It seems to be a fairly straightforward piece of conventional wisdom that a peaceful life is attached to being happy with whatever circumstances you’re given. And from the bit of Buddhism that I’m aware of, a core belief is that desire leads to unhappiness. A major obstacle for me is this very problem. How do I find my own daily peace in an imperfect and not very peaceful world? My own personal strategy is to spin, spin, and spin some more. It’s not possible for me to know the true motivations of anyone but myself. Assuming selfish motivations leads to negativity, and less peace. Giving a little leeway for the complexity of our lives leads to forgiveness, and more peace. Taking the knowledge that there’s no way of being sure either way, why wouldn’t we choose the latter? Not for any other reason than the creation of a positive daily experience.
So how does this tie in to the question that I raised? At some point in my life I read that our state of being is a choice. Happiness, love, anger, depression, and so on. In a lot of cases this makes sense. So, if I want to feel peace in my daily life, I need only choose to feel peaceful. Sounds simple, right? Perhaps too simple. But if we expand this statement about choice a little bit, and think about choice not as a single act, but a continuous series of acts, then this all shifts into focus. And so, choosing to interpret peoples’ unknowable actions in a positive way is a means of choosing to feel peace.
I feel like I should put a disclaimer at the beginning of every post. I spend a lot of time reasoning these things out. It’s really the putting in to action that’s the hard part. And not only once, but continuously.
So, part of living with the Is in a peaceful way must somehow involve a choice to not be negative, and I think a great device for avoiding negativity is to simply choose the positive when there’s no way to know what’s really going on.
Sean M. R. Crowell 