Aaron Soltys's Blog: Inner peace made eaay

Tonight I’d like to touch on a big subject, death. I don’t claim to have an answer as to what happens after, but I do believe that part of living a peaceful life is to contemplate and be prepared for it.
Every religion that I have knowledge of has some idea or concept of what happens after death. There is the concept of judgment and entering heaven and hell, reincarnation, reunion with the source, ascension into higher dimensions so on and so forth. Atheists also have a concept, albeit total annihilation of consciousness. I’m not sure which is right, but here is why I’m not worried and you shouldn’t fear it either.
I’d like you to consider the words of the Taoist sage Chuang-Tzu when he said “How am I to know which is better, living or dying?” as well as “And how should I know the dead don’t wonder why they had ever clung to life?”
I’m not going to focus on the happier endings like heaven and ascension, I’m going to focus on the scenario which scares people, particularly atheists; we completely cease to be.
The reason that I find this scary to people is they have a very difficult time imagining non-experience. Somehow when we think of annihilation of consciousness we imagine ourselves stuck in a dark room for all eternity. That simply wouldn’t be the case. We experience non-experience every night, sparing dream states. We go to sleep and some hours later we wake up and the time has passed. Whether it be two hours, four hours or twelve hours of continuous sleep it makes no difference, that time passes without us being aware of it passing. We could sleep for a hundred years, and when we woke up it would be the same. Maybe we would miss our long deceased family members, but we would not have any feeling about the time itself. So the same would have to be true for the cessation of consciousness. If we die and that’s it, then it would be no different than experiencing those 8 hours of sleep. We simply wouldn’t observe it. It wouldn’t make us happy or sad or lonely.
Realistically speaking, if we become conscious when our brain starts functioning and cease to be conscious after our brain stops functioning, then we must also have been dead from the beginning of time until we were born, and do you have any recollection of that time bothering you? Of course not, and you wouldn’t be bothered by the time after death, either.
Back to the quotes I asked you to ponder, what if it is, in fact, better to be dead than alive? We have no way of knowing that it isn’t and so we shouldn’t fear it. Because I pondered these points I was able to overcome my fear of death. I won’t rush towards it in anticipation of seeing what it's like to die but when the time comes I won’t have any fear of what’s next.

Who are you? A seemingly simple question, but one that I think a lot of us don’t quite understand the depth of, or how that depth can change our lives for the better.

Let’s say that you ask me to write a two page paper about who I am, and then you ask my mother, my girlfriend, her sister, my brother, my barber, my coworkers and my friends to do the same. I guarantee you that while there may be some similarities, you will find more differences than anything else in their description of who I am. Ask the person who I bumped into in an elevator who I am, another different story, based on their limited understanding of who I am from that brief encounter.

So which one is me? Well, all of them and none of them. They are all different visions of what I am understood to be, and they are all right and they are all incomplete. We can only know somebody so far as we have experienced them. If I meet you on the worst day of your life, my entire understanding of you will be of you like that, which I would assume would be an incomplete vision of you.

So every person you meet or have any contact with whatsoever has an image of you, their vision of you, made up of their experiences with you. That vision is both you and not you, but the life changing realization comes from when you understand that that limited vision is their complete version of “you”. One of my favourite quotes is “Aspire to be the person that your dog thinks you are.”

How does this information change our life? Simple. When we understand that when a person speaks about us to ourselves or anyone else, they are not speaking about us, they are speaking about their vision of us. When they say something insulting, hurtful or offensive they can never speak it about us, they can only speak it about their vision of us.

So when we come to realize this, we become unoffendable. We become more understanding, and more open. Instead of being hurt by someone’s words we might instead try to understand why they see us that way, assuming we don’t agree with their analysis.

When we are told “don’t take anything personally” we really shouldn’t, because nothing can be personalized to a full version of us, only a limited, fragmented vision of us, a shadow, so to speak.

So go about your life with this understanding, stop taking things personally. If someone says something hurtful attempt to understand instead of retaliating or becoming hurt and I promise you will find your life to be much more enjoyable. You will stop worrying so much about what others think about you, because you understand they can’t think about you.

Think it over. This understanding changed my life for the better, I hope it helps you in yours.

When storms are raging and the winds are howling, we can look to the trees and see that they sway uncontrollably, sometimes looking like they are about to snap. When we watch the treetops in the wind just like when we look at ourselves in times of hardship, we may think it is utter chaos.


What we forget to do, however, is that the top of the tree is not the tree. Only a part. Just like in our lives our current situation is not our life, only a part. What’s important to do, is to step back and look at the bigger picture. The tree, which looked so fragile and weak when we looked at the top swaying, has a stable base. A strong foundation. Deep roots. We are the same. When things in our life are going awry, maybe we are having family trouble, stress at work, an overwhelming amount of homework, whatever it may be, it is important to remember our foundation and our roots.


Our emotions can only sweep us away if we allow them to. We are not them, not entirely, and so we should not be consumed by them. We may be shaken by despair, depression, anxiety, worry or grief, those are our versions of strong winds.


When I feel out of control, I breathe deeply and see myself as a tree in a strong wind. I see life knocking me back and forth, but I also see my strong roots and trunk which I know will survive the turmoil.


I suggest you try it too, the next time you feel like life is tossing you this way and that. Close your eyes and imagine yourself as a tree. See your top being blown about, but focus on your trunk and roots holding true.

This is one of my favourite quotes from the Tao Te Ching, which is the building block of Taoism. Lao-Tzu advises that its best to be like water, which nourishes the ten thousand things and does not contend. In the same verse he goes on to advise:

Live in a good place.
Keep your mind deep.
Treat others well.
Stand by your word.
Keep good order.
Do the right thing.
Work when it is time.

When we look at what water does, from providing a home for fish and other aquatic life, rising to the sky just to fall back down to nourish the soil and help plants grow and give animals something to drink, to flowing down the stream nourishing all in its path, it sure seems to be a benevolent life-giving source, assisting everything else in their struggle to grow and develop. When it is done it does not ask for payment or recognition, it simply helps and then moves on.

You will also never find water in conflict with other water. If one river or stream comes across another, they do not contend or try to win dominance over the other. They simply merge together and continue on their way.

Later in the text, Lao-Tzu states that "the Sage acts and expects nothing, accomplishes and does not linger, has no desire to seem worthy."

Does this not sound like water? What a great way to live a good life, to do good deeds and good work without relying on recognition and reward. When we act like this we call it altruism or philanthropy.

I think if we were all a little more like water, nourishing and helping without self-interest, the world would be a much better place to live.

(Tao Te Ching translated by Stephen Addis & Stanley Lombardo 1993 Hackett Publishing Company, Boston)

I think a big part of attaining happiness in our lives is to first understand what happiness really is. I find it is a very misunderstood concept, most people mistake joy or ecstasy for happiness.

I think of happiness like this. I'll use the analogy of a ship, or a boat on the water. Water can be choppy, with high or violent waves, or calm and settled, much like life. When the boat rises up on a wave, this is joy. When the boat goes down lower than the water level, this is sadness or despair.

What matters, then, is the depth of the water itself. In the middle of an ocean, going up or down a little won't impact the ship very much, but in shallow waters, going down below the water level may cause the boat to smash into rocks or reefs, rendering sometimes catastrophic damage.

Happiness, then, is the depth of the water itself. If you live your life in a state in which you have a great depth of happiness, then the lows won't bother you very much. The highs are still highs as you ride the crest of the wave.

I was having a conversation the other day, and the topic at hand was the fact that I talk slower, walk slower, do everything slower than most people these days. I thought I'd share the reason with everyone. The reason I do everything so slowly is that it gives me the time to do it deliberately. Every step I take, I take deliberately. Every word I say, I say deliberately. What I respond to and how I react is deliberate.
Most of us are living reactive lifestyles. Something happens and we respond immediately. Something is said and we shoot back a response, often times regrettably. We rush through life, missing most of what is happening around us and within us. We don't stop and smell the roses, so to speak. So I think a big part of attaining inner peace is to slow down. Do everything you do at 50% of your regular speed, or 75% of your regular speed. Slow it down, talk slower, walk slower, and look around. Revel in the moment you're in. Smell the flowers, enjoy the sky. Think carefully of what you're going to say, listen carefully to what someone else is saying.
Give it a try, for an hour, a day, even ten minutes, slow yourself down and use the extra time you've garnered to really live in the moment and appreciate it for the miracle that it is.

In Taoism and Zen Buddhism, life is often compared to a river. Rivers flow downstream on their way to the ocean, or their final destination. In the Liexi or Lieh-tzu there is a story of a man who comes upon a river, and fears to cross. As the man stands staring at the river he notices another man, swimming gracefully. The swimmer goes under with the current occasionally, and pops up for air occasionally. The man who wishes to cross does not understand how the man is so graceful, so when the swimmer comes up on the shore he asks him "What is your method of swimming?" to which the swimmer replies "I have no method of swimming, I simply go where the water takes me, and in doing so I always arrive exactly where I am going!".
I think this is an important story because we spend so much time fighting, stressing and wishing we could do things in our life. It is like swimming up stream or against the current. Maybe we can make a little headway against the current, but we would definitely end up exhausted quickly. It is much easier to go with the current, or, if anything, make our way to the riverbank to the side instead of trying to go upstream.
I find life much more enjoyable when I go with the flow, accept what is, how it is, and don't fight against it but go with it. Give it a try the next time you want to fight against life. Try letting go.

We spend a lot of time passing trees letting them go unnoticed. I think it is immensely beneficial to take some time and watch one for a while. Think about how it got there because we know it didn't get there by itself, and it can't walk. Maybe a bird dropped the nut or a squirrel forgot about the acorn it buried. Think about what it is made out of. It started from a seed of some sort, made of tree parts. Then it took in the rain, the sunshine, the earth, compost, and turned it into something majestic, making a tree out of non-tree elements. Think of what it has gone through, from seedling to sprout to tree, all the storms and attacks it must have endured while it grew. Now it provides a safe environment for all sorts of wildlife, whether they be insects, birds or squirrels or whoever else decides to nest in them, asking nothing in return. All the while it sucks in CO2 and pumps back out the oxygen that we breathe. Sometimes their roots even hold hills in place and prevent landslides from destroying our towns. It does all these things and asks for nothing in return, it simply stands there treeing to the benefit of all. I think the world would be a much better place if we learned to be more like the trees in our own way.