Give Before You Get

The Pali word for meditation, the word the Buddha used, is bhavana. It means “to develop”: to develop good qualities in the mind. You start with goodwill and then you move on to establishing your mindfulness, like focusing on the breath. The goodwill is there to make sure that you remember what your motivation for practicing is. We want happiness. People all over the world want happiness, but we realize that if you want to get something good out of the world, you have to put something good into it.

What resources do you have? You have the resources of your mind. Even your body belongs to the world. It’s made out of the elements of the world. All you’ve got is your mind.

So what resources do you have here? You have the potential for mindfulness, keeping something in mind. The potential to be alert—to notice what you’re doing while you’re doing it. And the desire to do this well.

In the beginning, it may not seem like much, but if you develop these qualities in the mind, they can take you far. You get the mind into a good state of concentration just by staying with the breath, in and out, in and out, making it comfortable, letting that sense of comfort spread throughout the body. You’re developing a good home for the mind here, a good foundation from which it can act. If our foundation isn’t good, then your actions tend to be skewed one way or another. But when your foundation is solid, strong, level, your actions can be straightforwardly good, and you can start giving good things to the world. Only when you give good things, that you get good things back.

A lot of us are born with the attitude of, “What’s the world going to do for me? What can I get out of the world?” Well, first you have to do something good for the world: Straighten out your mind. Once your mind is straightened out, then the things you do, say, and think will actually be a gift not only to yourself, but also to the world around you.

So goodness starts here. We see examples of goodness outside. We all see other examples as well. So you want to choose which examples you’re going to follow.

Then look for the good potentials you already have. The fact that you were born as a human being means that you have some goodness already. Try to figure out what your strengths are and work on them. Develop them, so that you can overcome your weaknesses, too.

You have the strength of conviction, that your actions really do make a difference. The strength of persistence, that you’re willing to stick with the task of trying to do only what’s skillful. Doing that requires mindfulness. When you can do it properly, then you can get the mind into concentration. When the mind is well concentrated, it can see things clearly. It can develop its discernment, so it gets more and more skillful in its actions. These are the strengths that you have, potentially, within you, and you can develop them.

Too many people are concerned about the strength of the body. The Buddha saw that the really important strength is strength of the mind. Even when the body is weak, you can keep your mind solidly good. That’s what’s more important.

So work on these strengths. Work on developing your potentials, so that some of that goodness will be reflected back to you.

In a lot of ways, the world is like a mirror. You see your past actions and your present actions by what the world has to offer. You don’t like what the world has to offer? Add something good to it. There’s an old phrase, if you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own. Make it good news as well.