Find a Quiet Corner: Inner Peace: Anytime, Anywhere

By Nancy O'Hara

Available for the first time in a single volume, this new edition features two of Nancy O’Hara’s bestselling books, revised and updated with a new introduction by the author.
Going beyond daily meditation, Find a Quiet Corner teaches us effective ways to release stress, boost energy, tap into creativity, improve our well-being, and above all, achieve spiritual fulfillment. Readers will benefit from its lessons on how to increase self-awareness and personal satisfaction through careful attention to breath. Serenity in Motion makes the perfect companion book, guiding us to look at conflict differently, communicate more effectively, and embrace confusion so as to invite serenity into our lives and banish anxiety. O’Hara’s comforting words help us to meet each moment as it comes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nancy O'Hara
• Release date: Apr 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9780984893812

Nancy O'Hara

Nancy O'Hara is an author, artist and meditation teacher. She is the author of six books on the subject of mindfulness and meditation, including the bestselling Find a Quiet Corner, and two novels in the Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery series. She lives in upstate New York with her perfectly imperfect husband, trees outside her windows and a view of the Catskill Mountains.

Book preview

PRAISE for FIND A QUIET CORNER and SERENITY IN MOTION:

"To pause, to breathe, to sense, to be – these gaps in the busy-ness are what give meaning to activity. Find A Quiet Corner is a precious guide and reminder to live from the spaciousness of our inner beings – to live in the joy and peace that are our birth right."

—Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Guilt Is the Teacher, Love Is the Lesson

"Find A Quiet Corner is a wise and inspirational book, a beautiful introduction to the art of meditation. The book offers a helping hand along the path towards inner peace and happiness. We will all ultimately walk this path. Why not begin now?"

—Brian L. Weiss, M.D., P.A., author of Many Lives, Many Masters

O’Hara helps us find the quiet place inside us where inner peace abounds. In our harried lives, it’s comforting to remember the quiet place can be revisited.

—Michele Weiner-Davis, M.S.W., author of Fire Your Shrink and Divorce Busting

With simple, inspiring advice, Nancy O’Hara shows us how to bring awareness to the thousand and one challenges of daily life.

—Robert Gerzon, author of Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety

I can't think of a better guide than Nancy O’Hara to help slow our accelerated world and restore balance. Her elegance as a writer is matched by her elegance as a thinker. This is a wise book.

—Betsy Lerner, author of Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories

"There is breathtaking wisdom and strength to be found in a single moment of silence—and Nancy O’Hara offers a kind invitation to listen. Find a Quiet Corner is a gentle opening; it beckons us into fruitful practice. Here, we harvest the compelling grace that is born only in the quiet of our lives."

—Wayne Muller, minister and therapist, author of Thursday’s Child: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

PRAISE for JUST LISTEN:

This book is a searchlight illuminating the wisdom and power of inner life. It will help anyone discover serenity and peace.

—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Prayer Is Good Medicine and Healing Words

"Further guidance for reducing daily anxieties and heeding inner wisdom from the author of Find a Quiet Corner."

—New Age Journal

This is a clear, beautiful book that can help everyone. O’Hara’s writing is fine, compassionate, and always has a ring of truth.

—Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

Combining Zen practice with a twelve-step philosophy, O’Hara uses gentle essays and exercises to create a book to do rather than to just read.

—Publishers Weekly

"Men and women alike will find much wisdom and quiet strength in these pages. Just Listen is an eloquent guide to the inner peace we all desire."

—John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

O’Hara’s practical guide to just listening places a gentle woman’s hand on the daily practice of meditation.

—Perle Besserman, author of Owning It: Zen and the Art of Facing Life

"Breathe deeply, relax your body, empty your mind, and read Nancy O’Hara’s Just Listen. She gently guides you on the path to experiencing greater serenity and discovering the passionate life you were born to live."

—Robert Gerzon, author of Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety

PRAISE for WORK FROM THE INSIDE OUT

"Nancy O’Hara’s Work From the Inside Out is a subtle and intimate blend of traditional Zen Buddhist practice and practical wisdom. Clearly emerging from her own experience as both an employee and student of meditation, the exercises she outlines in the book are accessible yet deeply grounded in a spiritual tradition that goes back over twenty-five hundred years. O’Hara’s remarkable gift lies in presenting this venerable discipline in an accessible and thoroughly contemporary voice."

—Perle Besserman, author of Owning It: Zen and the Art of Facing Life

"Unhappiness at work takes a serious toll on our mental and physical health and is a major risk factor for illness. If we want to live life at its fullest, we cannot afford to separate our work from our spiritual life. Work from the Inside Out shows how to weave these two aspects of our life into a seamless whole."

—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Beyond the Body, Reinventing Medicine & Healing Words

"Don’t be fooled by Nancy O’Hara’s simple and elegant advice. Work from the Inside Out explains why we sometimes make ourselves miserable at work—and what we can do to change that."

—Joanne B. Ciulla, author of The Working Life

Find a Quiet Corner

Inner Peace: Anytime, Anywhere

Nancy O’Hara

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 by Nancy O’Hara

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-9848938-1-2

Also by Nancy O’Hara

Just Listen: A Guide to Finding Your Own True Voice

Zen by the Brush: A Japanese Painting and Meditation Set (illustrations by Seiko Susan Morningstar)

3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery (with Seppo Ed Farrey)

Work from the Inside Out: 7 Steps to Loving What You Do

One Hand Killing (An Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery)

To Dad, Donge, and Michael

Contents

Praise

Preface

Part I: Find a Quiet Corner—A Simple Guide to Self-Peace

Introduction

Why a Quiet Corner?

What Is a Quiet Corner?

Breathing

Caring about and for Yourself

Become the Person You Already Are

Get to Know Yourself Again

Trust in the Process

Finding Your Quiet Corner

Be Creative

Morning

Schedule a Meeting with Yourself

Physical Spaces

Avoidance

Lunch Break

Environment

Find the Time

Solitude

The End of the Day

It’s Your Life

If You Think You Already Spend Too Much Time Alone

Procrastination

Spending/Saving Time

Quintessential Time

More about Breathing

Facing Your Quiet Corner

Resistance

Energy

The Paradox—So Easy, Yet So Hard

Who’s Looking?

Acceptance

Projection

Faith

Let Your Breathing Guide You

Quiet-Corner Walking

Is This Meditation?

Light a Candle

Burn Some Incense

Entertain Yourself

Consult the Child in You

Read Quietly Aloud to Yourself

Practice, Practice, Practice

Make It a Habit

Cultivate Your Own Distinct Style

Ritual

Keep It Yours

Sharing

Prayer

Insomnia

When Things Don’t Go Your Way

Turn Bad Situations to Your Advantage

Breathe

Singing

Calming the Mind

Where Is the Mind and Who Is Its Master?

Concentration

Love

Progress, Not Perfection

Drawing and Writing

What Is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?

Who Are You? Where Did You Come From? Where Are You Going?

Relaxing

Sound

Clutter

Beauty

Comfort versus Discomfort

Detachment

Focus on the Moment

Don’t Just Do Something—Sit There

Mindfulness throughout the Day

Traveling with Your Quiet Corner

Imperturbability

The Payoff

Part II: Serenity in Motion—Inner Peace: Anytime, Anywhere

Introduction

Belly-Mind

The Practice of Being Still

Listening

Standing

Sitting

Waiting

Watching TV

Being Patient

The Practice of Being in Motion

Walking

Talking

Eating

Playing

Tasking

Driving

Bathing

Working

The Practice of Being Challenged

Ego

Relationships

Failure

Success

Frustration

Disappointment

Ambition

Opportunity

Competing and Comparing

Love

The Practice of Being Present

Broken Shoelaces

Chocolate

The Weather

Change

Money

Sex

The Practice of Letting Go

Death

Illness

Loss

Birth

Celebrations

Vacations

Job Loss

The Practice of Being Aware

Pain

Negativity

Hope

Jealousy

Moods

Fear

Joy

Anger

Closing Thoughts

Curiosity

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Preface

Twenty years ago this year, burdened with a once-again broken heart, I took my first step into a Zen Buddhist monastery. I met my first Zen monk, who would help me change my life. I sat down on a round, black meditation cushion, confronting myself and my deep pain for the first time ever in my thirty-eight years. I took a deep breath and then exhaled fully, which I hadn’t done for a very long time.

There were a lot of firsts that year, twenty years ago, when my life as I knew it derailed and I began the search for new tracks to set it on. It took a few years, three exactly, for one more huge life implosion to set me firmly on the path I’ve followed ever since—a path that has challenged me, excited me, calmed me, scared me, and given me deep inner peace; a path that ever so slowly has moved me away from the mental torment and excruciating internal pain that I had become accustomed to and thought was my fate to carry; a path that has sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently, taken me into the light.

I will turn fifty-eight this year and the firsts continue: I am in an intimate partnership—the first to last seven years—that gets better every day. I finished writing my first novel—a once well-hidden dream secret. My first book, Find a Quiet Corner, is being granted a second life, and my most recent book, Serenity in Motion, is being republished with it.

These two combined books in your hands represent the bookends of my spiritual life for the past twenty years, and I am thrilled that they are now joined together in one volume. It’s as if the two halves of my brain, of my heart, and of my entire being have finally merged into one, with the marriage of these two books representing the outer manifestation of my internal search and harmony.

It signifies that maybe, just maybe, after twenty years of practice, I am beginning to have an inkling of what it means to be. As I look forward to the next twenty years of this mysterious life, I wonder (without expectation—and that is my greatest lesson learned and practiced!) what new insights are in store for me, what the world will look like, and what more I can do to serve others.

Buddhism, which is called the Middle Way, has been the vehicle through which I have experienced selfless moments. And at this time, as I contemplate my life and feel deep gratitude about the course it has taken, a Christian prayer comes to my mind as a reminder that it’s not about Buddhism or Christianity or this God or that one; it’s about love, kindness, and compassion for ourselves and others. This is all that matters, however we learn it.

This prayer, by St. Francis of Assisi, goes like this:

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace—that where there is hatred, I may bring love—that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness—that where there is discord, I may bring harmony—that where there is error, I may bring truth—that where there is doubt, I may bring faith—that where there is despair, I may bring hope—that where there are shadows, I may bring light—that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted—to understand, than to be understood—to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.

Each time, I read this prayer aloud, if I concentrate and truly listen, tears come to my eyes. It awakens in me a deep caring and offers up the possibility that perfect loving is possible. I believe this prayer. I believe it to be an authentic product of love. It soothes and comforts me with its promise of enlightenment. Since stepping on my spiritual path, I’ve tasted some of what this prayer offers, I’ve learned to forgive myself each time I realize how imperfect I am, and I accept that I am perfect in my imperfection.

This brings me to a passage that I found in a Zen text twenty years ago, which I wrote on an index card and set on my desk so that I could be reminded every day what I was seeking and where it might be found. It’s a message that continues to resonate deep in my gut and promises me that what I seek is not only possible, but truly simple: The essence of Buddhism is no more than living in harmony with the changing circumstances of one’s life, without strain or compulsion.

I never wrote down which text this came from or who wrote it, so I apologize to the author for not giving proper credit here. I had no idea then how profound and lasting this message would be for me. I now realize that if the only thing I’ve learned over the past twenty years is how to live this way, then that is all the knowing I need. And if you can take away just one small gem from this book that inspires and supports you on your spiritual path, then the circle will be complete.

As I read through Find a Quiet Corner and Serenity in Motion to determine what I might want to change, omit, or expand upon for this new combined edition, I realized that if I were to write either of these books today, they would be different. But I also appreciate that they are perfect just as they are and that they represent my heart-mind as it was when I wrote them and therefore should be left untouched. So I offer them to you basically as they were initially conceived and hope that they will guide you toward your true self, into your quiet corner, and then out into the world—with serenity and inner peace.

July 2008, New York City

Part I.

Find a Quiet Corner—A Simple Guide to Self-Peace

Introduction

I used to wish my life away. I lived my life thinking ahead to the next thing—the next day, when I had a date with so-and-so and wouldn’t that be nice; the next job, because I hated my current one so much; the next year, when I was planning to take that great vacation, which held the promise of changing my life; the next prince charming, who would rescue me from my life because the last one was really a frog and I was meant to be saved. I couldn’t wait for the next experience that was sure to transform me and my life. I still have the tendency to live in the future, but today I notice when I do and am usually able to catch myself and bring my attention back to the moment. But it took some time and a lot of pain to