A Safe Space

Close your eyes and take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Where do you feel the breathing in the body? Focus your attention there. We’re not talking about the air passing through the nose. We’re talking about the movement of energy in the body. And that can be anywhere. But wherever it’s clearest, wherever you’re most sensitive to that movement of energy, focus your attention there. Try to stay there as the breath comes in, as the breath goes out. The image that Ajaan Lee gives is of a post standing at the edge of the sea. The water rises, the water passes down, but the post stands still.

Then ask yourself if the breathing is comfortable. If it is, keep it up. If the rhythm of breathing is not comfortable, then try something else. Make it shorter, longer, faster, slower, heavier, lighter, deeper, more shallow. See what kind of breathing feels good right now. You’re creating a safe place inside. We live in a world with lots of dangers outside. You need to have a place inside that is your space. The influences of the world can’t reach in to get it.

So try to create a space right here with the way you breathe because it feels good to be breathing in, breathing out. Nobody else can sense your breath as you sense it. Nobody else is going to push you out of the way. This is your spot. So make the most of it. And then protect it.

The Buddha talks about having mindfulness as a gatekeeper. The image is of a fortress at the edge of a frontier, and there are enemy soldiers or spies that might want to sneak in. The gatekeeper has to be wise to recognize who should be allowed in and who shouldn’t. In the same way, you want your mindfulness to remember what you should allow into your mind and what you shouldn’t allow in. Anything that would give rise to greed, aversion, and delusion you can keep out. Anything that helps with the concentration, you allow it in. Anything that helps with your discernment, you allow it in. Have a clear sense of what you need and what you don’t need, and which things can be dangerous to you.

Mindfulness is not just a matter of accepting whatever comes up. The Buddha defines it as a faculty of the memory. You remember what’s skillful; you remember what’s not.

And then you look to see. This is alertness. You look to see what’s actually happening.

The third quality as you develop together with mindfulness is ardency, where you really try to do this well.

After all, the shape of your mind, the state of your mind, is something you have to care for. And you can keep your mind in good shape, even when the world outside is falling apart. As long as your mind is in good shape, then you’re not part of the problem. You’re going to be part of the solution. At the very least, you make sure that you’re not adding anything bad to the world outside. When you’re coming from a good solid space inside, then there’s more power to what you think, what you say, what you do.

So try to create this safe space right here. Protect it. Look after it. Then feed it with concentration. That’s the other part of the image—the soldiers in the fortress and the gatekeeper need food. The food comes from concentration, when you give the mind an opportunity just to be by itself, to hold on to one thing, like the sensation of the breath.

Allow it to fill the whole body. After all, it is the flow of energy, and the energy flows down your nerves, it flows through your blood vessels. Allow it to flow freely and let your awareness fill the whole body as well. That way, the awareness gets a good place to stay and is looking after the body. So both sides benefit.