Peace Finder

What is left when the senses go quiet?

A tradition spanning the Vedic scriptures, the Upanishads, the epics and a long history of philosophical schools, devotional movements and practice. The texts collected here come from the Upanishads and the Vedanta reading of them, which is concerned with the self, with action and its fruits, and with what remains when the senses are stilled. They are read as revealed scripture by their communities.

About this passageNear the end of Yama's teaching, and one of the earliest definitions of yoga in the literature: not a posture or a discipline of the body, but the steady holding back of the senses. The second verse adds a caution that is easy to miss — that this state is not a possession. It arrives and it leaves again, and the watchfulness is part of the practice rather than a sign of having failed at it.

When the five organs of perception become still, together with the mind, and the intellect ceases to be active: that is called the highest state.

This firm holding back of the senses is what is known as Yoga. Then one should become watchful, for Yoga comes and goes.

In plainer words

When the five senses go quiet, and the mind with them, and the reasoning stops working away — that is the highest state. Holding the senses steady like that is what yoga means. And then stay alert, because it comes and it goes.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Stoic

Did I say what I was doing before I began it?

A school of Greek and Roman philosophy taught from the third century BCE onward, concerned with judgement, action and the distinction between what a person controls and what they do not. Its surviving handbooks were written as practical training rather than theory.

About this passageA rehearsal, given as a method rather than an argument. Epictetus takes the most ordinary errand he can think of — going to the public baths, which in Rome meant crowds, shoving and petty theft — and has the reader run through what will go wrong before setting out. The second half is the part that does the work: the intention is stated twice, once as the errand and once as the thing that cannot be taken from you, so that the errand failing does not take the day with it.

When you set about any action, remind yourself of what nature the action is. If you are going to bathe, represent to yourself the incidents usual in the bath—some persons pouring out, others pushing in, others scolding, others pilfering. And thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, "I will now go to bathe and keep my own will in harmony with nature." And so with regard to every other action. For thus, if any impediment arises in bathing, you will be able to say, "It was not only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my will in harmony with nature; and I shall not keep it thus if I am out of humor at things that happen."

In plainer words

Before you do anything, say what kind of thing it is. Going to the baths? Then picture it properly: people splashing, people shoving in, someone shouting, someone going through the lockers. Set out saying two things — I am going to bathe, and I am going to keep my own conduct as it should be. Then if the bathing goes badly you still have the second one, and you have not lost your temper over the part that was never yours to arrange.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Christian

Must attention be set apart from the day to count?

A tradition rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, carried through two millennia of churches, commentaries, liturgies and practices. Its texts are read as scripture by their communities.

About this passageNicholas Herman was a lay brother in a Carmelite house in Paris, and worked in the kitchen and later mending sandals. What survives of him is other people's notes of four conversations and a set of letters, written down because visitors kept asking how a man doing that work all day seemed unhurried. The method he describes is deliberately unimpressive: not a discipline set apart from the day but an attention carried through it, with no distinction between the hours given to prayer and the hours given to pots.

He told me that all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which we are sensible does not lead to GOD; that we might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him, with freedom and in simplicity.

That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for GOD's sake, which we commonly do for our own. That it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.

That it was a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times: that we are as strictly obliged to adhere to GOD by action in the time of action, as by prayer in the season of prayer.

That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of GOD, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. That we should not wonder if, in the beginning, we often failed in our endeavors, but that at last we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight.

In plainer words

Give up whatever is plainly not taking you anywhere good, and then talk to God as you would to anyone, all day, in ordinary words. What makes a life holy is not swapping your work for better work; it is doing the same work for a different reason. Do not imagine prayer time is a separate compartment — you are as bound to God while you are working as while you are kneeling. And do not get tired of doing small things: what is being measured is not the size of the task but the love it is done with. You will fail at this often at first. Keep going and it becomes a habit, and then it happens without effort.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

New Thought

What am I keeping in front of me?

A movement that began in the United States in the late nineteenth century, from the teaching of Phineas Quimby and writers who followed him, and which holds that thought is causal — that the content and quality of a person's thinking shapes their character, their circumstances and their health. It produced a large popular literature in the decades around 1900, and the modern vocabulary of manifestation, affirmation and the law of attraction descends from it directly.

About this passageJames Allen was an English writer who left clerical work to write full time and published this, his best-known book, in 1903. The chapter states the movement's central claim in its strongest form: that what a person holds in mind is not merely a wish but the seed of the circumstance. Readers should know that the same book contains a chapter applying that claim to physical illness, which this collection does not reproduce. Whether thought works the way the tradition says is not a question the library takes a position on.

The dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it; Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it.

Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

In plainer words

Dreamers keep the world going, Allen says. The invisible holds up the visible. Anyone who keeps a beautiful picture in their heart will one day live in it — Columbus kept a vision of another world and found it; Copernicus kept one of a wider universe and showed it. So look after your visions. Look after the music in your head and the loveliness in your purest thoughts, because out of those, he says, your conditions will grow. Dream big dreams; what you dream is what you become. Your vision is a promise of the person you will turn out to be.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Research

What does sustained practice measurably do?

Findings from published psychological and neuroscientific work, summarised for this collection rather than reproduced, with the study named on each entry so a reader can go to the source. What is collected here is what has been measured about attention, habit, sleep, emotion and change — including, where it applies, how large the measured effect is and how well it has held up when other groups have tried to repeat it.

About this passageSummarised for this collection from the London taxi driver studies, which are the most cited demonstration that an adult brain changes structurally with sustained practice. The 2011 study is the one that matters most, because it followed trainees over time rather than comparing drivers with non-drivers — which is what rules out the possibility that people with larger hippocampi simply become taxi drivers.

London taxi drivers spend three or four years learning the city's layout well enough to pass an examination called the Knowledge. When researchers scanned them, the rear part of the hippocampus — a structure involved in spatial memory — was measurably larger than in people who had not done it.

That first result had an obvious weakness: perhaps people with that kind of brain are drawn to that kind of job. So a later study followed trainees from before they started. Those who qualified showed the structural change. Those who trained and did not qualify, and those who never trained, did not. The change followed the practice.

Two things worth keeping in proportion. This was years of daily effort, not a technique applied for a fortnight, and the change was specific to what was practised rather than a general improvement — on some other memory tasks the qualified drivers did slightly worse.

What the finding supports is narrow and still considerable: an adult brain is not finished. What you do repeatedly, over a long time, shows up in the tissue.

Secular reflection

Was the day already decided before it started?

Reflection that does not appeal to a religious or philosophical authority. The pieces here were written for this collection and make no claim to be anything other than one way of putting a question.

About this passageWritten for this collection, prompted by a saying that circulates without an author: that the day begins when you put your head down, not when you get up. It is set out here without the metaphysical claim that often accompanies it, because the practical part stands on its own and does not need it.

The day starts when you lay your head down. Whatever you hand to the dark is what will be waiting in the morning, already dressed and standing by the bed.

Most people spend the last hour of the day rehearsing. They run the argument again, in a better version where they win. They audit tomorrow. Then they sleep badly and meet the morning already tired of it, and call that a bad night's sleep, when what actually happened is that they did tomorrow twice.

There is a smaller version of this that works. Put down one thing you are carrying — not solve it, put it down — and name one thing you intend to do first. Not a plan. One thing. The mind will keep working on whatever you leave it, so it matters what you leave it.

None of this requires believing that the night arranges anything on your behalf. It only requires noticing that you are the one who chooses what goes in last, and that you have been choosing badly, and that this is unusually easy to change compared with everything else on the list.

Buddhist

Can I stay with one breath without changing it?

A tradition originating with the teaching of the Buddha in northern India and preserved in several textual collections. The discourses gathered here come from the Pali canon, recorded as talks given to particular people in particular circumstances.

About this passageThe discourse is set on a full-moon night at the end of a rains retreat, and most of it is the Buddha describing the community sitting in front of him. These lines are the method itself, the first two sets of four out of sixteen. What is asked for is unusually small: notice whether the breath is long or short. Nothing is to be changed, counted or achieved; the later steps do not ask for a different breath but for a different quality of noticing while it goes on by itself.

It's when a mendicant—gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut—sits down cross-legged, sets their body straight, and brings mindfulness to the present. Just mindful, they breathe in. Mindful, they breathe out.

Breathing in heavily they know: "I'm breathing in heavily." Breathing out heavily they know: "I'm breathing out heavily." Breathing in lightly they know: "I'm breathing in lightly." Breathing out lightly they know: "I'm breathing out lightly."

They practice like this: "I'll breathe in experiencing the whole body." They practice like this: "I'll breathe out experiencing the whole body." They practice like this: "I'll breathe in stilling the physical process." They practice like this: "I'll breathe out stilling the physical process."

They practice like this: "I'll breathe in experiencing rapture." They practice like this: "I'll breathe out experiencing rapture." They practice like this: "I'll breathe in experiencing bliss." They practice like this: "I'll breathe out experiencing bliss."

They practice like this: "I'll breathe in experiencing the mental process." They practice like this: "I'll breathe out experiencing the mental process." They practice like this: "I'll breathe in stilling the mental process." They practice like this: "I'll breathe out stilling the mental process."

In plainer words

Go somewhere quiet — outdoors, under a tree, an empty room. Sit down, keep your back straight, and bring your attention to what is happening now. Then just breathe in and out, and know that you are. When the breath is long, know it is long. When it is short, know it is short. Then: breathing in, take in the whole of the body; breathing out, the same. Breathing in, let the body settle; breathing out, let it settle. Then the same again with gladness, with ease, with whatever the mind is doing, and with letting the mind settle.

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

Taoist

What would it take to stop forcing it?

A tradition originating in China and gathered around the Tao Teh King and the writings attributed to Zhuangzi, with a later history of monastic practice, ritual and internal alchemy. Its central term, the Tao, names the way things go of themselves; much of its counsel concerns acting without forcing, and the strength of what is yielding.

About this passageOne of the few chapters that reads as instruction rather than description, and among the earliest surviving references to breath work in Chinese literature: the phrase Legge renders as "the vital breath" is qi, and the aim given is pliancy rather than force. The questions in the second part are rhetorical in form and practical in use — each one asks whether a thing can be done without the effort that usually attends it. Legge's parentheses are his own, marking words supplied to make the compressed Chinese read as English.

When the intelligent and animal souls are held together in one embrace, they can be kept from separating. When one gives undivided attention to the (vital) breath, and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy, he can become as a (tender) babe. When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights (of his imagination), he can become without a flaw.

In loving the people and ruling the state, cannot he proceed without any (purpose of) action? In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be without knowledge?

In plainer words

Hold the two halves of yourself together and they stop pulling apart. Put your whole attention on the breath and take it as far toward softness as it will go, until you are as pliant as an infant. Clear away the strange pictures the mind makes and nothing is left to catch on. Can you look after people, and do the work, without forcing any of it? Can you let things open and close of their own accord? Can you know a great deal and not go about as someone who knows?

A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.

When my mind will not settle

What is left when the senses go quiet?

Did I say what I was doing before I began it?

Must attention be set apart from the day to count?

What am I keeping in front of me?

What does sustained practice measurably do?

Was the day already decided before it started?

Can I stay with one breath without changing it?

What would it take to stop forcing it?