Peace Is Not A Performance

Ajaan Chah compared life to a glass. If someone gives you a glass, you might think your task is to keep the glass from breaking. But you can’t, because it’s in its nature of glass to break. If it doesn’t break now, it will break later. Peace, then, comes not from trying to hold things together, but from seeing a broken glass already in an unbroken one.

But we so often make peace a performance. We project calm even when we’re hurting, because showing disturbance feels like failure. We overextend ourselves to keep others happy, mistaking control for care. And don't get me started on the “good vibes only” crowd. These are all misguided ways we seek peace in identity, not seeing that this will just breed more conflict when others inevitably challenge our fragile personas.

Real peace asks that we turn toward the shattering, not away from it. First, we have to learn to bear witness to pain — our own and others’ — with space, curiosity, and compassion. Then, we have to learn to let go: of expectations, viewpoints, enemy-images. Finally, we have to notice the good that remains between us, because conflict truly ends not through rules or treaties, but through living relationships.

A Lebanese friend of mine recently said, “Forget about peace in the Middle East, Paul. If people wanted peace, they’d have it by now.” He’s right. War doesn’t end because people adopt a fake innocence, claiming, "Well I'm for peace, it's just those others over there who aren't." War ends when people actually start to see each other, in their pain, in their confusion, in their belief that they deserve something better.

That starts with seeing yourself more fully. Maybe not everything is fine right now. Maybe you’re struggling. And maybe that struggle isn’t just bad luck or the fault of others, but the result of holding on too tightly to something. Can you love that clinging part of you anyway, until, in time, it pries its fingers loose from your life and actually starts to live it?