Peace and joy

A moral mind goes together with a calm, cheerful inner life. People who live morally are at peace within. People who do cruel and wicked things may win some advantage for a while, but they pay for it with an unsettled, restless mind.

We know many kinds of joy: gladness, cheerfulness, delight, happiness, gratification, pleasure, bliss, glee, satisfaction, exhilaration, interest, excitement, relish and more. Not every joy is good. Some leave the mind more restless the happier they make us, and make us more addicted and more selfish.

Some families lose their happiness because one member looks for joy in the wrong pleasures, such as drinking, gambling, drugs and sexual misconduct, which are addictive and self-centered. That person knows only their own pleasure and does not care how others suffer. This is extreme selfishness. The people around them suffer, of course, but so do they, with a mind that is anxious and in turmoil.

Of course, the law of cause and effect will later bring them results to match, and they will be left with lasting suffering they cannot escape. But while they are indulging, grabbing and cruelly making others suffer, they feel pleasure even as their minds are in turmoil. Cruelty and an unkind heart always come with a disturbed mind.

A moral mind, in contrast, one that loves the good and lives for others, makes the heart peaceful and glad. That gladness does not blaze or boil or make a noise. It is quiet and gentle, yet deeply happy. A wise person knows this light peace is beyond price, so they accept disadvantages and hardship, devote themselves to service and forgo pleasures in order to keep their life within the bounds of goodness.

Take the story of a man who drove to sign a business contract. When he got out of the car, he saw blood on his tire. He suspected he had hit someone on the road without noticing. He gave up the meeting, turned around and went looking for the victim. He found her, took her for emergency care, and was himself suspected of causing the accident. When she woke up, she said a motorbike had hit her and ridden off, leaving her unconscious by the roadside. All he had done was drive over the blood. Asked about it later, he said that if he had left without searching, he would have been tormented for the rest of his life. Because he went back to save her, he lived the rest of his life in peace.

Buddhists often practice meditative concentration to find peace and a still heart. They believe that once the mind reaches absorption, with no thoughts left, they will attain a lofty realization of the path. But Shakyamuni Buddha taught that the condition for entering absorption is to have lived an extremely moral life beforehand. One must create a lot of good karma, keep the precepts and avoid evil, and give generously, helping others and making offerings.

Clearly, all the saints encourage a moral life as the road into an inner life of peace and joy.