Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, How To Relax, holds several practical meditations for achieving inner peace.

But perhaps the best piece of advice he put to paper was a story about a farmer that stumbled across the Buddha and his followers one day. The farmer asked if the Buddha or his monks saw his cows pass by. The farmer cried that if he didn’t find his cows, he wouldn’t be able to live any longer, given the decrepit state of his farm’s crops.

After the Buddha responded he hadn’t seen any cows and suggested the man look in another direction, he turned to his followers.

“Dear monks,” the Buddha said, “you are very lucky. You don’t have any cows to lose.”

Reading Hanh’s wisdom via the Buddha’s teaching was extremely powerful. Hanh encouraged us to “name our cows,” which he defines as ideas of happiness. How many times do we set goals or ambitions for our lives and think “if only I had a million dollars in the bank, or had a hot boyfriend, or my dream job, then I could be happy.” If we don’t achieve these goals, we suffer.

Hanh believed the key to achieving inner peace came from letting go of these things.

By taking out a sheet of paper and naming our cows, our ideas of happiness, we can let go.

You may even need multiple sheets of paper. When I did this exercise, I filled 2 sheets of paper with all of my cows, but could’ve continued. Naming my cows made me see I don’t need everything I thought I did to live a happy life.