A lot of people are going to be on the move in America this week as they celebrate Thanksgiving.

Planes will be full. Roads and airports will be jammed.

People will be connecting with loved ones. Tummies will be filling with good food.

But there is one thing that won’t be going anywhere this holiday season — or any other time. And that is the beautiful, timeless peace at the core of your own being.

It’s who you truly are — the very source of authentic happiness and well-being. But how can we become more conscious of it? How can we say “yes” to the peace that is our true home and birthright in this world, as the Buddha learned many years ago?

Here are 7 suggestions to help you find greater peace in life.

How to say “yes” to peace

1. Put real value in silence.

Obviously silence in an external sense is not so easy to find in the world anymore. There certainly won’t be a lot of silence in our nation’s airports this week. But if we really want more peace in our lives it’s critical to open our heart to silence — both within ourselves, and beyond ourselves. And of course it’s also critical to face any fear of silence that may arise in us.

 2. Don’t let thoughts dictate what you do

Our mind is a wonderful instrument, a marvelous creation, but sometimes it takes itself too seriously. It likes to think of itself as the manager of the universe. It likes to puff itself up and assume the role of a dictator. If you really want to find true peace keep an eye on your thoughts. They may be beautiful, helpful, and inspiring — but they may not.

 3. Love nature

Take time to love nature, and connect with nature. Nature has taken a lot of hits, particularly in recent generations. But it is still a friend, one of our best friends. It will keep on giving its gifts to us as long as it is able to do so, and one of those gifts is its ability to remind us of what is true and beautiful — the unfailing rhythms of life.

 4. Give your world a hug

Remember the power of a hug. I love hugs. In the right context, at the right time, with the right person, hugs are a sure route to peace and happiness — not to mention healing.

So when my wife JoAnn came to me last night and said she’d like a hug, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I dived right in. What I didn’t know at the time, because JoAnn didn’t tell me, was that she had eaten something that didn’t entirely agree with her, and was feeling a bit “quivery” in her tummy. This morning, when we woke up, she told me that right after the hug she’d had a wonderful sleep and her tummy was just fine.

 5. Learn to change your mind and “let go”

When we cling to troublesome thoughts or feelings, whether present or past, we harm only ourselves.

We erect a barrier between ourselves and the peace that is natural to us. Learn to change your mind quickly and easily when it is your own peace and well-being that is really at stake. Learn, too, that it is quite safe to “let go” — whatever is changeless and true in you or another person is never lost.

6. Be quick to forgive

Learn to forgive quickly. I suppose this is an add-on to number five really. But I have found the ability to forgive quickly is crucial to inner peace — and comes very naturally when I cherish inner peace more than I cherish anything else.

7. Be patient with yourself

The profound peace that already exists at the core of your being is not going anywhere. It’s who you truly are. It’s the one thing you can never lose. It was there before you were born, physically speaking. And it will be there after you release your physical form and “die”, as it is put, to the world.

So be patient with yourself as you take whatever steps are necessary — whatever steps your own inner wisdom shows you – on the path to a more perfect oneness and union with yourself.

Warm welcome to new subscribers

I want to express a warm welcome to the approximately 170 new subscribers who subscribed to my blog after reading a guest post that I wrote for Mary Jaksch, of Good Life Zen. It is wonderful to have you “on board.”

The title of this guest post, by the way, is “How catastrophe can open a door to a new life.” If you haven’t seen it yet, please hop on over to Mary’s blog and have a look.

Along with this welcome to new subscribers I also offer great thanks to Mary for her mentoring and for her kindness in inviting me to write a guest post for her blog.

Mary is cofounder, with Leo Babauta, of the A-List Blogger club, a marvelous community and resource dedicated to helping bloggers succeed in the fascinating realm called the blogosphere.

Also, please remember my free e-book, The Wisdom of Serenity: Reclaiming Authentic Happiness, is available now. Simply click the download button on this page.

Love and blessings to all, and if you have any thoughts or experiences on saying ”yes” to inner peace please do share them.

Picture credits — Water lily:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3140/3045029671_b37bf65e70_m.jpg

How to say “yes” to the peace of your own being is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

A long time ago, before we got married — while we were still chewing over the whole extraordinary concept – JoAnn and I made an important discovery. We discovered that while we are very different in a lot of ways, we both value inner peace, finding inner peace.

We were visiting an old friend who happens to be a clinical psychologist. Our psychologist friend had each of us write down our priorities in life — and it turned out that while JoAnn, for example, is very practical, and good at figures – which I’m not — both of us put inner peace at the top of our list.

We think back to that little event in our lives once in awhile and say to ourselves something like this: “I wonder if it’s because both of us put so much value in inner peace that we have been able to deal with our challenges and difficulties and keep our relationship growing.”

Happiness is inner peace

There’ll be a change in the masthead banner of my blog soon. The tagline used to say, “Finding happiness and peace in troubled times.” But the new tagline will say — with a bit more simplicity and directness — “Happiness is inner peace.”

I can only speak for myself, of course. But the older I get, the more I realize the truth of these four little words.

If I am at peace with myself and my life, I’m happy. It’s as simple as that. If for some reason I stop being at peace — even for a few moments – happiness begins leaking away in a hurry.

How to find inner peace?

How do we find inner peace?

Do you have to go somewhere geographically in order to find it? No. I used to think you did. I was sure of it. I traveled the world in search of it.

Do you have to read a particular book, or go to a particular workshop, or meet just the right mentor? No. You don’t. All these things can be helpful, of course.

But the truth is that all you have to do is to be still, truly still, just for a moment. Immediately you do this, your mind stops — it has no choice — and you begin to participate in a miracle.

Finding peace at last

All of a sudden, the difficulty and stress and strain that you may have known, for a day, for a week, perhaps for a lifetime, simply dissolves. It’s as if it doesn’t exist anymore.

You find yourself surrounded immediately by the magic of your true home, the home of being, the home of love, the home of God.

Is it is impossible to understand mentally what stillness is, or what being is. But more and more, I find, that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that it can be experienced. We can find a connection with our own inner being that nothing can shake or destroy.

Perhaps that’s not entirely true. We can be shaken. In this very rigorous process of selling our house in Loveland and then finding a suitable townhome in Denver – for example — I have been shaken many times.

Yet paradoxically… as we persist… we realize that our being is not shaken at all. Quite calm and untroubled by anything that is transpiring …

You can never lose yourself

Because here’s the thing. The stillness of which I am speaking will never leave you. And the reason for this is simple. It is what you are. The stillness that you feel when you open your heart and mind to it is your own stillness. It isn’t coming to you from some far-off deity or another…

It’s the stillness of your own being and it will never leave you. In the midst of a chaotic, complex and dangerous world, this is one thing of which you may be very sure:

You can never lose who you truly are.

Picture credit: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2558/3707042668_9cd2c8a9d5_m.jpg

How to find inner peace is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

JoAnn was very sweet, but very firm, as she always is. She had ordered a new shirt and pants for me for Christmas, but the parcel arrived early. So she gave me a choice. I could start wearing my new clothes right away — which is the choice I made — or I could save the present until Christmas and open it then.

“Don’t forget, you won’t be getting anything else from me at Christmas,” she reminds me every now and again. “Of course not,” I say indignantly.

It’s fun giving gifts at Christmas. It’s fun receiving gifts, too, especially when you are little. But as another Christmas rolls around, I think to myself that any gift we receive — or give — this season will sooner or later break down, or lose its luster. It may simply wear out, like my new shirt and pants. Or it may simply lose its appeal, its novelty.

There is one gift, however, that will never wear out, or break own – and it is the gift of our own timeless being, untouched and untroubled by any of the vicissitudes of our lives.

As I sit down to concoct a new post this morning, I am filled with awe and thankfulness for this magnificent gift that is the true spiritual heritage of each one of us.

It asks so little. It gives so much. It is eternal love, and it asks simply that we be still for a moment.

I find that as I am still, surrendering my human preoccupations and thoughts, I become increasingly aware of the vast presence within which my physical form is contained and within which all life is contained.

Every atom of my body rejoices in this presence. It is not separate from me. It is myself. It is my own true nature, my own true character, crying out for expression through me.

It is already happy. It is already free.

May this Christmas be truly different. May it be NEW, because as you and I go about our lives, doing the little deeds that need to be done each day, we remember the gift that has been given us – so priceless it cannot really be named.

The one gift that will never lose its luster is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

Our house was built in 1981. There are two large trees in the backyard, no doubt planted at that date. One is a cottonwood — huge, masculine, towering over our tri-level house. The cottonwood tree is rugged. It has to be. Cottonwoods are prone to damage in storms, and we get quite a few during the year.

The other tree is so close to the cottonwood they almost touch. It’s a linden tree, graceful, feminine, and verdant with the most gorgeous blossoms and leaves in the spring. I could never prove it of course, but I know the two trees are aware of each other’s existence, and take comfort in their proximity to each other.

A family of squirrels inhabits these two trees. Sometimes they cross from one tree to the other in a dazzling aerobatic leap from one branch to another. Sometimes they travel by a more prosaic route, walking delicately along the top of the backyard fence like a model walking down a runway. Breakfast is around seven, when I put out peanuts at the base of the linden tree.

Of course, other creatures come for breakfast too, including a flock of blue jays. One of them is always on watch when I step out of the house in the morning with peanuts in hand, and immediately signals the rest of the family.

I call one of the squirrels “Edward.” He is a friendly, sociable little creature. I know him by the way he behaves and by the fur on his front, which gleams almost white in the sun as he stands upright like a statue, front paws folded as he waits for my arrival.

Goodness. We have so many creatures in our backyard. We have a rabbit, who has been coming around ever since he was a baby. He (or she) is fairly big now, and enjoys JoAnn’s bread just as much as the grass in the yard. We have flickers, and chickadees, and other kinds of birds. A large family of sparrows arrives each morning from we know not where and takes up residence in the lilac bush that grows just in front of our kitchen window.

It doesn’t seem to bother the sparrows at all when we peer at them through the kitchen window. They chatter and chirp away amongst themselves between short trips to the feeder, somewhat aware of us, I think, but unconcerned because of the glass between us.

A raven drops by every now and again for a drink or some bread. Once in awhile a fox walks casually across the yard, never to be seen again. And so it goes.

How rich and abundant is this one life that we share with trees, with animals, with each other, with the sea, with the stars. The forms come and go, of course, our own included. Even the sun dies, as I was reminded the other day when I visited Eckhart Tolle’s website.

Emotions whirl. Troubled thoughts and happy thoughts rush through our lives. But the one who we truly are is not touched by any of it.

Let me be true to the truth at the core of my being just as the cottonwood and the squirrel and the linden tree are true to their truth.

Let me not deny my eternal heredity. Let me be at home in the stillness and peace of my being just as the squirrel is at home in the branches of the linden tree.

Let us trust the timeless Presence that is in us all, from whence all life comes.

Trust life — like the cottonwood and the squirrel is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

“Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don’t seek to grasp it with your mind. Don’t try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still.” – Eckhart Tolle.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” – Matt. 6.6.

I surrendered to my own being this morning for half-an-hour. 40 minutes actually. It wasn’t premeditated at all. I was finishing up my breakfast; JoAnn was quietly working at her sewing machine. The urge came up out of nowhere, or so I thought at the time, the same way an urge from within summoned me from the busy streets of London when I was a young man of 22 and said, “Go to British Columbia.”

I sat down in my comfortable chair in the living room with the most pleasurable feeling of anticipation filling me from head to toe. I noticed soon after I sat down a rabbit had appeared on our little patio and was happily eating crumbs of bread that I had put out for the birds earlier this morning.

There was no effort involved. There was simply the profound relief of leaving my thoughts outside the door, so to speak, rather like in the old time Western movies when a cowboy was asked to leave his guns at the door of the saloon.

Most of the time I kept my eyes closed. Sometimes they were open, as I enjoyed watching the rabbit and the little family of sparrows that our regular visitors to our patio. I felt the peace of my own being enveloping every single cell and nerve and tissue in my body. It was like sinking gratefully into a warm, magical pool in which the outside world and its cares simply evaporated.

Once in awhile a thought rose up to the surface of my mind, but it didn’t stay, because the experience of opening myself consciously to this invisible presence was a bit like having a massage. I relaxed totally. I felt all resistance to life draining away. Concern for circumstances vanished. I realized that this presence in which I was luxuriating with such bliss was the very source of healing and health and well-being – not only for my body but also for heart and mind.

It was an experience of the most profound and intimate love. Nothing going on except a man sitting in his chair. But I do not know what could be more exciting, or more fulfilling.

I bask in the glow still, and in the awareness that this “love affair” with the timeless can deepen and grow each coming day. I’m sure that I will want to spend a little time each morning and each evening engaging in this time of communion. From eternal Being I came into this world — this is where I shall return.

I said at the beginning of this post that the impulse to spend a few moments in this way before going to my office seemed to come out of nowhere as I was finishing breakfast. But as I thought about it later, I realized this was not the case. Last evening, as I was writing in my journal, I wrote: “Let Being increase, let form decrease.”

How quickly my intention manifested itself. But perhaps I should not be surprised that life likes to move quickly as it goes about its remarkable, mysterious work.

I’d love to share any of your experiences along this line. My love and best wishes to all who may read these words.

How quickly an intention can manifest is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age