Peace is every step

What Hacker News says

1. FrontierPsychNov 2022
   First world problems.

   maybe you find a greater purpose, maybe you don't.

   But a purpose can be just "breathe, eat, crap until you die." That's a purpose. This is the purpose of most people in the world. You have someone who didn't graduate from high school and not Einstein, they might work as a convenience store clerk for their entire life. Nothing wrong with that at all, but it's not like it is Norman Borlaug, whose Green Revolution fed billions of people and kept them from starving to death.

   All this "find your purpose" stuff just puts a lot of unwarrented pressure on peole and if you can't find one, it is a negative. It won't give you higher happiness or well-being. It will just be a massive frustration and make your life miserable. I guess I'd be more of the mindfulness/live-in-the-moment kind of person.

   I have no life purpose or meaning of life. I'm like everyone else, though. Mostly average days, some great days, some shit days. The gaussian distribution, right? I don't think that people who have a "purpose" in life live every day as a 12 hour orgasm. Everyone has mostly average days, some great, some bad.

   As far as happiness goes, at least 50% of it is genetic. If you have shitty genetics and have unhappy genes, even if you are happy with the other 50%, you'll never be as happy or at peace as someone with happy genetics. Never. No higher purpose will make someone with unhappy genetics as happy as someone with happy genetics.

   So my point would be to not worry about it. Do the best you can do. Plan where you can. Do what you can. Get your pleasures where you can. Before we are turned into dirt.

   Maybe take 3 entire hours and listen to Thích Nhất Hạnh's Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

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2. 999900000999Jan 2022
   Extremely sad, he wrote of expressing compassion for every one.

   Peace is Every Step is a great book. Slowing down to enjoy my footstep, finding peace

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3. roflc0pticNov 2020
   Yeah! Breathing meditations are definitely the right place to start, but there’s really rich stuff after that.

   You can kind of view Buddhism as a three step process: the breathing/physical meditation techniques are for learning to direct your attention, and calm yourself down enough that you can pay attention to bodily sensations/your feelings. The next is getting acquainted with your patterns, identity the maladaptive bits, and use various meditations to train your mind into different patterns. The final phase is the more woo-sounding stuff about ego death and no self, and I don’t pretend to have a handle on it.

   Some great introductory books: “Radical Acceptance” by Tara Brach, which is pretty much anti-self esteem. This was personally the most useful to me.

   “Peace is Every Step” by Thich Naht Hanh is a great intro, too, followed by “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings.” If you want something that is minimal woo, “Buddhism Without Belief” is pretty great.

   Also, the center I’m peripherally involved in is The Florida Community of Mindfulness, based in Tampa. They’ve moved all of their programming to zoom since the pandemic. Practicing meditation with other people is probably the most useful thing you can do. No doubt there are other centers near you, and it might make sense to invest in them, but might be worth watching a couple of saved dharma talks, or tuning into a Sunday service (10am EST). The teacher at FCM, Fred Epsteiner, is very well regarded, though. Tbh I get kind of triggered by older white dudes giving me advice, but lots of people like him. :)

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4. roflc0pticAug 2020
   One really interesting aspect of empathy is that it seems to have evolved as a pain avoidance tool - you see someone else burn their hand, see them react by saying "Ouch!", and you feel a shadow of the pain they're in, and don't make the same mistake. When we feel too much empathy for people - e.g. someone we're close to is in pain - often people give advice that is selfish - you're in pain, and it's hurting me, so while I want to help, what I'm really doing is trying to minimize my own suffering by (often inadvertently) minimizing yours. Helping other people is hard, both because we often don't know what to do, and because even our best intentions can get distorted by our ape brains.

   And to be clear, the advice in the comic is bad advice when it's given in those contexts. For good advice that's shaped kind of the same way, I'd suggest reading "Peace is Every Step" by Thich Naht Hanh - lmk and I can send you a copy (It's on libgen). Alternatively, reading the stoics (as someone else suggested in this thread) would be a good place to start.

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5. hvassApr 2018
   I'd suggest Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
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6. jlongrMar 2017
   Peace Is Every Step - Thich Nhat Hanh

   One of the most influential books on meditation I've ever read. Quote from the Dalai Lama about it: "This book has the capacity to change lives."

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