Peace (in vs from) the mind

    

Salvadore Poe distinguishes between peace in the mind (often called “peace of mind”) and peace from the mind by looking at what you are relying on for your sense of contentment:

    

1. Peace IN the Mind (Peace of Mind)

• Conditional and Fragile: Peace in the mind relies on having quiet thoughts, pleasant circumstances, or agreeable emotional states.
• Riding the Carousels: Trying to achieve peace within the mind usually involves getting onto what Poe calls the “psychological” or “philosophical carousels”—rearranging thoughts, working through past stories, or searching for answers in order to make the mind settle down.
• Temporary Relief: Because thoughts, feelings, and sensations are in constant flux and motion, seeking peace within mental activity is a losing battle. The moment an uncomfortable thought, pain, or life challenge appears, peace of mind disappears.

    

2. Peace FROM the Mind (Freedom from Mind)

• Unconditional and Essential: Peace from the mind is not something you create or achieve; it is stepping back prior to all mental activity and abiding as your essential nature—pure aware being.
• Does Not Require a Quiet Mind: You do not need to stop, fix, or eliminate thoughts, nor do you need to “kill the ego”. The mind can be busy or full of chatter, but it no longer troubles you because you are not taking its commentary personally.
• The Screen and the Shadow: Poe compares pure aware being to a movie screen and the mind’s thoughts to a movie projected onto it. A fire in a movie scene cannot burn the screen. In the same way, mental noise and emotional storms cannot touch or harm the background stillness of your true being.
• “The Peace That Passes Understanding”: Rather than satisfying the mind with an intellectual explanation or a calm mental state, peace from the mind ends the questioner and the need for mental security altogether.

Ultimately, Poe suggests that instead of fighting to make the mind peaceful, you simply “take your foot off the gas” and come out into the sun of pure being, where peace is already present regardless of what the mind is doing.