What You’re Responsible For

Ajaan Suwat would often comment on how, with all the people in the world, there’s really only one person for whom we’re responsible: ourselves. As we go through life, we take on lots of other responsibilities, like looking after our family and community, but there are certain responsibilities inside that only we can take care of. If we spend too much time worrying about outside responsibilities, the inside responsibilities get abandoned and neglected. Then, when the time comes when we really need some inner strength, we find it’s not there.

So when we come to meditate, we’re focusing on the area where our real responsibilities are—inside us. Our responsibilities are the state of the mind, what the mind says to itself, how it creates suffering for itself, or how it can learn not to create suffering for itself. This means that, as you’re sitting here, there are certain things even within you that you’re not going to be responsible for right now. It’s a cold, wet night, but you’re not responsible for the cold or the wetness. So don’t focus there. Wrap yourself up warmly and tell yourself that that’s been taken care of. For the rest of the hour, no comments on how cold it is or how wet it is outside. Just focus on the mind and the breath right here, right now.

Is the mind staying with the breath? If not, is the problem with the breath or with the mind? First, focus on the mind. Get a sense of what kind of mind you’re bringing to the meditation. Thinking about the future or the past? Put those thoughts aside. Too much energy or too little energy? Focus on the breath in a way that compensates. Breathe in a way that gives you more energy if you need it. If you have too much energy already, breathe in a calming way. Use the breath to bring the mind into balance.

Then take an interest in the breath. The more interested you are in the breath, the more likely you are to stay right here, right now. If the breath is boring, you’re going to find someplace else to go, something else to think about. So ask questions about the breath.

This is why the Buddha makes directed thought and evaluation an integral part of getting the mind to settle down. How is your breathing right now? Could it be longer? Would that be better? How about shorter? Deeper? More shallow? Heavier? Lighter? Experiment with different kinds of breathing to see what the body needs and how the breath can provide for those needs. If nothing much seems to be happening, that’s perfectly fine. You’re here to watch. You’re like a spy observing a person who may be coming and going and doing very ordinary things most of the day, but then maybe once a day does something out of the ordinary. You have to be here all the time because you don’t know when things will show up.

The mind does have its defilements. But for right now, your main concern is that if anything else comes in, you learn how to brush it away. Breathe through it. Think of the breath as a broom sweeping all your other thoughts away. Keep reminding yourself that this is your responsibility right here—keeping your mind under control in the present moment. This is a skill you’re really going to need when aging comes, illness comes, and especially when death comes. As the Buddha points out, the state of your mind at the moment of death can have a huge impact on where you’re going to go. So you don’t want it out of control. You want to be able to keep it focused all the way through the end and out the other side.

So you talk to yourself, you encourage yourself in this direction. That kind of thinking is not a problem. It’s part of the meditation. Any thinking that keeps you focused is a friend. Any thinking that will pull you away is not a friend. It’s something you’ve got to let go of. Even though nothing much seems to be happening, the fact that you’re able to stick with this and stay interested in what might potentially happen in the breath means you’re developing a skill. And as with any skill, there’s a lot of repetition, doing things again and again to get them right and then to get them right consistently.

Have a strong sense that this is a really light responsibility you have at the moment. If you lay claim to other things, it’s heavy. There’s a passage in the Canon where the Buddha’s talking to the monks. They’re in Jetavana, and he says, “If someone were to come and take the sticks, twigs, leaves, and branches here in Jetawana and burn them up, would you complain that they’re burning you up?” The monks answered, “Well, no, because those things are not us.” The Buddha said, “In the same way, whatever is not yours, let go of it. That will be for your long-term welfare and happiness.”

It’s an interesting passage. He’s not saying there’s no you there. After all, you’re doing this for your welfare and happiness long-term. He’s simply pointing out that if you lay claim to things, that weighs you down. So whatever you don’t have to lay claim to right now, let it go. Think of that as lightening the mind, lifting the mind. Even though there are responsibilities out in the world that you will have to take up after the meditation is over, at the moment you don’t need them and they don’t need you at all. There’s no need for you to lay claim to them at all.

That will be for your long-term welfare and happiness because you’re being responsible for the area that you really do have to be responsible for: maintaining right view, right resolve, and all the other right factors of the path. They all come together here in the meditation. If you stop to make an analysis, yes, they’re all here, but for the time being, there’s no need even to make that analysis. Just be confident that what you’re doing is on the path: learning the skill of keeping the mind focused steadily as you go through the line of time, like a little bead going down a wire. It doesn’t skip off the wire, it doesn’t go back and forth, it just keeps following the wire down, down, down, down, down, inside. In that way, you develop real singleness of mind, cittass’ekaggatā, which is the quality you want in meditation, where everything comes and gathers together in one place. Eka, one; agga, gathering place; and then the -tā is what makes it a noun—one-gathering-placeness.

Make this your sole responsibility right now. Everything else, you can leave to take care of itself. The cold will take care of itself. The wetness outside will take care of itself. For the time being, your other responsibilities will take care of themselves. Make sure that you take care of this because it doesn’t get taken care of itself unless you do it. This ability to keep the mind focused, to abandon any unskillful thoughts that come up, to encourage the skillful ones, and to know when even the skillful ones can be put aside so that you can just be right here, gathered together right here: That’s the only thing you’re responsible for right now.