An Old School Inner Teacher

The Buddha says that we should make ourselves our refuge. We learn from others. And, as he said, there’s a sense in which having admirable friends and admirable friendship is the whole of the practice—in other words, good people who know about the path, who embody the qualities of conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment. And then we try to imitate their qualities.

So it’s not just a matter of having admirable friends. You have to make this an admirable friendship. And the admirable friend is not going to do the work for us. We have to do the work ourselves.

In this case, we make mindfulness our refuge. We establish mindfulness. In Ajaan Fuang’s image, it’s like having a teacher inside—the old-fashioned kind of teacher, not the one who would hand out gold stars and write “rock star” all over your papers, but one who would set the work that needs to be done and then make sure you did the work.

You have to have that sort of strict person inside: strict in the sense that the teacher knows what really is for your own best interest and wants to make sure that you actually do it. Now, a wise teacher does try to make you want to do it. But there are certain standards you need to meet. So when your mind is wandering away, tell yourself, okay, come back. Wanders away again? Come back again. Keep coming back.

Then focus on what you really have to do, which is to learn how to get the mind centered with a sense of well-being around the breath. Try to maintain that as much as you can through the day. If you wander off, then the teacher’s there—again, the old-fashioned teacher with a ruler—and has you go back. When you’re strict with yourself in this way, then you find that the mind eventually will be willing to settle down, and you actually get the benefit from your work.

So you don’t have outside teachers here all the time. Even when the teacher is here at the monastery, the teacher can’t be looking after you 24/7. You have to look after yourself. You need to have this internal teacher. That’s your refuge, keeping in mind what the Buddha taught and then looking at what you’re doing, recognizing when it’s in line with what the Buddha taught and when it’s not—and trying to keep it back in line.

So make sure your inner teacher is vigilant and wise. In that way, you really can learn how to depend on yourself. To depend on ourselves means that we have to be trained. If your self isn’t trained, it’s not much of a refuge. We’re trying to bring it in line with the qualities of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. That’s where you really can depend on yourself.