A Safe Haven

Close your eyes and focus on the feeling of the breath. Notice when it’s coming in. Notice when it’s going out. And notice which feelings tell you that it’s coming in, going out. Pay attention to those feelings. Ask yourself, “Do they feel comfortable?” The breath might be too long or too short. Well, you can adjust it. If it’s too heavy, too light; too fast, too slow; too deep, too shallow, you can make changes. This is one area of your life where you do have a fair amount of control—or you can have a fair amount of control. Learn how to exercise that control well, because you’re trying to develop a haven inside, a safe place inside.

Look at the world into which we’re born. You get the impression that when we came here we weren’t really looking where we were going. Something attracted our attention; we thought it would be good to be a human being. “I can do this, do that,” and oops, there you go. You didn’t look at the fine print.

We got this body that needs to be taken care of, and it’s going to grow old, and it’s going to get sick, and it’s eventually going to die. And we’re surrounded by people with all kinds of views who will tell us how we should act, how we should think. In fact, that’s the big danger outside: people with lots of wrong views are very eager to let us share their wrong views—views about how you’re not really responsible for what you’re doing, or that your suffering comes because of something outside. Those views can get you into a lot of trouble.

This is why we need to have some conviction in the Buddha, that he really was awakened. And he really saw that the reason for our suffering is inside. That might make you feel like you’re being blamed, but you’re not being blamed. You’re offered an opportunity to stop the suffering, because inside is where you do have this ability to exercise control. You can choose what you’re going to think about, and you can choose where you’re going to focus your attention—simple things like that.

Well, learn how to get the most out of those simple things. You can focus on your mind in such a way to make yourself miserable, or you can make yourself really happy. You can think about things that will make you miserable, or you can think about things that will be really useful. Strengthen you. Encourage you. Give you motivation to try to develop even better qualities inside. After all, that’s where your refuge is going to be.

The world outside is very uncertain. But you can make your inside certain, that you can depend on your views, you can depend on your virtue. Then when things change outside, you’ll still maintain your virtue; you’ll still maintain your integrity. In that way, you have a sense of confidence living in this world, that you can live in the world and not be affected by the dangers.

You do that not by ignoring the dangers or pretending they’re not there. You admit that they’re there. It’s only then that you can do something about them and learn how to avoid them, learn how to resist their power, and develop some power of your own inside—the power of conviction; your persistence, that you’re going to stick with this; your mindfulness, as you try to remember to stay with the breath, stay centered, stay grounded right here. That will give rise to concentration and then to discernment that sees through things, understands them for what they really are, how they really work and how you can get the most out of how they work. Those are your powers.

So. Try to develop them as much as you can, because that’s where certainty lies, that’s where safety lies: in the good qualities that you develop inside. When you have discernment, then you can resist the wrong views of the world. You can live with other people but you don’t have to pick up their views if you know that they’re wrong. And you’re learning how to detect, more and more clearly, more and more precisely, where they go wrong so that you’re not fooled into following them.

We do live in this land of wrong view. You look around the world. So much emphasis is given to greed, anger, delusion. Those are the things that people give themselves over to—and they want us to do that, too. That’s where the danger lies, in that part of us would be willing to go with them. So look into that. What part of the mind would like to turn traitor on itself—actually end up doing things that are going to be harmful, to take you to bad places in this world and bad places in other worlds as well?

So learn how to develop a certainty inside that you know what’s right, you know what’s wrong. You know what you’re responsible for, and you learn how you can develop your inner potentials, so that they can keep you safe at all times.