Could any of you please share your most effective methods of maintaining peace of mind in the face of adversity? By “peace of mind” I mean the absence of negative emotions such as anger, regret, boredom, fear, frustration, loneliness, envy, etc. I will start the discussion with one of my favorite techniques, which I call “elimination of judgments,” which can be very effective in alleviating frustration and anxiety.
Elimination of Judgments. One should always keep in mind that events are interconnected through the operation of physical cause and effect. Thus, apparently negative experiences can precipitate positive experiences, and apparently positive experiences can precipitate negative experiences. If one were able to go back in time and eliminate a particular experience, one’s entire life might change as a result, and whether it would change for the better or the worse would not be knowable. Therefore, one will generally never know whether an apparently negative experience is truly negative in the overall context of one’s life, or whether an apparently positive experience is truly positive in the overall context of one’s life. As a result, one should eliminate judgments with respect to whether any experience is truly positive or negative. Such elimination of judgments strongly promotes equanimity and peace of mind—before, during and after one’s experiences.
I look forward to learning about additional techniques to maintain peace of mind. Thank you for your time.
The purpose of the human mind is to effect judgment.
That environmental acquisition system which must acquire experience and with those experiences construct human behavior that promotes and maintains the individuals life. Attempting to promote lack of judgment is the same as promoting brain death. Most people confuse all mental processes with judgment–however judgment is the the mind operating in accordance with the truth of things, linguistically. One should keep a copy of Confucius’s rectification of names handy just to eventually learn the wisdom of it.
One can refer to scientific biological verification of this fact, and one can even go to historical religious records for the same. For example, the Name of the Beast 666. Now people call it judgment to claim that the beast is evil etc etc. When we err in judgment, we certainly cannot call it judgment, no more than one can say they make a cake when in fact all they did is set fire to the stove.
The Scripture is all about human judgement and its evolution over a history of mankind. It starts with puzzles and ends with them to test how the reader responds–ie the mind is actively tested during reading.
At any rate, the solution to the name of the beast “To make our coming and going so as to turn the past into the future and to bring the future to pass.” As I demonstrate in Langauge and Experience, the answer is given at least four times in the text. is a scientific description of the function of judgment. It is not to feel good or to feel bad, but for the survival of mankind.
One interjection here, because I speak of the Scripture, does not mean I am religious. The fact is, I don’t know what this even means, to be religous. As a wise man once said, we can only testify to what we have seen and speak of what we have known, and some things people may need to know, but they don’t need to hear it from another. I speak of it because I know things, have learned things, I don’t believe I should, I don’t understand why certain things have happened in my history, but I keep on keeping on just to see if I can wake up this dead head of mine and do somthing constructive.
not that i mind the negative feelings all the time, but sometimes i just choose to do something productive
in some ways having something to do is happiness
do the dishes or go workout or read
you might continue feeling bad afterward, or you might feel accomplished, or you might just forget about it… either way you got something done in the meantime, so not all was lost
I think you’re onto something, but it’s worth pointing out that what you’re probably eliminating when you “eliminate judgment” is just a lot of extra stuff that we add on top of basic judgment. I think frustration and anxiety comes from holding onto our judgments too tightly, and going over them again and again in our minds in order to justify ourselves to ourselves. Otherwise, your statements here would be frought with contradiction - i.e. how can your goal be to eliminate negative emotions, while the tool to achieve your goal is lack of judging emotions as negative or positive? That would make no sense. But in reality what you’re claiming does work - it’s just that you’re not eliminating judgment, you’re simply reducing all kinds of superfluities with respect to judgment.
There can be no peace of mind without accurate judgment. It’s possible to streamline the process of judging. It’s possible to have a reasonably clear sense of what is positive, what is negative, why a particular attitude or action is positive or negative, and to simply function beautifully in the world. It’s also possible to continually explore the whole positive-negative dialectic and achieve a deeper understanding of how the whole thing works, as you’ve suggested.
None of the replies so far has provided any effective methods for maintaining peace of mind. Do any of you have any methods for maintaining peace of mind that you would like to share?
Basically no, Peace of mind is a subjective thing, there’s no objective true path to peace of mind. Sounds a little like Buddhist philosophy but they had it right: only you can find peace of mind, there’s no easy solution to “Nirvana”. Annoying isn’t it, but the complexities of being human brook no easy or trite answers.
“There’s only one way of life and that’s your own.”
But one of the important ways in which to eliminate those negative experiences would be to wish for no other life but the one that you were given. As Nietzsche said in The Gay Science:
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
…that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.
It also helps to call to mind that we will not be here forever - death is a wonderful equalizer in that it can show us in the moment that so many mundane and ridiculous things that we believe to be meaningful and hold onto, in actuality, hold very little meaning when compared to the present moments which we might be spending actually in living rather than allowing the negative emotions to flow through us, albeit we have to recognize when they do, accept them and let them flow out of us - and move on.
Well, I’m not so sure one would never know this - and I don’t necessarily think that examining and observing one’s past life experiences has to bring one to negativity - though bracketing is important. Often though, this can only be done through hindsight - but as you say, not to judge but to examine.
I also like to take walks in the rain and allowing whatever emotions to come to me and if they bring on the tears, that’s healthy both physically and mentally. Looking up at the evening or very early morning sky at the stars also helps - we might come to realize that there are things in the universe more rare and meaningful than our sorry little selves (if we see ourselveas that way). Everything fades away and all that is left is the exquisite moment - and who could fight that? Well…
How can there be peace of mind when you’re always thinking about how to get it?
Look at this question: “Can there be peace of mind if you’re not trapped in the attempt to find it?” That question comes from the answers you’ve been given about what ‘peace of mind’ is. The question is born from the answers. You don’t need to ask the question because you didn’t need any answers in the first place. Lacking peace of mind is not a problem. Worrying about that all the time is the problem.
Depends what you mean by purpose, if there is some grandiose plan that might make sense, but people who do not believe in the divine plan do not accept that and can find purpose in the fact that there strive to find happiness and contentment nonetheless without the absurdity of teleology. I think contentment comes from realising what you want of course with a moral framework, but not what plan there is to it ultimately. You can find peace of mind when you devoid yourself of the chains of purpose. The Buddhists seem to have found such a contentment without desire. Like I say though only one way of life, some people need a drive to a goal, some people are happy with being content with what may come. I personally like the goals in my life that I have, I don’t think they ultimately have a purpose, and I don’t particularly care. Would be nice if they did but if they don’t meh.
As you say though be realistic about what you can achieve, and don’t accept adversity as the final arbiter. Purpose?
Peace of mind is a state where the mind is at rest. Not a state where it is seeking out some idea of what ‘peace of mind’ should or must be and how it is to be maintained. In that process thought is creating a self perpetuating trap for itself and then tries to get out of the trap it created by itself. It’s a hell of a predicament.
Why does there have to be a purpose to life. If there is one, it’s already operating there. Your trying to create a purpose is just a burdensome exercise in intellectual pursuit and all that can result in is a disturbance of a harmonious peaceful condition that is there when the mind is not being imposed upon. Some people suffer a lot when they place a peaceful state of mind out there as a goal to be achieved. It’s precisely the pursuit of that as a goal that creates the opposite feeling (un-peacefulness) in them so they continue to ask for help from something outside of them. Drop the goal and the feeling of helplessness goes with it. After all, nothing, no power in the world can help you, period. Thus, as long as you remain dependent on any authority outside of you, you remain hopeless. Once you understand this clearly, there is no more helplessness; your helplessness no longer exists.
In Buddhism, there are a series of practices that come under the general heading “equalizing self and other”, or “exchanging self and other”. I recommend any of these practices. Somewhat of a prerequisite for most people would be some mindfulness/awareness training.
The cultivation of virtue in daily life is helpful as well - as long as it comes from an attitude of breaking down barriers between self and other, rather than seeing yourself as better than others in some way. Morality can go either way in this respect, but it’s not virtuous in the Buddhist sense unless it’s all about dropping your armor, and your pretensions.
Who gives them this purpose? Are they fated to have such a purpose?
I would argue that the only purpose of life is that which a person subjectively makes for himself, if he does at all. That life merely exists and has no overall goal, what is, is. I can no more prove that than you can prove that life is focused towards some goal.
