Stress Is the Price We Pay

Stress is the price we pay for the happiness we seek.

Driven by busy schedules, obligations, needs, and ambitions, or caught up with worry, even while on holiday, we hardly leave our cares behind.

Hurling ourselves into work, entertainment, or physical distraction brings only temporary relief – for the root of our suffering is within us.

What exhausts us – more than the hectic regime of daily life – is our constant thrashing in the rapids of thought, mood, and memory.

How then do we find peace?

Even at the centre stage of life, whether we are reeling from personal misfortune or coping with ill-health, the practice is always the same. Internal and invisible, it requires that we train ourselves. We learn to let go the past and future, and grow calm by taming our troubled thoughts.

This reflection by Ayyā Medhānandī is from the book, Gone Forth, Going Beyond, (pdf) pp. 32-33.