I have spent the past couple of years collecting and devising ways to maintain peace of mind under adversity. According to several ancient Greek and Eastern philosophical traditions, the sage is able to maintain peace of mind while being physically tortured. However, I am unaware of any specific methods by which this can be accomplished. Are any of you aware of any such methods? Thank you for your time.
Have you ever had really rough sex? The kind that kind of hurts? Or been going down on someone until your neck/jaw/tongue was in pain, but kept doing it?
I’m not saying that’s what they were suggesting, but physical pain is fleeting and generally uninteresting as an experience. I can usually ignore it.
I think there’s a difference here between happiness and peace of mind (acceptance?). I agree, I don’t think one can be truly happy under such circumstances, which does imply that the ability to be happy is somewhat circumstantial. Similarly, I’m not sure it’s possible to be happy if you’re un-willfully starving to death.
I think circumstances supply a necessary but not sufficient condition for happiness. Even if all of your circumstances are favorable, happiness still needs to come from within you. You could be an unhappy millionaire who isn’t being tortured, for example.
There are no magic methods. There is only commitment to the same everyday methods we all already use. For instance, many people learn to meditate, and many even dabble in it. This kind of training helps people to maintain some level of peace of mind in everyday life. But very few people really commit to this kind of training the way some “masters” do. It’s not that these advanced practitioners have any magic methods up their sleeves. If they do utilize some advanced methods, they are just methods that depend on prior mastery of basics for the efficacy.
Nobody is happy because they’re being tortured (unless they have some psychological issue, obviously)… It’s that some people can remain happy despite being tortured.
Sensory information does not have any direct impact on emotion. If you had no memory, and the present moment was constantly being refreshed, you would have no opportunity to become emotional.
“Similarly, I’m not sure it’s possible to be happy if you’re un-willfully starving to death.” - Anyone doing anything against their will is not going to be happy… However, you can learn to not want much from your present situation.
As far as a method goes… serious introspection; to the point of discovering that you don’t really care that much about what you experience, as long as you are experiencing something.
Does ‘peace of mind’ mean maintaining mental composure or equanimity despite what you feel your world is giving you? How do you define ‘adversity?’ People who feel road rage can relieve that rage through everything from yelling expletives the other drivers can’t hear, to using rude hand gestures that may or not be seen, to grabbing the loaded pistol from the glove box and shooting at the car who’s driver did whatever made you angry. Since it’s said not to be ‘good’ to stifle emotions but since violent emotions often lead to even more violent reactions, try determining the real cause of your feeling. There are a lot of things that can be done to preserve mental composure.
Meditation is one–focusing your mind on the opposite of what’s happening to you. Self-hypnosis is another–experience the pain, but turn it into something else that’s pleasant to you. These forums are too limited to fill with instructions in Eastern philosophical traditions, but there are more traditions than those you could study. How could martyrs burned at the stake meet their deaths without writhing and screaming in pain?