Harmony

Close your eyes and bring your mind into harmony with the body. What that means is you watch the breath for a while and try to see what feels good. You experiment with long breathing, short breathing. Fast, slow. Heavy, light. See what kind of breathing feels best right now. You have to question the breath like this to learn from it. If you just put up with whatever is there, you don’t learn all that much. But if you ask questions and listen, then you learn. And this is what brings the mind into harmony with the body.

The same way as when we’re living with other people: You have to be interested in them—what they need—and then learn how to provide it. That’s how you learn how to listen to them and live in harmony with them. If you simply go by what you want to do, it’s like meditating and saying, “I don’t care what the body needs right now. I want this kind of breath. I want that kind of breath,” Aand you force it too much. After a while, the body rebels. So think about the whole body. Think about the whole mind, bringing them both together.

In the same way that when you’re with people, think about the whole group—what they need, what the group needs to survive and what you can do to help with that survival. If we just go each person in line with his own likes or her own likes, we end up fighting. We can’t stay together. Or if you do stay together, there’s no sense of well-being, no sense of strength of the group. But when you listen to one another, make room for one another, and then keep the whole group in mind, that’s when the group becomes strong and actually conducive to the practice.

The Buddha said that when you’re living in a group with harmony, it’s conducive to concentration. If you don’t try to create harmony, it becomes a source of irritation. And when you’re irritated, your mind settles down with a lot of difficulty.

So. Be aware of the whole body as you breathe in, the whole body as you breathe out. And see what the body needs. Provide that. Then you find that you can live with the body and you get the benefit from living with the body. It gives you a good place to stay, a solid place to stay. You’re not out wandering around exposed to the sun, the rain, the wind, and to strangers with unskillful motives. You’re here inside your home. You look after the home; the home looks after you—in the same way that when you look after the group, the group looks after you. That’s how the group can accomplish great things.