In Alignment

Try to keep your awareness with the body. Use the breath as the medium that connects the two. Know when the breath is coming in; know when it’s going out. Of the various properties of the body, it’s the one most responsive to the mind. And it’s through the breath that we move the body around. So this is a good place to be as a vantage point.

What you want to do is keep things together here. Keep them in alignment. Think about a car when the tires are not aligned. They wear out pretty quickly. And the same with the mind: If it’s not aligned with the body, it wears out, and the body gets neglected. You want the two of them together, right here, in harmony.

The body is a lot slower than the mind. The mind can go around the world in the flash of an eye. But the body stays right here. So you want to get the mind to pick up some of the qualities of the body. Not so much that it has to be slow, but so it has to be right here to see what’s going on right here. When it’s running around the world, it’s still functioning here in the present moment. It’s still creating new thoughts, but we miss the act of production inside. We don’t see how those worlds that we’re going to are actually created. And as the Buddha said, we create them in ignorance, which means we’re going to suffer. We create good worlds? We can even suffer from good worlds because they’re going to end. And, of course, there are a lot of bad worlds that we create as well.

So if you’re going to create a world, create a world around the body. Try to fill the body with your awareness. Have a sense of your being right here, staying right here: the body in alignment with the mind, the mind in alignment with the body, in harmony together. This principle of harmony is very important. Sometimes we push and pull the breath energy too much, and the body gets exhausted.

So. Have a light touch. And listen to what the body needs. Listen to what the mind needs. All too often, we let our likes and dislikes take over. We’re not paying attention to what’s actually needed right here, right now. So stay here for a while and watch. Listen. See what you can learn, both about the body and about the mind as you try to keep them together, as you bring them into alignment. When they’re in alignment, then they don’t wear out so quickly and they can take you far.