A Meditation; Peace
by Wesley Birch
Where does peace come from?
I woke up at 5:06 with no alarm, feeling anxious as my awareness is drawn to a slight pain in my right knee… a chronic pain. A reminder from my brain that my health insurance ended on the 1st of the year is of no help to my feelings of peace on this morning. I sit on my meditation cushion, though I don’t sit still for this morning’s meditation. I instead choose 5 different sitting postures to help stretch that knee. I’m not bothered that my health insurance ended; my faith is in the Most High, not the Western Medical system, but the ending of my health insurance watered the seeds of anxiety inside my brain. I guess it’s time to sterilize those seeds in the fires of sacrifice.
To ease an anxious mind, a good tool is to guide that mind into a meditative state focused on a “happy place.” Many practitioners will guide their clients through a series of breathing exercises and help their client conjure up pictures of a place filled with images that bring that mind happiness, peace, and calm. Inside my mind, there is a place where an eternal fire blazes. These fires are never satiated, and will devour anything and everything that is thrown inside. The smoke and ash from anything placed inside rise higher and higher and offer a pleasing aroma to the Most High. When I visit this furnace of sacrifice, I place everything inside, my thoughts, my worries, my praises, my insecurities, my securities, my ego, my non-ego, everything gets thrown into this fire. As I watch everything burn, my awareness drifts up up up with the smoke and ash. “Have it Lord, everything comes from you and everything will return to you.” The weight of burden lifted, peace now residing in the heart.
I have not always been able to conjure up feelings of peace in my soul. I used to be at the mercy of my brain to bring me peace, and it turns out that my brain was not very interested in peace. My brain always seemed to be interested in other things like revenge, anger, hurt, and victim-hood. It was my heart that yearned for peace, so I searched my outside world for peace, assuming that it would come from something or someone else. Perhaps if I’m stronger I will be peaceful; let’s go to the gym. Perhaps this friend will bring me peace; let’s bend over backwards to make that friend happy. Perhaps if I’m really smart I’ll have peace; let’s learn all that we can. Nothing brought about peace. How does a person cultivate a heart of peace? I was worn down, burned out from this journey to finding peace with no results.
Sometimes, the only reason that change comes is because the pain of change appears to be less than the pain of staying the same. Because of that reason, I suppose I am grateful for my past. The pain felt in my soul after my mother told me that I belong in Hell, that I am not her child, and that she has no desire to have any type of a relationship with me was unbearable. For someone who has never gone through true heartbreak, the thought of chronic heart pain from a “Broken heart” may sound a bit laughable, but this heartbreak is a real feeling. My past brought about so much pain, that my options for moving forward were clear. I could either kill myself to get away from this pain (a thought that rattled around in my brain an unsettling amount of times), Or I could give up all of my desire for control and surrender to this higher power that I had learned about throughout my life and be at the mercy of Him (or whatever “it” was).
Through the mercy of God, I made it through high school and college without killing myself and I got married and had kids at an early age. I think this decision saved my life, because I knew after having my first child that committing suicide would destroy my child’s heart the same way my mother destroyed my heart, and I was committed to not treating anyone that way; I have to live. I must give up my desire for control and surrender to the Most High. “Lord, I’m done doing it on my own; walk with me, talk with me, hold my hand and guide my steps. Here I am Lord, take me and mold me into what it is that you have planned. Cultivate in me a heart of peace, void of fear; I am yours.”
Only through the mercy of God, can I now sit quietly in a peaceful state of calm. Would I trade my past experiences to have a loving mother that didn’t break my heart? I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that I wouldn’t trade this relationship that I have with the Most High for anything in the world… My mind is at peace, my body is at peace, my soul is at peace; death has no power over me as I now live for peace.
All of these thoughts can now be thrown into that fire of sacrifice; they are not important. I watch the smoke and ember go up as my awareness drifts higher and higher, towards the Most High; I feel His presence… Peace, peace, peace.
One Love,
Wesley
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