Striving to Be Peaceful

Striving to be peaceful is a contradiction of terms. How could striving lead to peace? Striving is the opposite of peace. It's such a relief. So when we realize peace is not something that need be brought about by effort, by practice, by discipline, or by even changing the content of experience. Our being or presence of awareness is already peaceful. It's a question of noticing it or recognizing it, not creating it. Let's say you're feeling anxious, that emotion, it's a disturbance. You don't have to change the anxiety in order to feel peace. All you need to do is to take a step back from the anxiety and recognize, oh, I