Inner Peace: definitions and ways towards peace by people much smarter than I
Ekhart Tolle tells us that inner peace only exists in the present moment. Mentally because we are always somewhere else, we don’t give our attention to the the present moment and create upset looking for something more significant. The more you honor the small things, the less you victimize your life, the more peace you have. Watch Tolle explain.
The (14th) Dalai Lama’s primary philosophy is about world peace starting with inner peace. I’d suggest that these philosophies are most applicable during this trying time in our country. One of the Dalai Lama’s many suggestions is disarming anything that moves us away from compassion from ourselves and others. He suggests if we practice self compassion, compassion for our communities, and lastly compassion for the world, we will be in much better shape. Watch multiple clips on self and community compassion here.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at UMASS Medical school, professes that the way to inner peace is through meditation. “Just this moment, just this breath, just this sitting here, just this being human. Just this. Just this.” Learn more about Jon Kabat-Zinn and find resources on his website.
Baby Steps towards Inner Peace
Inner peace is not a maintenance strategy. Personally, I can say that I’ve certainly gone through seasonal ebbs and flows of ‘bits’ of peace and the raging fires of anxiety. Tonight I read a Buddhist book that ended with “and you will get close to it [inner peace] when you die.” Nevertheless, I am grateful that I, and so many of YOU, keep trying.
Part of the problem in pursuing peace is there is only so much pursuing you can do. So much of the work is on purely releasing energy which is not that of peace. A practitioner much wiser than I shared with me that non-peace inducing emotions are about our grip on to them. If we imagine emotions like anger, if we lance them, like a boil, we can breathe and release into peace. Meditation, through guided imagery, silence, breath, grounding, nature, sound, and on and on, is key.
Still siomany clients, like I, are so determined to achieve. They often ask, “but what exactly do I do, step by step, to get there?” but their vigor in pursuing peace sometimes backfires. The more overachievers chase after it, the more elusive it becomes. It’s like trying to catch a cup of water with our hand—it can’t be captured. The paradox of pursuing peace is that sometimes the more we try to fix or force ourselves into a state of peace, the further they get from it. True peace comes not from striving but from an understanding that peace exists only in the present moment, not a millisecond in the past or future.
When we chase peace, we tend to ignore the messier aspects of ourselves—the anger, the fear, the frustration—and this neglect creates a tension that prevents peace from settling in. To truly cultivate peace, we need to stop fighting with ourselves, first, and then with the world around us. Instead of forcing peace, we can practice acceptance. We must allow ourselves to feel the full range of human emotions, without judgment, without trying to label them as “good” or “bad.” By simply acknowledging them, we create the space for them to move through us, rather than become stuck inside. Again, by learning meditation, we practice, as the essence of meditation is letting emotions come and go.
Emotions like anger, resentment, sadness, and fear often feel like they’re here to stay when we hold on to them too tightly. When we resist or suppress them, we give them more power than they deserve. But when we acknowledge their presence without clinging to them, we begin to loosen their grip on us. Emotions are not inherently bad; they are signals from our inner world, pointing us to what needs attention. Anger, for example, might reveal a boundary that’s been crossed, or fear might signal a deep need for security. By turning toward these emotions, instead of running from them, we begin to uncover the wisdom they hold. We can learn to be with them, to feel them, and to let them pass, just like clouds drifting across the sky.
The journey to peace, then, is less about controlling our emotions or achieving a perfect state of serenity. Instead, it’s about cultivating the ability to be present with whatever arises—whether it’s joy, sadness, anger, or peace itself—and letting it move through us without becoming attached. In doing so, we create an internal space that allows peace to settle in, naturally, without force. Peace is not a fixed destination. It’s a process of surrender, of letting go of the tight grip we have on our emotions, and allowing them to pass through us. By doing this, we open the door to inner peace, not as a permanent state, but as a fluid, ever-present potential, waiting for us to embrace it.
In the end, the key is to keep trying, even when it feels like we’re making no progress. The journey toward inner peace is not linear. There will be setbacks, moments of doubt, and days when peace feels distant. But as long as we continue to release, to breathe, and to allow our emotions to flow through us without clinging, we are closer to peace than we realize. In a world, macro and micro scale, with so much agitation, let’s keep seeking peace. Shall we?