Driver’s Ed
January 05, 2024

When you meditate, you’re putting yourself in the driver’s seat, deciding where you want to go. And you’re very conscious of the fact that that’s where you are. You do have that ability to choose.

Sometimes, when we hear the teaching on karma, it sounds like we’re simply on the receiving end of things we did in the past. But then, of course, that would mean, in the past, we were on the receiving end of things that we did before that. Infinite regress. There’d be no choice, no freedom of choice. There’d be no purpose in having a teaching.

The fact that the Buddha taught shows that he saw that there would be something accomplished by teaching people how to take charge of their lives.

So meditation is basically driver’s ed, teaching you how to drive. You focus the mind on one thing that’s skillful, and you begin to notice that other intentions come into the mind as well.

When you don’t have that one purpose to focus on, it’s very easy to get pushed around and not realize it. But once you’ve made up your mind you’re going to stay with one thing, then when you run into any alternative intentions in the mind, you see them clearly. The next step, of course, is learning how to say no to them. Sometimes all you have to do is just bring yourself back to your original intention, right back to the breath. Other times you have to work with the breath to make it more comfortable. Tell yourself, the fact that the mind wandered off shows that the breath is not totally absorbing. At least your attitude is not totally absorbed yet. So what could you do to make the breath more interesting?

Think of the breath energies in the different parts of the body. If you know you have a disease of some kind, think of the breath energies in the diseased part of the body. Compare them with the breath energies in a healthier part of the body. See if you can think of the healthier energies going through the diseased part.

Or if there’s a pain someplace, think of the comfortable sensations of the body permeating the pain and going out the other side. There’s lots you can do, and you begin to realize that the present moment is not just a given. The things that are given are the raw materials from which you create your experience of the present moment. That’s what the Buddha’s teachings on causality are all about. You do have choices right now. So make the most of them.

Learn how to make sure that the driver is someone who’s mindful, someone who’s alert, someone who’s really trying to drive well. There are many routes that you can take through life, and you want to make sure the driver can see which route will go where—which ones are the good ones to follow, which one’s are not—and will be alert to any dangers along the way. That way, your driver is reliable, and you get to go to places you really do want to go to.

If the driver is not trained, you have no idea where you’re going to end up. Yet that’s the way most people live their lives. Sometimes they take responsibility and sometimes not. What happens when they’re not taking responsibility? Well, greed, aversion, and delusion tend to come in and take over. When they’re driving your car, you know they’re not going to take you to a good place. So you’ve got to be alert all the time.

When you talk about meditation, it’s not just when you’re sitting here with your eyes closed. When you get a good state of mind going in the meditation, carry it with you as you go through the day as best you can. That way, you’ve got an educated driver all along the way. You find that with more and more training, you can trust that driver more and more as well.