Island of Peace 

I’ve been rereading Thich Nhat Hahn’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (New York, 1998). He advises us to “practice mindful breathing and return to your island of self” (p. 163). Let’s call this the “island of peace.” 

Imagine yourself to be in a little boat on a choppy sea. You go up and down with the waves, alternating between elation and disappointment.  You worry about capsizing. Eventually you spot an island, you row towards it, and soon you land where there is mild air, stability, and nothing to worry about. You have reached the island of peace. 

As Thich Nhat Hahn says, you get to the island of peace through mindful breathing. He says that “mindfulness is remembering to come back to the present moment.” (p. 64). Zazen is the practice of coming back to the present moment. The practitioner puts thinking and conceptualization aside, when they occur, and returns to exactly what he or she perceives in the present, which is his breathing. That puts him on the island of peace. 

For a zazen practitioner, it is easy to reach the island of peace outside of meditation. Whatever he is doing – taking a walk, washing the dishes, trimming the grass – he can put thinking aside and just attend to what he is doing or take in whatever his senses receive. The island will emerge and he will be at peace.