Making Yourself Worthy of Trust

When we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, there’s both the external refuge and the internal refuge. The internal refuge, of course, is the more important.

The external refuge in the case of the Buddha would be the Prince Siddhartha, who gained awakening 2,600 years ago. The Dhamma would be the Dhamma in the books and Dhamma talks. The Sangha would be the monastic Sangha, ideally the Sangha of the noble ones. They’re refuge is in the sense that they give us good examples that this is how happiness is found.

We all want happiness. We want it so much that you’d think people would actually be serious about how they go about looking for it—not serious in a grim way, but really putting some thought into it. You’d look around, see who really is happy, and how they got there. All too often, though, we simply go by our impulses, but if something is so important, you can’t just take your impulses as a guide. You want to see other people who’ve acted in certain ways and what the long-term consequences of their actions have been.

The Buddha and the Dhamma and the Sangha give us the best examples that this is how happiness is found—a happiness found in a way that’s harmless. If you want your happiness to last, you have to not only think about the long-term—that’s the wise part—but also you have to think about how your happiness is going to have an impact on other people—that’s where compassion comes in. If your happiness depends on their suffering, they’re not going to stand for it. They’ll do what they can to destroy your happiness.

There’s a scene in the Canon where King Pasenadi is in his private apartments with his favorite queen, Mallika. In a tender moment he turns to her and asks her, “Mallika, is there anyone you love more than yourself?” You know what he’s thinking—that she’ll say, “Yes, Your Majesty. You.” But that’s not what she says. She says, “No, there’s nobody I love more than myself, and what about you? Anybody you love more than yourself?” The king has to admit that, no, there’s nobody he loves more than himself. That’s the end of that scene.

So the king goes down to see the Buddha and tells him what happened. The Buddha says, “You know, she’s right. You could search the whole world over and you wouldn’t find anyone you love more than yourself. In the same way, other people and other beings love themselves just as fiercely as you do.” The conclusion that the Buddha draws from that is that you shouldn’t harm anybody or get them to do harm. That’s the basic principle of compassion.

Then we look at the Sangha. They carried through with the Buddha’s instructions. They saw ways in which their actions were not in line with his instructions and they changed their ways of acting. They’re following the instructions, but also learning how to gauge the results of their actions for themselves, to see whether they’re doing harm. If they’re intending an action, they ask themselves, “Okay, what’s going to happen as a result of acting on this intention?” If they see that it would cause harm, they tell themselves, “No, don’t go there.” If they don’t foresee any harm, they can go ahead and do it. While they’re acting, they look to see what the immediate consequences are—because sometimes actions do show their consequences right away. If they see that they’re causing harm, they stop. If they don’t see any harm, they keep on going. When the action is done, they look at the long-term consequences. And if it turns out they did cause harm, they take that as a lesson. They talk it over with someone else who’s more advanced on the path, and then they make up their mind not to repeat that mistake ever again. If they don’t see any harm, they take joy in the fact that they’re progressing in the path, and they keep training further.

Notice that the question here is not, “Do you like the action?” The question is, “What are the consequences going to be?” And you want to avoid harm. This is how you develop purity.

And there you have it, the three main virtues of the Buddha—wisdom, compassion, purity—in your search for happiness.

So you internalize the examples set by the Triple Gem. That’s where the inner refuge comes in. You train the mind to be reliable because you start out with a mind that’s partly reliable and partly not.

Ajaan Chah liked to say that one of the first things you learn about the mind, as you come to train it, is how much it lies to itself. But it’s not just a liar—after all, it did bring you here. You do have some skillful potentials. And a large part of the practice is learning how to sort them out: which parts of the mind are skillful and which ones are not. That test of putting things into action to see if what seem to be your harmless intentions really are harmless is one of the best ways of sorting these things out. It applies not only outside but also inside. After all, training the mind is a type of action. In fact, it’s the most important action of all.

As the Buddha said, of the three types of action—bodily, verbal, mental—mental actions are the most important because they guide the other two. If you want to learn how to make the mind trustworthy, you set up an intention that you know is good—the intention to train the mind, the intention to be with the body in the present moment, so that you can get the mind to settle down in good, solid concentration. As you try to maintain that intention, you’ll see other intentions come banging into it. So, for the time being, you tell yourself that those other intentions are not for you to follow. They’ll come with their reasons for why you have to think about this, think about that; that you’re being irresponsible if you don’t worry about this. You tell yourself, “Whatever happens in the world, good or bad, I’m going to have to be mindful, alert, and discerning. Where am I going to get those qualities if I don’t meditate?” Even when good things happen, you have to be mindful around them, so that you don’t get carried away and careless. When unskillful thoughts come up in the mind, you have to learn how to recognize them for what they are. That’s one of the functions of mindfulness.

Mindfulness doesn’t mean just accepting whatever comes up. It means keeping something in mind. In this case, you keep in mind what you know is the right path, what you know is the wrong path, what you know is skillful, what you know is not skillful. You hold on to that and then you judge things as to whether they’re skillful or not. In other words, if they’re not skillful, they’re not going to cause harm; if they’re unskillful, they’ll cause harm.

Then you’ll have to start dealing with the areas where you’re not sure. This is where you have to think things through. And even after thinking things through, checking them against the Dhamma, if you’re still not sure, go ahead and try them out, but really be honest with yourself about the consequences.

This principle of honesty is so important that the Buddha said it’s one of the two things he looked for in a student. One is that the student be observant, and two is that the student be honest. Those are the two qualities you want to bring to the practice. You’ll find that the mind has its dishonesties, but as long as you can identify them as the mind lying to itself, you’re fine.

Now, there will be times, of course, when the mind lies very effectively—it sounds like the Dhamma. It’s the same as in Christianity, where even the devil can quote scripture. Even your defilements can quote Dhamma to you. This is why, when you’re not sure, experiment. Give it a try.

But for the time being, as you’re getting the mind to settle down and be still, have some respect for your concentration. We’re all too quick to want to get the concentration to go where we want it to. If we want deep concentration, we want to squeeze it toward deep concentration. If we want insights, we want to squeeze the concentration toward insights. But give it some space. Let it develop. Let it seep in.

The Buddha’s image is of a bathman mixing water with bath powder. Back in those days, they didn’t have bars of soap the way we do now. They had a kind of a soap powder. You’d mix it with water, and then you’d have a soap dough that you would rub over your body. You’d mix it in the same way that, when you’re making bread, you combine the flour with the water, so that the ball of dough is just right. It’s not dripping, but there are no dry spots in the flour.

In the same way, the Buddha said, as you meditate, try to breathe in a way that feels comfortable. Ask yourself about what ways are comfortable. Experiment. Try long breathing for a while. Try short breathing for a while. Deep, shallow, heavy, light—any combination of those. See what feels good right now.

Or you can just ask the body in the present moment, “What kind of breathing do you want now?” See how the body responds.

Then, when you’ve got a comfortable breath, think of it spreading throughout the body. You can make a survey around the body. Think of there being breath everywhere in the body. Ask yourself, “Where does it feel like there’s no breath? Can I have the mental image of the whole body breathing, every cell in the body breathing in, breathing out together? What does that do?”

On the one hand, you learn some interesting lessons about the power of perception. The way you picture the breath energy flowing through the body is going to have an impact on how you actually breathe.

For the time being, though, the main question is, “What way feels really good?” Once you’ve got a breath rhythm that feels good, how do you maintain it? “Maintaining it” means, on the one hand, as long as this rhythm feels good, you maintain it. When it doesn’t feel good anymore, you can change—because the needs of the body will change as the mind settles down.

So you get to play, you get to experiment, you get to choose what kind of breathing you like. And then think of the breath spreading through the whole body—the comfortable breath, the easeful breath, the refreshing breath—like the bathman kneading the water through the dough, working it through any parts where it’s not going easily. There may be patterns of tension in the body that seem to resist and put up walls or blockages. But remind yourself, the breath can go through anything—it’s an energy. Hold that perception in mind. And remind yourself also that the breath was there first—see what that perception does.

You may ask yourself, “Can I trust these perceptions?” As long as they make the breath comfortable, they’re fine. Then give the mind some time to settle in. This will become the foundation for insight. And as with any foundation, you want to make sure it’s solid. If it’s not solid, you build one story on top of it and it falls down. If it’s solid, you can as many stories on top as you like.

So, show some patience, show some respect for your concentration. If your concentration seems weak, don’t throw it away. Just stay with it. Strong concentration comes from gluing together moments of weak concentration. So as you’re with the breath for a little bit and wander off, tell yourself, “No, don’t wander. Come right back.” Try to catch yourself as quickly as possible.

Or if the mind has a tendency to stay with one in-breath and one out-breath and then leave before the next breath happens, say, “Can I make it to two breaths? Can I make it to three? Four?” Build slowly. Again, show some respect. This is a skill that’s worth developing, worth spending time on.

When the mind does settle down, say, “Okay, now is the time to stay settled down.” That’s a different skill from getting it to settle down. Getting it there is one thing; getting it to stay is something else. There will be impulses in the mind that say, “Okay, enough of this. What’s next?” You have to say, “Nope, this is what’s next. If this is going to grow, it has to be given time.” It’s like a cream that you put on a rash. You don’t put the cream on and then wipe it off. You put it on and let it stay. The insights that come as you’re trying to get it to stay will be insights into the mind’s antsiness, its desire to keep moving on to something else. Your mind will tell you, “This is stupid. Nothing’s happening in the mind.” But things are happening. And this is not stupid at all—you’re learning an important skill. But it’s a skill that we tend to overlook in our society—the skill of a quiet mind. So give it some space.

As we’re living here together, we should give some space to one another’s concentration as well. We don’t take a vow of silence here. When you have something you have to talk about, talk about it. But remind yourself that every time you open your mouth, you may be disturbing somebody else’s concentration. So make sure that when you speak, it’s worth the disturbance. The more you respect other people’s concentration, the more you’ll be likely to respect your own.

If you’re not quite sure about whether what you’re experiencing is breath energy, say, “Well, it’s good enough. If it’s my sensation of how the body feels right now, it qualifies.” As you settle in, you’ll learn more and more about the breath; you’ll learn more and more about the mind. Things will change. But give the process some trust that if it’s not quite right yet, it’ll lead you to what’s right. This is how the path develops. Nobody starts out, totally right on the path—you’re a little bit right; you’re halfway between right and wrong, and you’re leaning toward right.

So, as long as you’re alert, as long as you’re honest and observant, you can trust that whatever you’re holding on to will develop into concentration and you’ll be able to see for yourself: Where it’s not quite right, you can adjust it. Where it’s not quite right again, you can adjust it again. That’s how this skill develops. This is how the practice grows.