It is often a huge insight to realize how much control we have over our own thoughts. As Jill Bolte Taylor, author of “My Stroke of Insight,” said in an Oprah interview, “When I find myself thinking a thought that is not helpful, I simply refuse to think it.” She had experienced incredible peace of mind during her left-brain-offline stroke and was understandably reluctant to give that up. Her challenge was to bring her left brain back online, i.e., recover from the stroke and still be able to experience that deep sense of peace. In doing so she demonstrated the truth of the wisdom from the Dhammapada:

We are what we think. All that we are arises from our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. Speak or act with a pure mind and heart, and happiness will follow you as your shadow, unshakable.

Worship Materials: Peace of Mind and Prayer

Peace of mind does not come through struggling to stop thinking, but through focusing the mind on some particular thought or object, and especially on the rhythm of our breathing.

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Why Meditate? A Review of Mindful Christianity by Jim Burklo

Burklo’s book refocuses Christianity away from doctrine and belief to knowing God through mindful practice and the compassionate action that follows from an enlarged perspective.

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A Paradox of Peace

Peace is one of those seemingly intangible, shape-shifting things in life, such as love, that molds our lives so intensely. It’s not necessarily something I can hold in my hand or perhaps physically give to you, and there are no words to adequately define the experience or even give a “correct” definition. Yet it is the foundation for all sacred wisdom. We continually seek the healing power and expression of peace because, at some level, we recognize this is where life is nudging us, and we are being called to live it more fully.

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