Feed the Mind Well

Close your eyes and focus on the breath. Watch it all the way in, all the way out. And notice what kind of breathing feels good right now. You can experiment for a while with longer breathing and then shorter. Decide which of those feels better. Heavier, lighter. Decide which of those feels better. Faster, slower, deeper, more shallow. When you’ve got a rhythm and texture of breathing that feels good for you, try to stay with that as long as it feels good.

Think of it as food for the body, food for the mind. When the breath flows freely through the body, all the cells in the body get nourishment. The blood flows easily. Everything gets nourished inside. And your mind gets nourished as well. You gain a sense of well-being. You can find a sense of pleasure, a sense of ease inside, that doesn’t require that you look for anything outside.

This is called feeding your mind well. As the Buddha said, the mind needs three kinds of food: contact at the senses, awareness at the senses, and then your intentions.

The intentions are the important ones. If you try to feed on sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, it’s like feeding on potato chips. You want more, more, more, more, and it never really satisfies you because it doesn’t really nourish you. The same with awareness at the senses. What you want is intentions that are good.

So maintain this intention to focus the mind and keep it here. And as with any food, you’ll want to add some spices, add some herbs. In other words, make the breath as comfortable as you can and think of that sense of comfort spreading through the whole body, so that you’re not just keeping the mind still, but you’re keeping it still with a sense of well-being that’s all around.

Don’t think of yourself looking at the breath. Think of yourself wearing the breath. It’s around you. Going through you. Make this a pleasant place to be. When the mind is settled in like this, it can see itself a lot more clearly. This is why this is good food. It’s not just a pleasant way to relax.

We’re doing this so that you can see the mind as it moves here, as it moves there. And you can ask yourself, why are you going here? Why are you going there? What’s up? What are you looking for? You begin to get a sense of how the mind is constantly looking around for other food. In fact, it’s feeding all the time.

So remind it: You’ve got good food right here. Stay right here. Learn how to fix this food so that it really feels good. That way, both the body and the mind are nourished. And when they’re nourished like this, then you’re not going to be so hungry for greed, aversion, and delusion, or any of the other emotions that cause trouble—because you’ve got better food right here.