Stay

Find a good spot in the body where you can observe your breath. And then just stay. That’s a skill.

All too often when we stay in one place, we fall asleep. But here you want to stay stillcand alert, at the same time. The problem is, when we’re alert, we tend to be alert to all kinds of things: the noises here, the noises there, this thought here, this thought there. We run around trying to keep track of everything. So you’ve got to learn how to combine those two skills, to stay alert and to stay still, because you want an alert sense of well-being that you can stay with, a sense of well-being that you can take as your home.

All too often when you meditate there are little bits and snatches of a pleasant feeling and then they go. Some people will say tjat that’s your insight into inconstancy. But that’s not what the Buddha would have said. He said you want to take that state of well-being and learn how to maintain it. That’s the duty of mindfulness as a governing principle. If something good hasn’t arisen yet, you try to give rise to it. When it’s there, you make sure it doesn’t go away.

So learn how to develop that skill. You’re fighting against inconstancy. You’re fighting against stress. It takes effort, so there’s a little bit of stress in the effort. But the well-being that results more than repays you for it. You want something reliable inside, so when the mind does move, you can see it clearly.

It’s like those flood gauges they have at the side of rivers. You need something that stays still and in place, so that you can know how high the river has risen. In this case, you want to take as your still point inside a sense of well-being, a sense of satisfaction, and learn how to maintain that and make that your gauge. When the mind moves away from that, what’s up? What’s going on? You don’t have to follow it when it goes away. You stay right here. That way, you’ve learned how to feed the mind with a sense of well-being. When the mind is well fed, it’s less likely to go around creating trouble outside, looking for trouble outside.

So make sure you feed the mind well with a constant diet of good breathing. Some people say this kind of meditation is selfish—that you’re just looking after your own well-being. But if you don’t look after your well-being, who’s going to look after it for you? If you can look after your well-being with something simple like this—knowing how to breathe—you’re not taking anything away from anybody else. And you’re approaching the world from a much better place: a place of strength, a place of fullness. You’re not so hungry for things outside.

When you’re hungry for things outside, then they have to be this way, have to be that way. And if they’re not the way you want them to be, you get all upset. But if you’re not trying to feed on them, if you’ve got your own source of food inside, then the food outside can be pretty bad, but you’re not upset by it. You don’t create trouble where there’s not any trouble already. In that way, you can learn how to live at peace. You can help make things better outside where they can be better. You’re not looking for trouble because you’re not looking for food out there. You’ve got your source of food here inside.

So learn how to maintain it. Learn how to stay and be alert at the same time, with a sense of well-being, a sense of inner satisfaction. That way, you develop a skill that’s good for you and for the people around you.