Mental Seclusion

We come to a quiet place like this to get some physical seclusion so that we can work on our minds to develop the skills of mental seclusion. In other words, you can be secluded from unskillful thoughts, find a happiness that doesn’t involve harming anybody—doesn’t harm yourself, doesn’t harm others, doesn’t make you intoxicated.

As the Buddha said, our pleasures tend to make us intoxicated with youth, health, and life, thinking that these things will last for a long, long time. But we get careless in our actions. So we’re trying to end our carelessness, end our heedlessness, realizing that we don’t know how much time we have, but we do know that we have right now. So you want to make sure that you straighten your mind out right now. The skills of meditation are the skills you can take with you. You can’t take the physical seclusion with you when you go. But you can take the skills.

When we teach you how to work with the breath, it’s not just for times when you’re sitting with your eyes closed. You can do that as you go through the whole day. As you drive down into the city, go through the airport, sit in the airplane, get out at your destination, the breath is there with you. And you can make the breath comfortable. You can make the breath a good place to stay. It can be your grounding. That way, wherever you go, you have some seclusion. You can see the influences coming in from outside, but you can watch them go past.

Our problem is that we tend to suck in everything from outside. We have to realize that a lot of that stuff is not good for us. We gobble it down, and it’s going to make us sick. In other words, it’s going to develop sick attitudes in the mind. So you want to have some good food inside. That’s what the breath provides you with: a good solid place to stand so you’re not knocked over by the currents of the world. In this way, you have a good safe place wherever you go. You have this sense of seclusion. You’ve got these skills that you can take with you.

So. Remember to keep them well-managed. Make sure that they’re in good shape. Carry them with you wherever you go because they provide protection wherever you go. They protect your goodness, and that’s the most important thing you’ve got.