In Control

Close your eyes and notice where you feel the breath in the body. You might want to take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths to make it clear. And if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t feel good, you can change. Make it shorter, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster, slower. Try to see what kind of breathing feels good for you right now: relaxing, if you’ve been tense; energizing, if you’ve been tired; soothing, if you’re feeling frazzled. If the mind wanders off, just bring it right back. Whatever thought pulled you away, you can just drop it and you’ll find yourself back at the breath.

Keep watch over the mind. This is called the quality of alertness. Watch what you’re doing. And then you’re mindful, which means keeping something in mind. In this case, you’re keeping in mind the fact that you want to stay here. And then you’re ardent. You’re trying to do this well. You’re trying to exert some control over the mind.

Just look at the world. There are so many things out there that you cannot control. You look inside. If you can’t control your own mind, where are you going to find any safety? So. Give yourself some orders. You’re going to stay right here with the breath. And breathe comfortably. It’s a good thing to do.

Then keep watch, reminding yourself that if you want to be happy in life, it comes out of your own intentions. You want to have some control over your intentions, so that they don’t lead you astray. Sometimes it’s all too easy when you know the right thing to do, but you’d rather not do it, you let your likes and dislikes get in the way. Sometimes you’re just so tired that you can’t manage the right thing. But when you give yourself a good place to rest with the breath like this, you give yourself strength. And you give yourself the ability to see things clearly. When the mind is still, then it can notice things that it wouldn’t notice if it’s running around.

It’s like running past a tree. If you run past the tree, and then someone asks you what was in the tree, you can’t really answer because all you saw was a blur. But if you stop still and look at the tree, you can see there are squirrels in the tree, birds in the tree, fruits in the tree. That’s because you’re still.

So get the mind to be still right here with the breath. Then you can see yourself more clearly. When something comes up in the mind that’s counter to your best interest, counter to your true happiness, you can detect it. You can see it but you don’t have to identify with it.

All too often voices come up in the mind and just because they’re there in our mind, we think they’re our opinions, our ideas. But sometimes the mind just churns up random stuff. You have the choice to go with them or not. You might think of your mind as being like a committee: lots of different people in there, lots of different opinions. You want to be the person in charge. If you’re not in charge, who knows who’s going to take the mic, take the gavel, and order the meeting around in ways that you don’t necessarily want to have happen.

So you want to have your wisdom in charge. You want to have your alertness, your compassion—all your good qualities in charge of this committee. Which means you have to give them some strength. That’s one of the reasons why we breathe in a way that gives a sense of ease and well-being in the body, because when you’re feeling at ease in the present moment, then it’s easier for the good members of your committee to be in charge. If you’re feeling ill at ease, then the crazy members sometimes take over.

So. Get the right people in charge inside and give them strength. Put them in a position where they can see things clearly. That way, you can become, as the Buddha says, your own refuge. You can provide yourself with solidity, safety, coming from within. And that’s the kind of safety that no one else can provide for you. But you can provide it for yourself if you train the mind.

So give the mind some time every day, every day, when you train it like this. Whatever mindfulness and alertness you develop in the meditation, you can then use as you go through the day. That helps you to do your best.