The Vine

Close your eyes—take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Where do you feel it in the body, the process of breathing? Focus your attention there. And then ask yourself if long breathing is comfortable. If it feels energizing, feels good, then keep it up. If it feels tiresome, you can change to shorter breathing; more shallow; faster, slower; heavier, lighter. Try to give your full attention to what you’re doing right now here with the breath.

We come here to train the mind, and we focus on the breath because it’s hard to focus on the mind directly. But the breath is close to the mind. It’s like a mirror for the mind. When moods come up in the mind, there’ll be a catch in the breath, and you start breathing in different ways that can often aggravate the mood.

Yet most of the time we look past that because we’re more interested in things outside. So try to get interested in the breath. If you really want to see the mind, focus on the breath. Polish this mirror so that you can see clearly what’s going on. In other words, breathe in a way that feels good, feels soothing throughout the body, that flows smoothly throughout the body. And keep watch.

All too often qualities like greed, aversion, delusion, desire, and jealousy start out very small, but we’re not aware of them while they’re small. We’re aware of them only when they take over.

It’s like the story in the Canon about a seed for a vine. The seed lands next to a tree and the deva in the tree is a little bit apprehensive. But the other tree devas come and say, “Hey, don’t worry. It’s just a little tiny seed. Maybe a peacock will come and eat it up. Maybe it will get burned or dry out and not grow. Maybe it isn’t even a seed.”

So the deva in the first tree gets complacent, but, sure enough it is a seed. The peacocks don’t eat it. It gets plenty of water, and it starts growing, and growing, and growing. At first it seems tender, but then it grows, and grows, and grows and finally creates a canopy over the tree and kills the tree.

This is what happens with a lot of emotions that can take root in the mind. They start out very small, but then they grow. If you’re not careful, they can take over. They can kill the goodness of your mind.

So, as the Buddha said, it’s the heedful people who don’t die. In other words, their goodness doesn’t die. When you’re heedless, your goodness dies every day. Things come in, take over. Yet they’re not the ones that are going to reap the results: You’re following them; they disappear. They’re like people who come and get you to break the law, and then when the police come, they go running away, and you’re left holding the bag.

You’ve got to realize, for the sake of your own goodness, that you’ve got to keep careful watch over the mind because it does have these potentials. Fortunately, though, it also has good potentials. Your desire for a happiness that lasts, your desire for a happiness that’s harmless, your mindfulness, your alertness: These qualities may be weak in the beginning, but as you strengthen them through the practice, they take over. And then when little seeds of defilement come, they see them right away, and they exterminate them so that they don’t grow.

So try to give your full attention right here as much as you can, especially while you’re meditating. But also try to keep in touch with the breath as you go through the day. Learn how to detect the signs that something’s wrong in the breathing so that you can stop and ask yourself: “Okay, what just happened in the mind? What do I have to watch out for?’

The mind has many levels. Sometimes you’re operating on one level, and somebody three stories, four stories down is making another decision. It’s like a corporation where the chairman of the corporation is not all that alert to what’s going on. Mindfulness is what makes you alert to every floor in the building, all the decisions that are being made. In that way, you can make sure that the decisions are good for you. They come from a good place in the mind, and they take you to a good place as well.

So keep watch over your mind. Watch out for the little seeds. Tend to the seeds for the good qualities in the mind. Make sure they grow. As for seeds that are not good, you can step on them. It’s one thing you can kill and the Buddha doesn’t say is bad. In that way, you stay in charge. Unskillful emotions don’t take over the mind, and the goodness of your mind doesn’t die.