Being humans, we have a variety of ways to construct identities – be it through our skills or habits or dispositions – and we go about in the world, doing what we can to keep those identities alive. This is stressful. In this Dhamma talk, Ajahn Karuṇadhammo reflects on our capacity to go deeper than our constructed and superficial personalities, using the precepts and mindfulness of the body as tools to not only experience states of peace, but to also understand the way our defilements rob us of that peace – that is, the peace of the kusala-citta, or ‘wholesome mind’. He reminds us that by continually applying effort to return to wholesome states of mind, they can become stronger and clearer, and we can eventually realize an un-entangled peace and liberated mind which no longer strives to nourish a sense of identity. This talk was offered on March 12, 2017, at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.