"Peace is every step"

Within the past few months, my emotional state has never been stable, calm or in control. I was either very excited by small events or got upset by everyday negligible problems. The feeling of "bipolar" emotion worried me even more, with occasional thoughts of not living at all. Since I am not able to control my thoughts and feelings, and that I could not make myself feel better, I didn't see anything sensual in life. Why would one go on living if she is to be unhappy in her mind, though her appearance doesn't betray any sign of misery?

Studying hard, I was trying to get to perfectly understand the core of subjects. The fact that I couldn't do that in certain classes made me feel even worse, causing me to blame myself for not being "smart enough". It felt like I was getting sucked down into an endless black-hole. Because of this thought, the feeling of being not "smart" made me even less effective, further strengthening the vicious cycle of negative thinking. Someone who once had a distaste in reading self-help articles was becoming one who always looked for answers to her unanswerable questions from the internet. It shouldn't go on this way.

But the quest for at least partial answers to my problems came with this book I found from google. A book about "peace of mind" or in current terms, "mindfulness". Thich Nhat Hanh, a zen buddhist monk whose activities for peace touched the lives of many, teaches mindfulness in his book, "Peace is every step: The path of mindfulness in everyday life". Peaceful state of mind can be attained with strong willingness to hang on to the present and be aware of what is happening in one's surrounding and one's own thoughts. A savvy to identify one's own emotional state, people's feeling, and focus to be able to recognize what is happening around oneself. 

And the idea of meditating always fascinated me, though I wasn't persistent in it. Especially nowadays, with most urban people having hectic and busy lifestyle, "mindfulness" has been a big topic of interest for those who wanted to be able to focus better instead of losing oneself in endless stream of thoughts, negative thinking and mind of mess. What is mindfulness then? 

Scheveningen, Buddha Statue

Whenever I read or see someone giving advice on meditation, I could notice one common teaching of meditation: "Not trying to control your thoughts, but observing them, getting to recognize the patterns in them". Since my first trial of meditation ended up with me trying to not think about anything and block every thoughts out of my mind without any success, this approach seemed ironic. As time goes by, just letting go of control and stepping back to hear your thoughts came to be bit by bit more reasonable to me. Because, only by knowing your thinking, do I know myself. And only knowing myself, could I control or guide myself. It became clearer and clearer. Thus, I came to the conclusion that mindfulness starts from knowing yourself well.

Small book of modest expression, this book inspired me to be able to appreciate everyday simplicity. Being kind to others, not just to be liked by others, but to realize that you have the capacity to make others feel better about themselves is happiness in itself. A sense of self-worth. The capitalism that we have adopted in Mongolia is wrong because people have been convinced that it is a system where you have to fight for yourself even if it makes others worse-off. 

Though this ideology might open doors to abundance of material wealth, in the deepest of human nature, it can never make people genuinely content in their lives. Because material greed is never satiated. Nonetheless, everyone can make the choice of what to look for in life: happiness or pleasure of mind and pleasure and greed for materials. The former might enable you to be satisfied in both dimensions but the latter will bring you only fancy junks. 

Reading this book and repeating every chapters twice, helped me get myself grounded again. I started trying to anchor myself to the present with breathing, and take interest in what is happening around me. I also started identifying patterns in my negative thinking, while such thoughts once seemed like a new different kind of thoughts whenever I had them. Nevertheless, I realized that most of my negative thinking had specific repeating patterns. Fear of not being good enough, fear of not meeting the expectations of my family and low sense of self-worth. 

Knowing this made me more in control and in touch with myself. And if anyone reached this end reading my writing, I would definitely recommend you the book of Thich Nhat Hanh. If you cannot find it, let me know and I can send you the e-book. 

"... If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
                                                                               - Emily Dickinson

May this be the start of more peace of mind. 

Best wishes,

Anuudari Burenbat,

2015.7.14

Tilburg University Library