The Buddha’s Defense Policy

Close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. Know when it’s coming in; know when it’s going out. Notice where you feel it most clearly in the body. The breath is the energy in the body, and you can feel that anywhere. But where is it most prominent that: “Now that you’re breathing in, now you’re breathing out”? Focus your attention there. And then ask yourself if the way you’re breathing is comfortable. If long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t, you can change. Make it shorter, more shallow; faster, slower; heavier, lighter. Try to use your own discernment to figure out what feels best for you right now.

The Buddha is trying to get you sensitive to what’s going on in the present moment, because right here is where everything is built, everything is constructed in life: in the present moment. Our lives come out of our actions, and our actions come from our intentions. And where do our intentions take place? They take place right here and now. The problem is that we’re very rarely aware of them.

We want to do something, and it’s like a company where the president doesn’t know what’s going on down deep in the company. Somebody else is making the real decisions. They’re given to the president already made. The president just goes along with them. If that’s the way the company is run, there’s no guarantee that it’s going to be safe.

You want to be clear about, when you’re doing something, why you’re doing it. And the Buddha asks you to figure out what makes you want to do something and ask yourself what would be the good points of doing that? What would be the bad points? Weigh them and then decide. If the bad points outweigh the good points, then you don’t do it. If the good points outweigh the bad ones, then you can go ahead and try.

It all sounds very reasonable, and some people object that it’s too reasonable, that the mind doesn’t act that way. It acts on its moods. But its moods have their reasons and they like to keep their reasons hidden, because sometimes they’re not very good. So we want to figure out what the real reasons are so that we can understand how we can create a better life for ourselves.

As the Buddha said, everything comes out of the mind. The mind is the forerunner of all things. So you want to make sure the mind is in good shape. And you want to make sure the mind knows itself. So you try to get the mind quiet right here, right now, so that it can see what’s going on inside—so that it can open up the company and figure out who’s making the decisions inside and whether they should be making the decisions. It’s in this way that you become safe.

There’s a lot of talk now about war and defense. But you might say the Buddha’s defense policy was to make sure that you don’t do anything unskillful in thought, word, and deed, and you’re going to be safe. Or, in his example, he says it’s like holding poison. If you don’t have a wound in your hand, you can hold poison and it doesn’t seep into your blood. But if there’s a wound, it’s going to seep in. It’s going to kill you.

That wound is whatever bad karma you’ve had. And why did you make bad karma? Because you weren’t paying attention. Somebody else inside was making the decisions, and you just kind of went along. But if you’re really clear about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, then you’re a lot more likely to be safe. You can make up your mind you’re not going to harm anybody in thought, word, and deed. You’re going to look for happiness that’s harmless by being generous, by being virtuous, by developing thoughts of goodwill for all beings. That kind of happiness doesn’t harm you. It leaves you safe. It’s an inner wealth.

With worldly wealth, you’re never really safe, because the more you have, the more people want to take it from you. But with inner wealth, nobody can take it from you. In fact, they’re happy that you are a person of virtue and are a person who’s generous. So this kind of wealth is safe and harmless. The two go together. When you’re harmless, you’re safe. When you’re harmful to other people, you’re not safe at all. So you want to be very clear about, when you’re doing something, why you’re doing it. Make sure that your desire for happiness is harmless and the way you find it is harmless. In that way, you’re safe all around.

That’s the Buddha’s defense policy. It’s the best one in the world.