Keeping Calm

For the secularly minded, a basic understanding of science is a good start to establish the motivation and approach to keeping calm. Here are some of the facts to internalize:

• everything, including humans, is made of raw materials forged in stars
• all life including human, has evolved based on two goals: survival and reproduction
• many such science facts are both humbling and liberating, from spiritual and practical perspectives respectively:
• earth is located in an ordinary corner in the vast space of the universe 
• humans are yet another experiment in evolution over a long period of time
• it is humbling to learn that all life has no inherent purpose beyond what evolution bestowed upon it; it is also liberating that we are free to 'make up' our own purpose for the sake of  day-to-day life: 
• either long term and profound like 'solve world hunger'
• short-term and mundane like 'get through this semester and then figure out'

This is a very good book to gain a detailed understanding of what drives our behavior. One way of summarizing the book is along a feelings-actions-conditioning model:

• we have no control over our thoughts and feelings which arise without our knowledge and control in our brain 
• feelings give rise to our immediate actions, which are somewhat under our control, although not entirely
• probability with which feeling and actions occur is driven by our physiology, environment, genetics and past learning - loosely called: conditioning
• While conditioning influences our feeling and actions, it is also built over a long a period of time by our experience of feelings and past actions. Hence these three form a causal loop.

It is humbling to learn that there is no 'self' that is causing and driving our actions; it is also liberating to learn that all our feelings (and hence suffering in the moment) are transient. This exact transient nature of all our experience can be glimpsed with mindfulness meditation, which focuses all attention to the 'present'. Because we are not even aware of the mental processes happening autonomously, it takes a lot of effort and focus to appreciate and experience them as they arise. Fully experiencing this can take years of practice; but, a realization of the transient nature of our feelings and suffering can be glimpsed with just a few sessions of 10 minute practice.

This is a great place to begin that practice.