You’ve Got Work to Do

Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Notice where you feel the breath and follow it there all the way in, all the way out. And stay right here. As for anything else that comes up in the mind, anything that comes up around you, you don’t have to pay any attention to it. You’ve got work to do here.

This is the basic principle of equanimity. Sometimes we think of equanimity as meaning the you don’t care about anything. But that’s not the case. It means that you realize that you have work to do cleaning out your own mind, work to do in developing the perfections, and if you let other things get in the way, then the perfections don’t get done—and no one else can do them for you because they’re qualities you have to develop within yourself.

So a lot of things in the world you have to accept, just say, “That’s the way it is. It has to do with karma, has to do with just the fact that this is the world we’re in. We’re in the human world. In this world there are going to be physical pains; that’s part of having a body. In this world there are going to be hurtful words, just by having to live with other people. The human race is a mixed bag. As the Buddha said, some people will say true things; other people will people will say false things. Some people will say things meaning you well; others don’t mean you well. Some say useful things; others say useless things. It’s the nature of human speech. So when people say things to you that are untrue or useless or hurtful, remember that’s an ordinary part of the world. You have to accept that because you’ve got work to do.

Other things you have to accept: When someone has passed away, you accept the fact they’ve passed away. You don’t deny it. There’s a story of a king one time whose queen passed away. He couldn’t accept the fact that she was dead, so he kept the body in the palace. People in the palace, of course, didn’t like that. So they found a monk who had some psychic powers, and they asked him to get in touch with her: Where is she now? He found that she’d been reborn as a worm. So he got the worm to talk and able to talk in such a way that the king could hear it.

He asked the worm, “Do you miss the king?”

“Oh no. I’ve got a new husband now—a really nice worm.” And the king decided, “Okay, that’s enough of that body” and got rid of it.

Other things you have to accept are the fact that you’ve done wrong things in the past. You realize that by feeling remorse, you don’t erase it. And by denying it, you don’t erase it. You accept the fact that you did something wrong and then you determine not to repeat that mistake in the future.

These are all things we have to accept.

But you don’t just sit with acceptance. When there’s pain, you learn how to relate to the pain in such a way that it doesn’t overcome the mind. When people speak hurtful words, you learn how to let those hurtful words go past you. You don’t suck them in. All too often our minds are like vacuum cleaners. We such up all the dirt around us. And then, of course, we get a stomach ache from all that dirt inside us. Remember: Other people’s words are outside, even if they’re directed at you. You don’t have to take them in. When you realize you’ve done something wrong, you resolve not to repeat the mistake. And then spread lots of goodwill all around—goodwill to yourself, goodwill to others—so as to encourage yourself not to repeat that mistake.

In other words, there are things you accept, but you don’t just stay with the acceptance.

Meanwhile, you have work to do inside. You have to develop a sense of well-being inside because if there’s no well-being inside, it’s hard to be equanimous about things outside. So if there’s nothing good inside, we have to go looking for our food outside. When things outside are not good, then we complain. But if we’re well fed inside from our own source of inner food, then even though there’s bad food outside, you don’t have to eat it. It doesn’t harm you because you’re not taking it in.

So the basic principle is that there’s work to do inside. You base your equanimity on the sense of having well-being inside that you can develop through concentration, through the practice as a whole. That way you can live in this world.

If we look around us, we see the truth of what the Buddha said—there’s a lot of pain in the world; people say horrible things, do horrible things. If we let that get to us, then we start doing some pretty bad things as well. So we have to develop an equanimity that’s based on a sense of well-being that we can create inside. That way, you’re responsible. You look for a happiness in a way that doesn’t harm anybody.

Other people may be harmful. There’s not much you can do to change other people’s behavior. You can do it to some extent, largely through the example you set by your own behavior. So focus there. That’s where the changes need to be made. That’s where they can be made. As for the rest of the world, you wish it well. Wherever you can help, you’ll be glad to help. Where you can’t help, you just let it go because you’ve got work to do inside.