The Easiest Buddhist Practice To Hammer Down Stress and Anxiety
It’s called “Changing the Peg”
Buddhism offers a toolbox of practices for living well. You have probably heard about breath meditation (ānāpānasmṛti), for example. But have you heard of “changing the peg?”
While breath meditation is focused on uniting your conscious mind with an awareness of your own body, changing the peg is focused on altering the process of your thoughts themselves.
My practical purpose in this essay is to explain what this practice is and how to use it.
My philosophical purpose is to show that the Buddhist practice complements the approach to directing your thoughts that Stoic philosophy recommends. Specifically, it draws on the same moral psychology but treats a different concern.
I am going to follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s articulation of the “changing the peg” in his The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. Martin Luther King Jr. once nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and now, at 94 years of age, Nhat Hanh is quite ill and preparing to pass on. I think it’s worth pausing to reflect on his teachings as a way of expressing thanks.
