An Inside Job

A couple years back I was teaching a retreat in Brazil, and someone said, “We’re meditating so that we can be more helpful to the world, so why are we closing our eyes while we meditate?”

That’s a big misunderstanding. We’re meditating because we have the responsibilities inside to look after our own minds. And if we focus on the world outside, the responsibilities we have inside are not going to get done, because nobody else can do them for us. As the Buddha pointed out, the reason we’re suffering is not because of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations. It’s because of our cravings. Nobody else can stop your cravings for you. So you have to do the work yourself.

So. Close your eyes so we can focus on where the real work is, so we can do it well. Now, this doesn’t mean that we’re turning our backs on the world. After all, part of the training is in generosity and in virtue, and these things directly impact the people around us. But your generosity and your virtue need some support from inside. Otherwise, if you’re producing goodness but nothing seems to come up inside as a resource for your goodness, it gets dry pretty quickly. But when you get the pleasure of meditation, the pleasure of concentration, that becomes your source of inner wealth, source of inner strength, source of inner well-being. When you’re coming from a position like this, then your generosity and your virtue have something to rely on, something to feed them. So look at the meditation as a kind of food.

Some people say, “I don’t have time to meditate in the course of the day.” It’s like saying you don’t have time to eat. Everybody can find time to eat. In the same way, you can find time to meditate. It may not be as much as you like, but make whatever time you can find. You have to make the time. The world won’t make the time for you.

Those of us here at the monastery are lucky. We have very few responsibilities—just the responsibilities in the monastery itself. As for responsibilities in the world outside, we can put them aside, at least for the time being, and devote ourselves as much as we can to training the mind, looking into the mind, and seeing what’s going on.

The mind needs training. If it’s left to its own devices, it’s not the case that its natural goodness will just come flowing out. If the mind is naturally anything, it’s naturally changeable. It can switch directions so fast that even the Buddha himself couldn’t find an adequate analogy for how fast it can change direction. So that kind of mind needs to be trained. You have to be on top of it.

So stay with the breath—each breath as it comes in, each breath as it goes out. That keeps you anchored in the present moment. And you’re right *near *the mind, so whatever comes out of the mind, you detect it right as it’s coming out. Then you can do something about it.

So you’re in the right place. You have the time. The question is, simply, are you going to keep at it? If you have the determination to train your mind, then it doesn’t lie beyond your ability to train it. The human mind may be a lot more complicated than, say, the mind of a horse or an elephant, but it can be trained. We’ve got the time right now. Take advantage of it.