Right Effort on a Hot Day

The Pali word for meditation, bhavana, means to create, to build, to bring into being. We’re trying to bring into being some good qualities in our minds: mindfulness, the ability to keep something in mind; alertness, the ability to watch what you’re doing while you’re doing it; and ardency, the desire to do this well, putting in the effort when you have to put in the effort, watching the things that need to be watched; doing away with things that need to be done away with; and then building things that need to be built inside.

We can read about the Dhamma. We can listen to the Dhamma. And it can give us some good ideas about how to run our lives. But for us to have the strength to do what the Dhamma teaches, we need to develop some good qualities, so that we not only know the names of “mindfulness,” “alertness,” and “ardency,” but we also really have these qualities in our minds.

On a hot day like this, it may not sound like a good thing to do, to be building things in the mind, but you realize the effort that goes into that is not like a physical effort. It doesn’t make you sweaty. And the ability to think skillful thoughts doesn’t take anything more out of you than the ability to think unskillful thoughts. It takes a little more determination, but it’s not going to heat up your system. In fact, it can cool things down.

So try to cool the mind down with thoughts of goodwill. You have trouble meditating on your breath? Then just think, “May all beings be happy” and hold that one thought in mind. And think about its implications. What does it mean to be happy? It means that you create the causes for happiness inside—which means that if you know someone who’s been very unskillful in his or her behavior, having goodwill for them means: May they see the error of their ways and be willing to make a change. That’s a thought you can have for anybody without hypocrisy at all. And it’s a thought you should have for yourself, too.

We don’t want to settle for anything less than real happiness. That means we have to build the causes inside. But the causes, again, are not the kind of thing to require that you stand out in the sun and sweat a lot. But they do mean that you don’t let the heat of the day get in the way of your building good things inside. You don’t have to comment on the heat. The heat’s there. It comes and it goes. Your commenting on it is not going to make it go away any faster. And complaining about it doesn’t make it go away any faster.

Remind yourself you still have the ability to think skillful thoughts inside. Or you can be really still with your breath. You can be still with the breath no matter what the temperature is outside. You’re going to create good things inside regardless of outside conditions. Because outside conditions—well just look at your own body. It’s going to get older, it’s going to get sick, and it’s going to die. And you want to have a mind that’s strong enough so that it doesn’t get affected by those things—that you can still think good thoughts and have good intentions, regardless of what the body is doing. So you want to get good practice now, while the body is still healthy, still relatively strong. And develop that habit—realize, okay, there are certain things you can’t do because it’s hot outside. But there are a lot of good things that you can do inside your mind, regardless. So focus your attention there.

As Ajaan Maha Boowa once told an old woman who was thinking of transcribing some of his Dharma talks—and she was kind of afraid that she wouldn’t be able to complete the job because her eyesight wasn’t good, and she was getting kind of old. She was in her 80s: He said, “See how much goodness you can squeeze out of this body before you have to throw it away.” In other words, don’t focus on your limitations, focus on the areas where there still is good that you can do. Do as much of that as you can.

So even though it’s hot outside, there are still lots of good things you can do inside your mind. Build up good qualities and develop that habit of looking for where you still have an opening to do good. In that way, you find that there are opportunities everywhere, even to your last breath…and then beyond.