An Auspicious Day

Close your eyes. Stay with the breath, all the way in, all the way out. And then again and again—each breath as it comes in, each breath as it goes out. Try to make your awareness continuous. Be clearly alert to what’s going on.

The Buddha said this is what makes an auspicious day.

It’s not the stars. It’s not other signs outside. It’s what you do inside with your own mind. You’re clearly aware of what’s happening in the present moment, and you know what you should do with regard to what’s happening. In other words, are you sitting here meditating right now?

Any thoughts related to the breath, you say Yes to them. Any thoughts related to other things, you say No. And even among the thoughts related to the breath, you try to get more and more skillful in how to think about the breath—how to adjust the breath so that it feels really good coming in, feels really good going out; what kind of perceptions you hold in mind; what ways of talking to yourself are helpful. Explore that. This is how you have an auspicious day.

As for other things that are coming in right now, you don’t have to pay them any attention. Sometimes we have the feeling that we have to chase them down and kill them. But that’s not the case. If we do that, then they’ve pulled us away from our original intention already. Just let them pass, pass, pass. Like the sound of the birds, the sound of the faraway plane: Just let them pass. They’re not your business right now. They’re none of your concern. Well, have the same attitude toward your distracting thoughts. They’re none of your concern right now.

What is of your concern is your ability to keep the mind settled, to keep it solid. So this is not just a matter of being aware of what’s happening in the present moment. It’s also a matter of knowing what to do, what your duties are.

The Buddha sets them out. If there’s any stress, any suffering in the mind, you want to comprehend it, to understand in what way that you’re clinging to any of the aggregates. When you see what’s causing you to cling, then you let it go. You try to realize the end of suffering by developing the path. These are your duties right now.

These aren’t the duties that the world would impose on you. They have other ideas of what they want out of you. It’s good that we have a Buddha in the world who doesn’t want anything out of you. He wants to provide you with the knowledge whereby you can help yourself, straighten out your own mind. And the duties that he states are not duties he’s imposing on you. They’re duties where he simply notes that if you want to put an end to suffering, this is what you have to do. It’s built into the way things are, the way they function.

So now that you put the duties of the world aside for the time being, focus on these duties, because these are auspicious duties. These are the duties that make an auspicious day no matter what the stars are, no matter what the sounds and sights are that you might reagard as auspicious or inauspicious. The fact that you’re doing your duty right now—that’s what makes each day auspicious.