Make this Skill Your Own

Focusing on the breath isn’t all that hard. The hard part is staying there. You really have to want to be here. You have to really make an effort and you have to give it your full attention. So: all the way in, all the way out; whole body in, whole body out. If any thoughts wander away, remind yourself that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to train the mind. You can think anytime you want. But right now it’s time to learn a new skill, which is thinking that leads to stillness.

If you’re going to think about anything, think about the breath. How’s the breath feeling right now? You can focus anywhere in the body. And you can breathe in any rhythm that you like. In fact, that’s a lot of the thinking that’s going to be involved. Is long breathing better than short breathing? Is fast better than slow? Is heavier better than light? Is deep better than shallow? You try them out. Experiment.

You want the kind of thinking that focuses on what you’re doing right now, in the same way that you use your imagination in the meditation. It’s not just pure random thoughts. You’re imagining what could be better than what you’ve got right now in terms of the breath, what could be better in terms of your attention, what you can do to get the mind to feel more and more inclined to want to settle down. That kind of thinking, that kind of imagining is part of the path because it’s focused on what you’re doing.

The main message of the Buddha’s teachings is that our actions make a difference, so you should learn how to act well. Pay attention to what you’re doing. Commit yourself to doing what you think is best. And then reflect: Is it good enough? Could it be better? That’s how the Dhamma is nourished. That’s how it becomes your own. In the beginningm you’re learning lessons from other people. But after a while, you begin to learn from your own actions.

Ajaan Lee gives a lot of examples in this area. When you learn how to sew a pair of pants, how to weave a basket, how to make clay tiles, you can get instructions in the beginning, but the teacher can teach you only so much. A lot of what you learn in developing a skill is what you observe from your own actions.

So work on this skill of getting a well-trained mind, a mind that doesn’t cause suffering. This is a project you can do anywhere you go, whether at the monastery or anyplace else. This is what you focus on—getting your mind in good shape—because that’s your most important possession. The world may be falling apart, but make sure your mind doesn’t fall apart.

This is why it’s good to remind yourself that there are ways in which you are separate from the people around you. We hear so much about interconnectedness. And we do rely on one another for lots of things, but there does come a point where you have to decide, “I have to be responsible for my actions. I can’t let other people’s opinions sway me away from what I know is right.” At the end of the day, each of us goes in line with our own actions. So those are the things you have to pay the most attention to.

So be careful about what you do, you say, you think. Be careful about the state of your mind as you sit down and try to be quiet. You’re going to learn a lot about the mind as you do that. You’ll see a lot of things, subtle things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. So take time to really be still as you can and have a sense of being solidly at home with that stillness. That’s when this skill becomes your own.