Ready To Go?

Close your eyes and watch your breath. Try to be with the breath all the way in, all the way out. Try to breathe in a way that feels comfortable. You can try experimenting: long breathing, short breathing; fast, slow; heavy, light. See what breathing feels good right now because you want to stay here in the present moment. If the present moment doesn’t feel good, you’re going to go wandering off.

It’s like a child. If the parents beat the child, don’t provide it with any food, shelter, any comfort, any warmth, emotional warmth, then the child is going to want to run away. If you want the child to stay in the house, you provide it with comfort. You provide it with things to play with, and it’ll be happy to stay there. You don’t have to lock the windows; you don’t have to lock the doors—it’ll stay.

It’s the same with the mind. If you provide it a good place to stay here in the present moment, it’s going to want to stay.

Why do you want to stay in the present moment? Because all our decisions are being made right here, the things that shape our life. You can’t go back and change your past decisions, but you can make sure that your current decisions are skillful. And there’s a lot of work to be done here in the present moment, as well.

This seems to be the season of making merit for people who’ve passed away. We’ve had anniversaries of deaths—last week we had one. Next week we’re going to have another one—in a couple of more weeks, another one. In a couple of more weeks, still another one. This corresponds with the hot season in Thailand, which may be one of the reasons why these death anniversaries seem to be concentrated in this part of the year.

But then you can be too cold and die, too. You can be too happy, too sad, and die. All kinds of things can make you die very, very easily. All it takes is a little blood clot to go wandering around in your blood system, get lodged in your heart, get lodged in the brain—snd that’s it.

Are you ready to go? That’s the question the Buddha has you ask. Is there anything in your mind that would make it difficult to go smoothly? Well, work on that right now.

Sometimes we hear that the Buddha taught us to be in the present moment because it’s a wonderful moment. But the Buddha never said it was wonderful. After all, there are a lot of unpleasant present moments that you can experience. But this is the place to do the work that needs to be done. And if you don’t do it now, when are you going to do it? It doesn’t get easier as you get older. So you do the work now.

Whatever your mind is attached to that would make it difficult to leave, see if you can learn how to pull yourself away from that attachment. Realize that you don’t really need that thing you’re attached to.

So many things we think we need in life seem necessary simply because we lack the strength of mind to look after ourselves. One of the things we do as we meditate is we develop the qualities of mind that we need to look after ourselves: mindfulness, alertness, ardency, compassion, a sense of responsibility, concentration, discernment. These things can make us solid within ourselves, so that we don’t need the things that we tend to latch on to outside—so they don’t pull us down. After all, that’s what our attachments do. Instead of holding us up, they pull us down.

So learn how to develop the strengths you need inside. They start with simple things like this. When you’re with the breath, all the qualities that the Buddha said are important to strengthen the mind are right here. You have the conviction your actions will make a difference. That’s why you’re doing this.

You’re persistent. You keep at it.

To keep at it, you need to be mindful—in other words, to remember that acting in skillful ways is really important. What’s happening in the world outside is not that important. All too often, we let the screens in our pockets, the screens in our homes, take over our lives. You wake up in the morning, check emails, and all of a sudden the whole day can be wasted, knowing about other people’s issues. Whereas your own potential to do something skillful in the present day gets wasted.

So remember, this has top priority. When you keep that in mind, then it’s easier for the mind to settle down and get some concentration here in the present moment so that you can discern where the mind is creating unnecessary attachments for itself, unnecessary burdens, and can put those burdens down. That’s the strength of discernment.

So you’ve got conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. These are the things that strengthen the mind, make it independent, so that when the time comes to go, you can let go of the things that have been holding you back. You can make a clean break. That’s when you can say you’re ready to go. When we have events like this, reflecting on the people in the past who passed away, that’s one of the prime things we need to develop out of this—a sense of heedfulness—that they’ve shown us what’s going to happen. So we have to be prepared.