Watch Your Mind Whenever You Can

When I was in Thailand, I noticed that some of Ajaan Fuang’s students were especially dedicated meditators. People would ask, “What is it about them that makes them dedicated?” The answer was that they would take advantage of any free time to look at their minds, to watch over their minds.

The image in the Commentary is of a bird in a cage always looking for every opportunity to get out of the cage. So even if it’s only a few minutes when you have some time where you happen to have no responsibilities, your *big *responsibility is your mind. So look there. Keep coming back, coming back. After all, that’s where the problem is, and that’s where the solution is as well. The problem is the ignorance with which we create the causes of suffering. The solution lies in developing knowledge about what the mind is doing. This is why, when we meditate, we don’t just think about lofty topics. We actually watch the mind.

The best way to watch the mind is to give it something to be focused on, like the breath—something where the act of focusing actually makes a difference. If you’re quick and observant, you’ll notice that when you focus on the breath, it changes right away. The question is how to make that change good, healthy for the body. So you try to bring some knowledge to what you’re doing—awareness, alertness, examining what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Then you see, “When I focus, this is what happens. I may tense up here. I may try to make the breath clearer by forcing it.” Does that help? It helps you to focus on it, but it doesn’t make it a good place to stay.

The next question is how to make it a good place to stay. This is where you bring in different perceptions, like the perception of the breath as a whole-body process, nourishing all your nerves, nourishing all the blood vessels. Or telling yourself, as you breathe in, “It can come and go out through every pore of the body.” Think of the body as being like a big sponge—lots of holes all over it, so when you breathe in, you don’t have to force the breath in or pull it in. It comes in naturally. When you breathe out, it goes out naturally. Nothing obstructs it. Everything seems wide open inside. When you try this, you see the power of your perceptions.

When you think of the breath as just air coming in and out through the nose, that closes off all the pores; it closes off all the opportunities for it to come in and out of other places. And when the mind closes off opportunities like that, it’s not just a closing off in the perception. It actually has an effect on the nerves of the body and the range of awareness in your mind. So hold on to the perception that the body is wide open. The whole body is breathing in. The whole body is breathing out.

As you settle down here, you want to get more and more precise in making sure that stray thoughts don’t come in and take over. They can come in, but they can go out. In fact, one of the best ways to get beyond their power is simply to allow them in and allow them out while you’re determined not to pay any attention to them. You’ve got the breath. You’ve got this wide open awareness filling the body.

Then if the mind does seem to be snagged on a particular thought, do what you can to unhook it. Notice where there’s a pattern of tension in the body that goes with that thought and then just breathe through that tension. As you do this, you learn a lot about your mind. You see how, when you settle on things like a perception or an intention, it makes a difference in what you actually experience.

Then you can bring that principle into the rest of your life. When you’re dealing with difficult issues out in the world, to what extent are your perceptions contributing to the problem and to what extent can they contribute to the solution? What this means is that you start looking at your mind all the time because you realize the mind is what is making a difference all the time. And you want to be on top of it.

So try to stay grounded right here. This is your frame of reference. This is your place to establish your mindfulness. Then just let it stay. Maintain it right here and notice when you’re beginning to lose your frame of reference.

There’s a science fiction story I read one time in which the space vehicle didn’t have to use any fuel. All it did was change its frame of reference. If its frame of reference was Earth, it would stay on the Earth. If its frame of reference was the Sun, it would zip away from the Earth in the opposite direction that the Earth revolves around the sun but at the same speed. If it made its frame of reference the middle of the galaxy, it would zip all across the galaxy. The people who were in the space vehicle would lose consciousness for a bit as the vehicle changed its frame of reference, then they’d come to.

This is a picture of the mind. Your mind moves around depending on its frame of reference. When it changes its frame of reference, it tends to blank out for a bit. What’s happening is that it’s going from one level of becoming to another. Then you come to in the new one. As meditators, we’re trying to make sure that if we’re going to change our frame of reference, we do it mindfully, with full alertness, without blanking out. We see the whole process. And when you see the whole process, you begin to see how artificial it is: You create a new world. There’s something that attracts you. You look into it and you see that it’s located in a particular world. Then you go into that world and take on an identity in that world. It’s because we go for these things that we want, the Buddha says: That’s becoming. And any craving that leads to becoming is going to be a cause for suffering.

A while back, I was teaching in Brazil, and I pointed out that this is how we go through the day, creating these little states of becoming, then dropping them and moving to other ones. One of the retreatants commented in a note the following day that she hadn’t realized that that’s what her mind had been doing all the time, but when she saw it, she couldn’t stop seeing it. It scared her. Well, it shouldn’t be scary. On the other hand, it’s a good lesson in how much we create artificial worlds as we go through the day. But the fact that you can see it, step back from it—that gives you some freedom from it.

This is one of the advantages of having one spot, like the breath, where we intend to keep our attention focused, because then it’s easier to see when it wanders away from that one focus. Then we can do something about it. It’s when you can’t see, when you black out, when you don’t understand: That’s why you suffer.

So when you gain insights into the mind like this, don’t let them scare you. Take it as a good sign that you’re able to step out of these processes as they have caused so much suffering for so long.

Then the question comes up, “Have you had enough?” There’s a famous story in the Canon: A group of 30 monks come to see the Buddha. They’re all wilderness monks. The Buddha asks himself, “What can I say that would get them all to gain the awakening right here?” So he asks them, “Which do you think is more? The blood you’ve lost from having your heads cut off in the past, or the amount of water in the oceans?” And the answer is, “The blood is more”—and not just taking all of your different lifetimes and together. The times you’ve been sheep and had your heads cut off: The blood there is more than all the water in the oceans. The times you’ve been cows, goats, water buffalos: Each case is more than all the water in the oceans. The times you’ve been caught for being a highway robber or an adulterer: In each case, it’s more than all the water in the oceans. The monks developed such a strong sense of samvega that they all became enlightened. It scared them, but it freed them.

So when you see the mind doing things like this, creating unnecessary stress for itself, on the one hand, you can have a sense of dismay; but on the other hand, you also realize the fact that you can see this is what allows you to step outside of it. That’s where freedom lies. So the better you know your mind, the less you suffer. And the more you’re aware of how much suffering you’ve been causing yourself, the more you want to find a way out. That’s what makes a dedicated meditator: looking for the way out.

So when you have a short time to meditate like this, make the most of it. It may be hot. The air is awfully still, there’s not even a breeze. But it’s not too bad. It’s quiet. You have no other responsibilities right now. Everything is suspended. So see this as an opportunity and focus on the aspect that it is an opportunity. That way you make the most of it.