Chapter 17 - Peace Is Facing Sorrow
from Cultivating Inner Peace by Paul R. Fleischman, M.D.
If a reader were using this book as a practical guide to cultivating inner peace, he or she might now be thinking: I know that mere situational adjustments won’t essentially improve my life, which gains its trajectory only from my own actions and feelings. I want to sail toward peace, easy in the currents of myself, harmoniously related to people and circumstances, and to achieve this I have to consciously steer with peace as my polestar. When life storms and batters me, my goal is to return to course, and the will to do so creates the dynamic resilience I need. I’ll limit myself to sail light and trim. I’ll absorb the wise directions of those who’ve already negotiated these straits, soaked in the soothing sounds of peace, and my own words will add to this score. I’ll befriend all I meet on wing and wave, an unwalled, welcoming life.
But you might feel confused to find, having taken these steps, that you are oppressed by a cloud of sorrow. Yet this would be a good sign, because impersonal and surprising grief is the harbinger beyond the known world of yourself to the horizonless peace you seek, as the story of the Buddha will show.
Dr. Paul Fleischman
Massachusetts, USA
2020
33 minutes
Listen to Streaming Audio
Your browser does not support the audio element.Download Audio (16 MB)
Copyright, 2020 Paul R. Fleischman
There is more information about vipassana meditation at Dhamma.org, and books and audio resources available for purchase in the Pariyatti bookstore.
Peace Is Purity (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Peace Is Participation (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Peace Is An Ambiance: Rabindranath Tagore (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Individual Identity Within Egolessness (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Peace Is Humility or Egolessness (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
The Gateway to Sympathetic Joy (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Sorrow Is a Skill (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Celebrating with Everyone (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Henry David Thoreau (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
John Muir (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Peace in Nature (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Mahatma Gandhi's Mantric Collage (Cultivating Inner Peace)
Walt Whitman’s Poetic Peace (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Speak Your Peace (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Peace Is the Vibration of Language (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
The Shakers: The Benefits and Limits of Selectivity (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Selectivity in Contemporary Lives (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Selectivity and the American Family (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Peace Is Selective (from Cultivating Inner Peace)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Life After Ministry
Devoted To Prayer
Cast The Word
The Bible Recap
BardsFM