A Quiet Mind Is the Peak of Human Life

In the West, we venerate the mind. We accept its storms as the hallmark of the tortured genius. These storms are seen as the part and parcel of ambition. We do not want to lose our “bite.”

Pain is thought to reflect knowledge of the full span of Experience, in line with the Roman playwright and former slave Terence, who said “I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”

If we had no pain, we would have no candidacy for the world’s delicious pity — a great sign of our importance.

This we seal our imprisonment, and the cause of pain is kept in the house.

Is There Another Way?

People are attuned to what they most deeply value. For the one who starts to find the mind’s noise intolerable, their eyes will naturally start to open to possibilities that others ignore.

I talk about a ‘Quiet Mind’ since “noise” refers to the constant internal chatter of the mind but also has a another meaning — worthless information.

I submit that the most important kind of diet is choosing the right information to consume.

Empowerment

Maybe I should put a coma between the ‘quiet’ and the ‘mind’ in my Twitter profile. To make it a command. Because far from leading to a flat and pliant existence, which is what people are thinking of when they say they don’t want to “lose my bite,” a quiet mind is the only way to never do anything you don’t want to do — the height of true power.

The alternative is slavery to the mind. Slavery to its whims that leave a person in shame and remorse, asking “what came over me?”

Buddha said “holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else.”

The only victim of your “bite” is you.

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