Lessons from Understanding Enneatype 9

Peace, the final frontier....  Most of the world wishes for it.  Many of us actively seek it or promote it.  A section of my office wall is decorated with quotations about peace from throughout history and across the continents.  The notion is so wonderfully quiet and restful.

While peace may allow for quiet and restfulness, its origin is not in passivity.  How often do I back away from conflict in the name of peace only to find that the conflict goes on without me and within me... or do I divert an uncomfortable conversation in the name of maintaining harmony only to leave unresolved issues brewing beneath the surface... or do I decide not to express my feelings only to experience others as leaving me out of the equation, creating sadness, frustration, or lowered self-esteem for myself?

A well-known Taoist verse teaches that peace begins inside the individual person:

   If there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in the nations.
   If there is to be peace in the nations, there must be peace in the cities.
   If there is to be peace in the cities, there must be peace between neighbors.
   If there is to be peace between neighbors, there must be peace in the home.
   If there is to be peace in the home, there must be peace in the heart.

So how do we get to a place of peace in the heart?  Not through passivity, not through avoidance, not through denial of trouble or distancing ourselves from our emotions.  We ultimately find peace by allowing ourselves to experience ourselves ever more deeply without rejecting what is there.  In allowing internally the experience of anger or frustration or hope or fear and inquiring into the reality of its presence... just letting it be so that we can come to see what is beyond it and then allowing that, whatever it may be... and following the thread of acknowledging the significance of the various emotions and sensations which present themselves, then we come to be present to ourselves, and in that deep presence we find peace. 

Peace is not for the faint of heart.  It is there for us when we stand up to ourselves to be counted as wholeheartedly present.