Peace in the Storm
The Little Duck, by Donald C. Babcock Now we’re ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck, riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf. No it isn’t a gull. A gull always has a raucous touch about him. This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells. He isn’t cold, and he is thinking things over. There is a big heaving in the Atlantic, and he is a part of it. He looks a bit like a mandarin, or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bodhi tree. But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher. He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic. Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is. And neither do you. But he realizes it. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it! He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is. He has made himself a part of the boundless by easing himself into just where it touches him.
A long time ago, a prince was born into a royal family in the region of Nepal. At the time of his birth, it was prophesized that this baby would grow up to be a great leader, either politically or spiritually. Longing for his son to follow in his footsteps as a royal leader, the king made arrangements for the prince to live a life of utter perfection, so that he’d know only the best and most beautiful aspects, and would desire to maintain that lifestyle. Within the castle walls were beautiful gardens and delicious foods. The prince was surrounded by the best teachers, the best musicians, the most beautiful and youthful people possible. At 16, the prince was married to the loveliest woman in the court and soon they had son. All was perfect.
Except for this niggling feeling the prince had that it actually wasn’t. Just a few years later, as the prince reached 20 years old, he began to sense that something was missing. Though he had every good and lovely thing, was untouched by harshness or need, he felt an incompleteness, a lack that drove him out from the castle walls into the town where all that he’d been shielded from came to his awareness.
Dressed in disguise, he walked into the city where people of every age and caste were moving about. One by one, he gained 4 teachings. First, the prince saw a person who was very old and the realization of aging came upon him. Then he witnessed a person quite ill, begging for alms, and the realization of sickness and poverty was discovered. Next he watched as a funeral procession carrying the body of a relatively young man and he understood the reality of death. Then, finally, he met an ancient monk with no possessions but the robe he wore. The monk was old and didn’t possess things, yet he was wholly at peace, equanimous. The prince realized it was not money or youth that created peace at all. So what could it be?
And so, this prince, did not return to the castle. Instead, he began the life of an ascetic, until, nearly dead from starvation, he went into a kind of trance state. In this state he had a vision of a perfectly tuned lute, one that could support the playing of beautiful music. This lute, neither strung too tightly nor too loosely, was tuned to a balanced state in the middle.
How could it be that a human could also support the playing of beautiful, peaceful music? It is not, he realized, the wildly abundant riches of royalty nor the completely starved life of severe asceticism that offers balanced, equanimous harmony and peace of mind. It is the way of the middle, where one can accept the impermanence of all of life, accept life as it is.
So the prince would eventually become the first original Buddha and would go on to teach his Four Noble Truth and a way of living without suffering, a way of understanding what it means to live in peace. But not before he’d face as he sat under the famous Boddhi tree, as the story goes, a storm of demons coming at him in the name of Mara, the representation of illusion. As these demons rose around him, challenging him with doubt and desire, this man on the way to being the Buddha sat in stillness, took a breath, and placed his hand onto the earth. The earth witnessed his stillness and his stillness witnessed the earth. This storm could not unsteady his peace.
Jack Kornfield, a longtime teacher of Buddhist meditation says it like this: “Peace is the cessation of your struggle. It’s putting down the burden and letting things be as they actually are…we can’t come to rest because we’re at war with what’s actually here.” So then, the question becomes, do we actually want to live in peace? Or is it something we only think we want, but perhaps can not stand the reality of?
About 500 years after the Buddha, another teacher would offer teachings on living peacefully that are revealed in their own book of stories. One such story happens on a boat in a turbulent ocean. The sea is restless and tossing the young men on the boat side to side, while they’re “captain” has gone on sleeping peacefully below the deck. After wrestling with the boat for some time, the young men lose hope. The storm continues to rage, and they have worn themselves out fighting it, so they must wake a sleeping Jesus below.
As the story goes, Jesus awakens slowly, and, I imagine, as he rubs his groggy eyes, he looks around at his frantic disciples with some confusion. “Why the hubbub?” Jesus asks (as he’s known to do). The disciples answer in a frenzy, everyone speaking at once to tell him the sea is wild, they are afraid and don’t know what to do.
In my version, Jesus sighs, not because he’s frustrated but because he’s catching his own breath, maintaining his settled nervous system. “Fellas, your intensity isn’t going to help. Let’s gather our wits here. Everything’s impermanent and you’re already loved and in good hands. It’s all good, guys. The storm that’s outside doesn’t need to become the storm you bring inside.”
Or, maybe he said, “Be still. And know.”
I don’t know if the sea outside calmed, or if it continued to rage, but the story goes that the waves became steady. In that moment, the storm inside settled.
These stories get all mixed together with a combination of real historical person and the power of legend and myth. This is how it is when we tell stories about people. It’s what we all do, and what someone will do to each of us someday.
But the point is the same. In stillness, in acceptance of life as it is, we come closer to peace. These are powerful and not easy truths of life. Sickness, death, hardship, all of the loss that aging brings. Believe me, I’ve known each of these. Sometimes I also know peace. Not when I’m trying to recreate something that no longer is. Not when I’m frantically trying to control the reigns of every single detail. Not when I get lost in some false and fleeting refuge. Not when I’m screaming at someone to save me or abiding a life of extreme austerity. True peace comes only when I come to know stillness, a way of acceptance and of trust that includes following wiser examples and bringing the discerning wisdom of my frontal cortex online. When I’ve invited my parasympathetic nervous system into the situation. It’s like brain science and spirituality remind me: “Be still. And know.” The storm outside does not have to be the storm that enters within.
Perhaps if we learn to sit down in the sea, to ease into the place where it touches us, we might learn to repose in the boundlessness of it all. Sort of like the duck. Or Buddha. Or even Jesus.
So dear friends, I’ll be traveling for the next 3 Sundays and so only paid subscribers will receive Your Sunday Retreat. Please consider subscribing if you’re able, or reach out to me if this is meaningful to you but the cost isn’t possible right now. I’m happy to support you for a time. I’ll be back with posts that all will see some part of June 17. Until then, may there peace that we can accept.