Cultivating Inner Peace

This is a talk about cultivating inner peace. I share a poem from the Tao Te Ching, and also an excerpt from a great little book by Trich Nhat Hanh. It's about how inner peace is a practice –something we need to do daily, like brushing our teeth or having a shower, in order to maintain a healthy and clear inner state. I finish with a Mantra song, which I invite you to sing along with. I find singing mantras is a great practice for cultivating a loving connection with self and others.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. This is Akasha Love. I am a soul alchemist helping you to birth your true self in this lifetime. Guided by my own soul and following my heart's wisdom, I bring to you meditations, Downloads, Talks and music designed to support you on the journey deep into connecting with your soul and living a life which is fully grounded in and aligned with expressing your truth as authentically as possible. So hello and welcome. Today I wanted to talk about cultivating inner peace. So for me I think this is a practice. So just like we brush our teeth every day, We get up, We do exercise, To care for our body, We have a shower, We eat. I think inner peace is also a practice so it's something that we need to consciously practice each day in order to maintain equilibrium inside. So this looks different for everyone of course but essentially I think it's just about finding some time and space to really listen to yourself and really be with your feelings, With whatever is arising, With any conflicts or difficulties that you may be experiencing in your relationships. So really to just give yourself some time every day to listen deeply to yourself, To your soul. So my practice for this is meditation. So every morning I practice meditation and generally I will refer to a couple of books which I just find so valuable in this journey of inner connection and inner peace. So one of them is the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu and the other is this beautiful book by Trich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese monk, A small book called How to Fight. So I wanted to just share with you two passages from each of these books. So the first one comes from the Tao Te Ching, A book about the way and the power of the way. This is the Ursula Le Guin translation. So this one is called Returning to the Root. Be completely empty. Be perfectly serene. The ten thousand things arise together. In their arising is their return. Now they flower and flowering sink homeward, Returning to the root. The return to the root is peace. Peace to accept what must be, To know what endures. In that knowledge is wisdom. Without it, Ruin, Disorder. To know what endures is to be open hearted, Magnanimous, Regal, Blessed, Following the Tao. The way that endures forever. The body comes to its ending but there is nothing to fear. So that's Returning to the Root. Then I wanted to share with you this short excerpt from this book by Trich Nhat Hanh. This is called The Language of Love. We need to reconcile within ourselves before we can reconcile with someone else. We recognize and embrace all our feelings and emotions. We see that the cause of our suffering lies within us and not in the other person. They've only touched the seed of suffering already inside us. Understanding this, We can see our own part in the difficulty that has arisen and compassion can be born. When you have reconciled and are at peace within yourself, It is much easier to go to the other person and say, I know you have suffered a lot. I know I have also contributed to your suffering. I haven't been very mindful or skillful. I didn't understand your suffering and difficulties enough. I may have said or done things that have made the situation worse. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. Your happiness, Your safety, Your freedom and your joy are important to me because I have been caught in my own suffering. I've been unskillful at times. I may have given you the impression that I wanted to make you suffer. That's not true. So please tell me about your suffering so that I will not make the same kind of mistake again. I know that your happiness is crucial to my own happiness. I need your help. Tell me about your fear and despair, Your difficulties, Your dreams so that I can understand you better. So this is a beautiful little paragraph, Mini chapter. But I also recognize how difficult it is to really live in this way. It's so difficult because it requires us to be really vulnerable. It requires us to really show ourselves. It requires us to let go of all defensiveness. It requires us to let go of ego, Essentially, Which maybe wants to defend us, Which wants to be right, Which wants to, If we have any kind of misunderstanding or miscommunication with someone, The ego wants to fight a war with them so that we win. So this is all our instinctual habitual reactions to conflict, Which only ever increase our suffering and don't bring us inner peace if we act on these instincts, On these instinctual reactive desires. So while I think it's a beautiful passage from Tridinath Han, I think the implementation is really very challenging. And I think it requires also a regular practice of being open and vulnerable with yourself first and then with others. So even just this way of speaking, To speak about suffering, To speak about hurt, Sadness, Anger, Your own challenges, It's very unusual, At least in my experience of relating with people. So for me to practice this, What I do is I just try and be a little bit more open with my own feelings each day. So just share a bit more of what is actually going on internally for me in my relationships with people, Trusting that they will hold the space for me to be able to do this. And if they're not able to hold this space, Then recognizing that and perhaps either asking them if they're able to listen and share perhaps their own inner feelings. And if they're not recognizing that perhaps right in this moment with this person it might not be possible, But still making micro steps all the time, Micro steps towards more vulnerability and more transparency. Because I think inner peace really comes from this place. So it comes first from being vulnerable and transparent with our own self in our private practice of checking in every day. And from this private practice, If we're able to bring it out into the world and start to share the same practice in our relationships of just being a bit more vulnerable than usual, Just sharing your inner feelings, Sharing your feelings when people say things to you without blaming or making anybody else responsible for your feelings. So this is a deep practice of mindful relating with our inner self, Mindful relating with our emotions. And really also it's about radical acceptance of everything that's arising within us. And it's about not pushing anything away. It's about really allowing everything that's there a voice. Every feeling that wants to be heard, We give that feeling a voice and we listen because that feeling is there for our own benefit. And then if we can take that to the next level and share that with our intimate friends and family, I think if you can try this, You find that your relationships start to really deepen and the other person will most likely start to open a bit more and share more of their true feelings as well. So I wanted to finish this short universe podcast with a mantra song. It's called the Maha Mitri Yunjaya Mantra from the Hindu tradition. It's the words are Om Triyambakam, Yayamahay, Sugandhim, Pushtivaldanam, Urva, Rukamivabandhanat, Mrityo, Mukshi, Yamamritat. So you can sing a lot of song if you like. And this translates as we pay homage to the universal consciousness which nourishes all beings. May we be liberated from the death of ignorance through knowledge of our immortal essence just as the cucumber is severed from the bondage of the vine. Peace, Peace, Peace. So this is a mantra song by I think Renee Songbird. I'm not sure if it's by her but I found it through her so it may be. I'm not sure if it's by her but I found it through her so it may be. I'm not sure if it's by her but I found it through her so it may be. May all my words be filled with silence, May all I do be filled with peace, May all my fears be full of courage, My reality full of dreams, May all my tears be full of wisdom, May I give as if I had it all, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow. May all my words be filled with silence, May all my tears be full of courage, May all my fears be full of wisdom, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow. May all my words be filled with silence, May all my tears be full of courage, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow. May all my words be filled with silence, May all I do be filled with peace, May all my fears be full of courage, My reality full of dreams, May all my tears be full of wisdom, May I give as if I had it all, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow. May all my words be filled with silence, May all I do be filled with peace, May all my fears be full of courage, My reality full of dreams, May all my tears be full of wisdom, May I give as if I had it all, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow. May I love and live as if I die tomorrow, May I love and live as if I die tomorrow. May I love and live as if I die tomorrow May I love and live as if I die tomorrow May I love and live as if I die tomorrow May I love and live as if I die tomorrow So keep following the wisdom of your heart, The whisperings of your soul Because these will always lead you in the right direction