I teach a very aggressive and intense style of yoga and one of my students gave me a card with this statement on it:

..."Peace. It is not meant to be a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

It reminded me also of my approach to "aliveness" or sparring in martial arts, after I did some NHB free sparring right after my yoga class.

Some feel that sparring or NHB fighting have no soul or spirit. They think it's purely physical and ego driven. But, it is the opposite.

When you fight someone in a sparring situation, you are facing your fears, you are in the "present moment" and you are forced to really look at your 'authentic self".

It's easy to be calm or meditate or do a form or kata in the midst of peace, but trying to achieve that same tranquility in the presence of stress and fear is one the purest forms of meditation.

In Yanagi Ryu, Don Angier says that "The strength of the willow is manifest only during the storm."

Stress is a response to the environment. 'Some people' who are 'naturally calm' in the midst of calamity and upheveal are agitated and unsettled in situations of calm and peace. Could they be running away from stress, fear, their authentic self and the present moment by avoiding tranquility and seeking solace in commotion?

Is it easy for them to be able to keep their will undivided in 'peaceful' conditions? What is peace anyway, some fixed state of the environment or mind which can be measured in ratio with its opposite, so we can ascertain it's purity. Is this ratio affected by different situations so that it is more pure in one and less in the other?

When i fight i face my opponent, and unless there is a mirror invovled (in either case)... i'm 'looking' at them getting a good pounding not my authentic self.

Such 'peace' and stillness can be good, but Krishnamurti obsrved that a quiet mind can still be a dull and stupid mind.

lol, too true, Mark. Ever heard the bit about how the stability of the swiss has led to their greatest contribution to mankind being the cuckoo clock?