Friends, if you’ve never seen the movie Kung Fu Panda, I recommend it.

Highly.

My dad and I re-watched it recently, and that was ninety minutes well-spent.

Jack Black (AKA Po THEBigFatPanda) is just fantastic and never fails to make me laugh.

HOWEVER!

On this watch, it was actually Master Shifu who stole the show for me because while I was not a fan of him as a child, sassy curmudgeon is now oddly appealing?

My tastes have definitely changed.

As my dad would say, I am #adulting.

Anyways!

While Master Shifu may not be your cup of tea, he said something to Po towards the very end of the movie that I think contains helpful insight for everybody:

Do you see what he did there?

He distinguished between two different kinds of peace:

External (in the valley) and internal (in him, personally).

I don’t know about you, but until Master Shifu said that, I hadn’t really considered the fact that peace, like a lot of buzzwords, carries significances that, while alike, remain distinct.

And as I’ve been reflecting about how I’ve obtained peace in my own life, that external-internal distinction has been helpful for me, and so this week, I’d like to talk about a few different kinds of peace in the hopes that it might be easier to see what they are and how/if they can be achieved!

Because I don’t know about you, but peace is something I think e’rybody needs.

#1 External Peace

Here’s a thought exercise:

If I ask you to imagine something peaceful, what comes to mind?

Go on.

Close your eyes and think…

For me, I see a field with tons of flowers and a flowing stream.

My dad sees a beach.

My mom sees herself on a mountain with “a swiss cow wearing a cute bell next to me.”

Now, while you might not have imagined any of those exact scenes, I’m betting yours was something similar because, almost invariably, what I’ve found when I ask people to think of “peace” is that they tend to get rid of all other human beings.

Just poof!

It’s pretty funny, honestly.

No People = Peace.

Truly, when it comes to securing external peace, we are all like King Henry II of England, who having beef with The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, declared,

“Will no one rid of me of this troublesome priest?”

Only instead of just taking out priests, we’re like,

“Will no one rid me of these troublesome human beings?”

And here’s the thing:

It’s just a fact of life that our fellow humans can be peace-stealing pests.

In my experience, we all have an insuperable ability to be irritants and/or impediments to our fellow man.

That is, we tend to get on each other’s nerves and/or get in each other’s way, and in either case, the natural, default response of most people, including yours truly, is

Would you just GO AWAY?!

We all have those days 🙂

HOWEVER!

This puts us in a tricky place because if peace requires the absence of other human beings, our options for achieving it are pretty unappealing.

We can either

1) Live like a hermit, which I high-key do not recommend (feel free to check out my post on loneliness for a fuller explanation).

OR

2) Get rid of all other humans that become personally irritating or impeding–i.e. become a homicidal maniac.

Basically this:

Or this:

But maybe that’s too extreme.

Perhaps achieving peace doesn’t have to mean eternal hermit-ness or annihilating everyone you find impeding/irritating.

Maybe you’re thinking there’s one–just one–person who, if you could get them out of your life, that would bring peace to your surroundings.

And to that, I would say maybe, but I’d also caution you greatly because securing peace by clearing out even just one human being can have unforeseen and serious consequences.

And hey, don’t just take it from me.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice illustrates this beautifully.

I read P&P for the first time recently after watching (and LOVING) the movie and BBC miniseries, and I don’t know about you, but the character of Lydia Bennet, Elizabeth’s younger sister, got on my nerves very quickly.

Truly, I wanted to smack her with a rolled up newspaper in almost every scene, and I know I’m not alone because about two-thirds of the way through the story, Lydia gets an invitation to accompany a friend out of town, and while Elizabeth tries to stop her going, their own dad, Mr. Bennet says,

“We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then.”

And I was like amen!

Hallelujah!

Ding-dong the irritant has left!

And yet…

If you’ve read/watched Pride and Prejudice, you know that Lydia’s absence does not bring peace to the Bennets.

In fact, it does the exact opposite, resulting in “a scandalously patched up marriage” and leaving Mr. Bennet to say, “I am heartily ashamed of myself, Lizzie” for prioritizing “peace” over the stewardship and honor of his family.

And see, that’s the thing.

The problem as far as I can see with trying to achieve peace by making our surroundings as irritant and impediment free as they can possibly be is that we often do things that cause an even greater loss of peace, if not externally than internally.

#2 Internal Peace

I don’t know about you, but when I think of someone pursuing internal peace, I think of someone meditating.

In fact, after watching Kung Fu Panda, I think specifically of Master Shifu chanting “in-in-inner peace” in this scene from early on in the movie:

Spoiler alert: things go south for his “inner peace” pretty quickly when he gets word that Tai Lung, his adoptive son, has broken free from prison and is coming to kill everybody.

In fact, later in the movie, it is revealed that Master Shifu–like Mr. Bennet–actually carries a hearty dose of guilt and shame about his hand in the situation.

Which brings me back to the idea of meditation.

See, I suspect that like many people who practice meditation today, Shifu is trying to clear his mind not only of things going on around him but also things going on inside him.

Things like guilt and shame.

Regret and the corresponding heartache.

Because disrupters to our internal peace include not only what’s been done to us but also what we have done and failed to do.

And clearing one’s mind is a way to ensure we aren’t swallowed up by the doom and gloom.

Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that like C.S. Lewis said in his amazing book, A Grief Observed, the worst thoughts have a way of coming back…

And back…

And back.

We can’t shake them, and I think it’s no coincidence that a majority of people (at least in the US) who commit suicide shoot themselves in the head.

They silence the thing stealing their peace.

Permanently.

And see, I think that issue of permanency is key when it comes to understanding how we pursue peace because most everyone I know doesn’t want just a reprieve–they want lasting peace, and when you’re in a bad place, it becomes very, very easy to convince yourself that lasting peace can only be achieved after you’ve got a limestone marker above your head that reads R.I.P.

I’ve been there.

I get that.

But there are alternatives.

I read a book called What The Buddha Taught last fall, and Buddha (the O.G.) had an interesting prescription for achieving peace.

In brief, his perspective was that the root of all suffering was attachment to things (material objects, emotions, people, even existence and individuality).

Thus, the best way to alleviate suffering and achieve inner peace was to attach yourself to nothing.

Indeed, the ultimate end of Buddhism is for the practitioner to be “blown out” like a candle (that’s actually what the word “nirvana” means!).

You extinguish your existence, thereby eliminating all attachments, and achieve inner peace.

Permanently.

Personally, while I can see the rationale, that approach to peace doesn’t really appeal to me.

Instead, I’d like to offer an alternative to the alternative 🙂

#3 Peace That Passes All Understanding

Alright, so at this point, I’ve offered my thoughts on two kinds of peace (external and internal) that I think are really hard, even near impossible, to achieve and that require some pretty extreme and unappealing measures to keep.

However!

The type of peace that has been truly life-changing for me is markedly distinct.

Because it’s not a peace dependent on getting rid of all irritants/impediments, meditating ad infinitum, or extinguishing all attachments.

It’s a peace rooted in a person.

See, in John 16:33, Jesus says,

“In Me you may have peace. In this world, you will have troubles, but take heart. I have overcome the world.”

And for me, finding peace in Jesus has changed everything.

Because I don’t know about you, but in my life, I have troubles that include but are not limited to: irritants, impediments, things done to me, things I regret to have done and/or failed to do, and a whole host of attachments I’ve lost or am one day going to lose.

This world isn’t perfect.

Life hurts.

Troubles come.

And it comforts me a lot that Jesus–like Buddha OG–doesn’t deny that life is rough.

“In this world, you will have troubles.”

BUT, He says,

“Take heart. I have overcome.”

He doesn’t say to get rid of everybody or extinguish everything.

Rather, Jesus’ prescription for peace is:

“Hold on to Me.”

And again, for me, that has changed everything.

So friends, I guess I’ll close with this.

There’s a story recorded in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (highly recommend) about a man named Dr. Lawrence Saunders who, having been sentenced to die by the 16th century go-to method of being barbequed alive, kissed the stake he was about to be chained to, and declared,

“Welcome the cross of Christ. Welcome everlasting life.”

Peace isn’t pie in the sky.

But for Saunders (and for me), it is wholly rooted in the person of Jesus and His promise of everlasting life.

So!

If you find yourself grasping for peace, I would seriously recommend checking out Jesus because the peace He brings passes all earthly understanding, and when troubles come, you can say as Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12:

“I know whom I have believed.”

And I know His promises to me.

That’s all for this week!

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“Nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell… nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:38-39