts of the universe often take the form of something that looks really bad. And the collapse of our outward circumstances, almost always and for almost everyone, also mean a collapse of our inward identities, which is completely obliterating. 

Sickness, loss, failure, crashing cars, watching our parents and loved ones age and finally die, burying our families – these things that are acutely measurable live in tandem with the immeasurable: love, consciousness, peace, courage, and compassion.

But looking back on the hardships, I think that yes, I was ready for all the losses. The emptiness is what I needed so something new could come in, so that I could change my story through kindness. And with kindness comes inner peace - it’s funny how that works - so that the next loss is a storm to be weathered with all the strength we have in us.

This is what I’ve learned on my journey: compassion in action and the willingness to bear the pain of others is its own path to nirvana. The Buddha taught that the two most noble qualities one can have are karuna (compassion) and prajna (discernment). Karuna and prajna are compared to two wings working together to enable flight, or two eyes working together to see deeply. We are called to act to alleviate suffering wherever it appears.

With that truth in hand, I learned to cultivate inner peace. It wasn’t through meditation, yoga, Ayurveda, self-care, veneration of the Buddha, or any kind of spiritual achievement. It was through service to others, period. I don’t know how or why it works. All I know is that it’s embedded in all of us. It’s the one and only true path to inner peace. It’s the formula that works.

Barbie xo