You Have Choices

When you sit here with your eyes closed, there are no mind police checking to make sure you’re really meditating. So it’s entirely up to you what you want to do with this time.

But you can ask yourself, “What would be the best use of this time?” The best use would be to train the mind to settle down. You can choose what you want to focus on.

We often forget this. The world throws so many things at us, so fast, that we forget that we have the right to choose what we’re going to focus on, what we’re going to take as our object, what the mind is going to feed on. All too often, we feed on some pretty bad things, instead of choosing something really good to feed on.

Let the breath be really comfortable as it comes in, as it goes out. Think of every cell in the body breathing together. Make that what the Buddha would call the “support” for your mind. In English we talk about “focusing” on something, and the image is of a camera or the lens of the eye, focusing on a spot. But in Pali, the image is that your mind needs something to support it, to sit on, to dwell in. So choose something good to dwell in. If it’s going to be food for your mind, choose good food. If you’re going to think of it as a house for the mind, make it a good house. You have the right to do this.

The world outside is a strange world. Don’t make that your dwelling. Make your dwelling inside. And then make it a home. In other words, make it comfortable. Make it an interesting, comfortable place to stay. Take an interest in how you feel the body from within and what potentials you have for making any pains in the body lessen, what potentials you have in the mind to give rise to a sense of brightness inside. Those things are there. It’s just they’re often covered up. We’re paying attention to other things.

But now you can have some time while you’re sitting here. You have no other responsibilities right now, just the responsibility of the mind, getting to know your mind. And not just knowing it as it is—knowing what its potentials are. We’re trying to give rise to a sense of fullness, refreshment, ease, well-being that can spread throughout the body. Where are the potentials within you for those things? They’re there.

When you give your body your full attention like this and you open your mind to the possibilities that you have choices, you’re not just stuck with whatever is coming up. Some things can come up, and you can tell yourself, “I don’t need to go there.” Other things come up—they’re good, so you nourish them. Other things haven’t come up yet, but you can make them come up. The potential is there. As the Buddha said, if skillful qualities are not there, you give rise to them.

So give rise to mindfulness, concentration, a sense of well-being inside. The potentials are there. It’s simply a matter of knowing where to look for them and how to manipulate them, how to deal with them so they really do show their full potential for giving you a good place to stay: good for resting, good for exploring, to figure out what’s going on inside—and to see where, as the Buddha says, you’re creating unnecessary suffering for yourself and realize that it is unnecessary. You have the choice. You have alternatives.

There’s a common belief that the Buddha’s basic teaching is the three characteristics, simply the way things are. But when he awakened, his descriptions of his awakening never mentioned the three characteristics. They always talk about the four noble truths. They’re not just about what things are. They’re about where the potentials are, what you’re doing, and what you can do to take yourself beyond suffering.

So think in those terms. Think in terms of potentials, choices, and you’re here to explore them. That makes the meditation a lot more interesting and a lot more rewarding.