Peace, within the depth-psychology and contemplative corpus, is not treated as a static condition of absence — the mere cessation of conflict — but as a dynamic, hard-won psychological and spiritual achievement whose nature divides the traditions sharply. Three broad orientations compete. The first, represented most powerfully by Thich Nhat Hanh, understands peace as immediately available inner ground from which social engagement proceeds: it is not withdrawal but the precondition of effective compassionate action. The second, running through the Bhagavad Gita commentaries of Easwaran and the Buddhist historiography of Armstrong, locates peace as the fruit of disciplined selflessness — the extinction of greed, hatred, and delusion that the Buddha named Nibbana and characterized with the single epithet ‘Peace.’ The third, examined comparatively by Joseph Campbell, surveys the mythological architectures that different civilizations have constructed around the ideal of peace, revealing how aspirations toward universal peace are historically shadowed by doctrines of holy war. Across these orientations, a persistent tension emerges between peace as interior psychological state and peace as socio-political achievement. Jacoby’s Jungian reading adds a further register: peace as archetypal reconciliation between ego and Self, symbolized by the dove. The corpus thus presents peace as simultaneously the summit of individual psychic integration and the horizon of collective human aspiration.
This peace is not a barricade which separates you from the world. On the contrary, this kind of peace brings you into the world and empowers you to undertake whatever you want to do to try to help.
Nhat Hanh argues that genuine inner peace is not withdrawal from the world but the generative force that makes compassionate social action possible.
, The Sun My Heart, 1988thesis
there were positive things that could be said of Nibbana too: it was ‘the Truth,’ ‘the Subtle,’ ‘the Other Shore,’ ‘the Everlasting,’ ‘Peace,’ ‘the Superior Goal,’ ‘Safety,’ ‘Purity, Freedom, Independence, the Island, the Shel
Armstrong demonstrates that the Buddha identified Nibbana affirmatively with Peace as one of its most defining epithets, alongside deathlessness and freedom from selfishness.
, Buddha, 2000thesis
By tamping out the ‘unhelpful’ states of mind, the Buddha had gained the peace which comes from selflessness; it is a condition that those of us who are still enmeshed in the cravings of egotism… cannot imagine.
Armstrong identifies the Buddha’s enlightened peace as a fruit of selflessness — the extinction of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion — inaccessible to the egotically bound mind.
, Buddha, 2000thesis
We all say we want peace. There is no individual that says he does not want peace, no nation that says it does not want peace. But if we want peace, we must do the things that make for peace.
Easwaran identifies the gap between verbal profession of peace and actual peace-oriented conduct as the central human contradiction that the Gita addresses.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis
Psychologically peace means a state of reconciliation, and the twig carried by the dove is therefore a reconciling symbol between God and man; we could call it a symbol of totality or of the Self.
Jacoby reads the peace-dove archetype as a Jungian symbol of the Self — the psychological state of reconciliation between ego and the divine ground of the psyche.
, The Analytic Encounter: Transference and Human Relationship, 1984thesis
The earlier mythic notion had been of a great war, a holy terminal war, through which a universal reign of peace should be ultimately established at the end of historic time: which, however, was not properly a mythology of peace but a summons, rather, to war, perpetual war.
Campbell argues that most mythologies ostensibly oriented toward peace are structurally mythologies of holy war, revealing the deep cultural ambivalence between peace as ideal and war as sacred duty.
, Myths to Live By, 1972thesis
These four characters can be translated as, ‘If you want peace, peace is with you immediately.’
Nhat Hanh presents peace as immanently available — a present-moment realization rather than a future achievement — and then tests this aphorism against extreme humanitarian crisis.
, The Sun My Heart, 1988supporting
in order to undertake the great work for peace that is dear to all of us, we should have an adequate sense of detachment from the results of our work.
Easwaran argues that durable commitment to the work of peace requires inner detachment from outcomes, lest activists themselves become violent when confronted with setbacks.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
But better still is surrender in love, because there follows immediate peace.
Easwaran identifies surrender in love — as opposed to mechanical practice or intellectual knowledge — as the surest and most direct path to the experience of peace.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
peace, harmony, and prosperity are the standard of normalcy; what we write about are the disruptions.
Easwaran inverts the conventional assumption that war is the historical norm, proposing that peace is the deeper human standard and conflict a deviation from it.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
we have discovered also in our survey a third point of view in relation to the ideals and aims of war and peace, neither affirming nor denying war as life, and life as war, but aspiring to a time when wars should cease.
Campbell identifies a third mythological stance — neither glorifying war nor denying it — that aspires toward an eschatological cessation of warfare as a distinct cultural achievement.
, Myths to Live By, 1972supporting
Stevens followed Walter Pater’s quest for ‘the finer edge of words,’ romancing the etymon, as it were. ‘Peace’ in its origins meant a ‘fastening,’ as into a covenant. Yet the peace after death, abiding only in our loving memories, is estranged from any covenant with us.
Bloom, reading Stevens through Pater, traces the etymology of peace to covenant and fastening, then notes the tragic irony that post-mortem peace breaks every covenant with the living.
, The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime, 2015supporting
in the spiritual mind’s call for peace and divine ecstasy. This trend is founded in the truth of the being; for Ananda is the very essence of the Brahman.
Aurobindo situates the spiritual mind’s aspiration toward peace within the metaphysical framework of Ananda — the Bliss of Being that is the ultimate ground of all existence.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
Even in international relations, in order to establish peace on earth and goodwill among men, Gandhi has shown that nonviolence is the only way.
Easwaran extends the Gita’s teaching on selfless action to international relations, arguing that nonviolence — demonstrated by Gandhi — is the only reliable path to collective peace.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
his election, so he wrote, had brought back peace at last. The same impression seems to have prevailed among the Byzantine public, who felt that peace had been saved and that party wrangles would be a thing of the past.
Dvornik documents peace as an institutional and ecclesial category — the restoration of unity within the Church of Constantinople — showing how the term functions in historical religious governance.
, The Photian Schism: History and Legend, 1948supporting
to the dreamy drone of ‘Peace! Peace! Peace! Peace to all living beings!’ while the blood of beheaded victims poured in peace, continuously, as ambrosia, into her maw.
Campbell marks the dark irony of ritual violence conducted under an invocation of universal peace, revealing the ambivalent union of destruction and cosmic harmony in goddess mythology.
, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume III, 1964aside
‘Great peace and joy’ (Ch. 大安樂, dà ānlè; Jp. 大安楽, dai anraku) ultimately translates the Sanskrit mahā-sukha, which in turn is usually equated with ‘nirvana.’
Dōgen’s editors note that the Zen concept of ‘great peace and joy’ is a translational equivalent of nirvana, linking the Japanese contemplative tradition’s highest state to peace.
aside
We seek peace and freedom for all, but we are letting the selfish pursuit of personal profit and pleasure destroy our families, our communities, and even our society.
Easwaran diagnoses the contradiction of modern civilization: professed desire for peace coexisting with structurally violent priorities of profit and pleasure.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside