Why can't we feel at ease? How to maintain a peaceful mind?

 

   In modern industrial and commercial society, life is busy and tense. It seems that there is always something that needs to be done. In addition, the people's minds gradually turn to evil and greed during the era that buddhist doctrine is going to extinguish. And the political environment is more troubled. Natural and human-made disasters occure more frequently. The situation makes people impulsive and can’t live daily life at ease any more.

    Why can't people feel at ease? When we encounter the uncertainty of the future, or see in advance that our future life is not what we want, we will become not be able to live with peaceul mind. We all have tried to change these uneasy factors, but often failed to achieve, so insecurities accumulate continuously, and finally everyone becomes annoyed, and conflicts will occure; This makes a vicious circle. Moreover, when the mind is annoyed, many people can’t notice it right away. We have to wait until something big happens and think it back after it happened, then, we are able to realize that our heart is too impetuous. However, even if we know that our heart is annoyed, we maybe don't know how to use the right method to maintain a peaceful mind; “Using the wrong method to make ourself feel at ease” will waste a lot of time, energy, and even cause other people's pain; In the end, we still can't feel at ease.

    In fact, this problem is exactly what the Buddha taught in Buddhism to solve. Dharrma (buddhist doctrine) can provide effective ways to "maintain a peaceful mind"; as long as you have the determination and actively follow these methods, maintaining a peaceful mind will no longer be a difficult task.

    Buddhism's "observation of breath" can temporarily calm the mind and is suitable for situations that require rapid calm down. First of all, we must be aware that our minds have begun to be uneasy and restless; in Buddhism, this is called "mindfulness"; because things always come one after another, or our minds are busy dealing with what is around us. So we can’t even perceive the state of our own mind. At this time, we should slow down the speed of doing things and tell ourselves: the mind can no longer be calm. I will use "observing breathing" to maintain the calmness of the mind, and then focus on the airflow that we breathe in and out through our nostrils; when our attention is taken away by what is around us, and we forget to pay attention to the in and out of our breath, we must be aware of it in time, and then put our attention back to breathing again. This is a kind of meditation technique in Buddhism. When we keep focusing our distracted minds on regular changes and repetitive breathing, the distracted thoughts are replaced and cannot arise; slowly, The mind will be calm. Among them, it should be noted that "observing breathing" is a method that can be made to be perfect by practice. The more you practice, the more you can master this technique.

    However, "observing breathing" can only temporarily calm the mind. Once we stop being aware of the breathing, the mind will gradually become chaotic. Therefore, in normal time, we must be wary of ourselves not to do things that will confuse the mind. As the saying goes: "If we don’t do bad things in normal days, and we won’t be afraid of ghosts knocking at your door in the middle of the night." Of course, if we do something that violates our conscience and morals, we will certainly feel uneasy; even if we tell a little lie or kill small animals such as insects and ants, it may destroy the peace of mind, not to say if we falsely chase our reputation, or kill other lives for our own benefit,? In addition, the excessive desire for "sex" is also one of the reasons for the uneasy mind.

    But, "avoid doing things that will confuse the mind" is still not the most fundamental way, because this method does not solve the root cause of the confusion. The root cause of the confusion is: the "desires" that drive us to chase continuously —— chasing success, chasing social status, chasing sex, chasing money; these "desires" drive our lives, but at the same time cause disturbance to the peaceful mind. To calm the mind, we must also learn to "let go". What is "let go"? It is “abandoning too many desires and too strong desires”; when our thoughts are full of success, social status, sex, and money, our mind cannot be calmed down.

    Living in the human world, sometimes we will feel nothing can depend on and be at a loss, but when we come into contact with the Dharma (buddhist doctrine), we can regard the Dharma as the support of the soul. From ancient times to the present, many people have found a truly peaceful mind in the Dharma. Would you like to try it?