The Second Recognition

Peace and happiness are not the result of, and can never be derived from, the content of experience. They are our nature. And this is really the second great recognition that everyone should know about early on in their childhood. The first great recognition - I am awareness. The second great recognition is peace and happiness are my nature, they can never be given to me from the outside. Peace and happiness are not intermittent experiences that I have from time to time. They are the very nature of myself. This is the second experiment. The first was to be knowingly the presence of awareness all the time, irrespective of the content of experience, and the second, to withdraw our demand from our friends and from the world that they make us happy. See what response we get from the world and our friends when we withdraw this impossible demand from them.