On an individual level, peace can also be a personal state of mind, free from anger, rage, bitterness, fear, and generally negative feelings. It can be wished for oneself and for others, many traditional greetings being based on this wish (Latin pax vobis, Arabic salam aleikum, common throughout the Islamic world, shalom in Hebrew, became shulem in Yiddish). It also has the meaning of health in Semitic languages (which is similar to the meaning of greetings from other cultures and languages - be healthy, salve, zdravstvuite, geia su, etc.).

Followers of some religions, such as Jainism, try not to harm any living thing, including insects. Buddhists and Hindus believe that peace can be achieved when all desire and suffering ends. To eliminate suffering and achieve this peace, they follow a series of teachings called the "Four Noble Truths": the main doctrine of their philosophy. In the Chinese yi-king, peace is not the absence of war, but the permanent pursuit of non-violent conflict resolution. However, wars were not absent from Hindu, Confucian and Buddhist cultures, and some servants of the cults approved or even encouraged them.