A Good Path to Be On

There’s a reflection that we chant often on how we’re subject to aging, illness, and death. We’re going to be separated from all that we love. If the reflections stopped there, they would be very depressing. They give rise to a strong sense of saṃvega, a word that means dismay or even terror. You can think about all the places you can be reborn. No matter where you go, they’re all subject to aging, illness, and death. But as I said, the reflection doesn’t stop there. The fifth one is that we have our actions. We’re the owners of our actions, heir to our actions. We’re born of our actions, related to our actions, and live dependent on our actions. We have our actions as our arbitrator. That’s the hopeful side.

All too many people view the teaching on karma as punishment: You’ve done something bad, and there’s going to be punishment coming down the line. But when the Buddha discussed karma, he talked about two things that are actually much more positive. One is generosity. When you give something, it really is meaningful. Because karma is what? It’s your intention. And your intentions have power. Think about that. You’re not just a victim of forces beyond your control. You exercise a very important element of control in your life, in the intentions that you act on. So the fact that you give something to someone else means that it wasn’t forced on you. It’s not because of the stars or the laws of physics. You overcame your own greed, your own stinginess, your own narrow-mindedness. You gave a gift. It’s refreshing. It opens up the mind. It’s like opening windows in a narrow, stagnant house to let some fresh air in.

The way the Buddha taught karma is that we have choices in the present moment. There are influences coming in from our past actions, but that’s not all. There are also our present intentions. In fact, without our present intentions, we wouldn’t even be aware of things coming in from the past. Our present intentions are what can shape them for good or for evil. And it is possible for us to learn how to do it well. It’s because we have these choices that generosity is meaningful.

The other thing the Buddha liked to talk about in connection with karma is gratitude. Again, when someone has helped you, it’s not because of the stars. It’s not because of the laws of physics. It’s because they saw that you were worth helping, and they went out of their way to give help. You can start with your parents, your teachers, anyone who’s shown a special kindness to you. And it’s meaningful because of the power of karma. The power of your intentions gives meaning to acts of generosity, gives meaning to feelings of gratitude. These are the things that make the human realm livable.

Yet the way the Buddha explored teaching on karma goes beyond that. He says you can develop the skills of virtue, concentration, and discernment so that they can lead to total freedom.

Think about that. Whenever you’re getting discouraged, remind yourself that there is this opening. There’s a possibility for you to become more and more skillful. And it doesn’t have to depend on anybody else. You don’t have to go around pleasing other people. You can be nice to them, you can be kind to them, but you don’t have to please them in the sense of doing whatever they want you to do.

There are people who say that when you say something that people don’t like, you’re harming them. The Buddha was not one of those people, though. One time he was asked if he would say anything displeasing to other people. It was supposed to be a trick question. If he said, Yes, he would say displeasing things, then they’d say, well, what’s the difference between you and ordinary people down in the market? If he said No, he was on record for saying that Devadatta was going to go to hell, which was certainly displeasing to Devadatta.

But the Buddha pointed out there’s no categorical answer to the original question. There’s an analytical answer, which is that if something was true, he would say it, if it wasn’t true, he wouldn’t say it. But that was just the first test. The next test was that, even if it was true, it had to be beneficial. And even if it was true and beneficial, he had to know the right time and right place to say things that are pleasing and say things that are displeasing.

The analogy he gave was a small child getting a sharp object in his mouth. You do what you can to get the object out of his mouth before he swallows it, even if it means drawing blood, because if he swallows it, it’s going to be a lot worse.

In the same way, there are times you have to say displeasing things. You don’t say harmful things, but you don’t go around pleasing people all the time. This path is not one of trying to please other people or some higher power. It’s a path where it’s basically between you and you, what you want out of life. Of all the different desires you might have, you ask which ones are in line with the path of total freedom and which ones are not. You’ve got to sort through those. But it’s something you can do.

We read about the Buddha, and sometimes it seems like his efforts on the path, or at least for finding the path, were superhuman. But at the very least, we can take comfort in the fact that he did find the path. We don’t have to find it for ourselves. He sketches out the outline, and we fill in the details. This morning I mentioned the element of creativity in the path. You’ve got to be creative in how you observe the precepts—in other words, coming up with good reasons to keep with them—because sometimes the reasons you gave yesterday for wanting to stick with the precepts may not be that persuasive to the mind today. You have to keep taking up fresh reasons for sticking with the precepts.

Working with concentration, there’s also a lot of room to play.

One of the strangest developments in the tradition of Buddhist meditation was the idea that, one, you had to focus on your nose, couldn’t focus anywhere else. I even read a piece by a monk who was saying that if tell people that they can meditate in any place else besides the tip of the nose, you’re going to destroy the religion.

There’s no place where the Buddha said you had to meditate on the tip of your nose. You bring mindfulness to the fore, he says, which doesn’t mean any particular part of the body. It’s just that you make mindfulness strong, put it in charge.

The other strange thing is the idea that you can’t control the breath, you can’t play with the breath, you just have to breathe whatever way the body’s going to breathe. But actually, he body doesn’t breathe on its own. The in-and-out breath is what’s called bodily fabrication, and fabrication contains an element of intention. So the way you breathe already has a subconscious element of intention. The best way to realize that is to try to breathe in different ways. Consciously change the way you breathe. Find a way of breathing that’s comfortable, interesting, soothing when you need to be soothed, energizing when you need to be energized.

This involves thinking about how you conceive the breath. Which images do you hold in mind about how the breath works? How does it flow into the body? What is the breath? The in-and-out breath is not classified as a tactile sensation. In the Buddha’s teachings, it’s classified as part of the wind element in the body. It’s something that’s in the body already. It’s energy. And energy can be anywhere in the body. It can flow anywhere in the body. So take advantage of that fact.

Be creative in your concentration. Be creative in your discernment. You’re going to have to ask questions of the mind about why it’s attached to this thing or that. When there’s pain, physical pain, is there some way you can be with the pain and not suffer from it? When there’s the pleasure of the concentration, how can you learn to be with it and not get overwhelmed by it? In other words, you don’t just wallow in it. You try to be alert and mindful so that you can watch the mind, see how the mind moves around, see how it clings to things, and ask it why. What’s the allure?

And to get to the allure, you have to ask some pretty strange questions, because the reasons we go for certain things are not always aboveboard. We have lots of hidden motives, and they’re not going to come out until you ask strange questions.

So you have to be ingenious in the way you observe the precepts, the way you practice concentration, the way you engage in discernment, which means that we’re not being put into a straitjacket. We’re not just being told, “Just obey, and there will be a reward down the line.” We get to engage with all of our mind and all of our heart in terms of generosity, gratitude, virtue, concentration, discernment. All this comes out of the motivation that we want to find happiness in a way that’s harmless, so that our attitude of goodwill for ourselves can be universalized, can spread to all beings: May all beings try to find happiness in a harmless way. The Buddha shows that it’s possible.

There are a lot of things in the path that give you encouragement, to realize that you’re on a good path. It may not go as quickly as you’d like, but, hey, how long have you been mucking around in samsara? Nobody asks, “How many more lifetimes am I going to keep on wandering around aimlessly?” It’s funny when people talk about how the path may take a couple of lifetimes and they complain, “Oh, that’s awfully long.” But then you think about how many lifetimes you’ve been wandering around lost: It’s much, much, much longer.

So you’re on a good path, and it has an end. Samsara doesn’t have any endpoint aside from nibbana. If you don’t go to nibbana, then you keep wandering around, bumbling around. Whereas when you’re on the path, you develop a skill that engages all of your heart and all of your mind. So each step on the path is a good step to take. It’s a good path to be on.