Focus Your Desires

To get the mind to settle down you have to want it to settle down, because it’s driven by its desires. It’s not the case that the mind simply sits there perfectly still, perfectly happy, like a frog, not thinking about anything, and then a fly comes along and it suddenly gets hungry. The mind is hungry to begin with. It’s out looking for things. So you want to make sure that you aim it in the right direction. The mind has an arrow built into it that’s going someplace with its fabrications, saṅkhāras. They’re all done for the sake of something.

So when the Buddha teaches us the Dhamma, he’s providing us with something that’s really good to do things for the sake of. Here we are in this world of aging, illness and death, followed by birth and then by more aging, illness and death. He says that he found the way to something that doesn’t age, doesn’t grow ill and doesn’t die. That’s something worth desiring, because it puts an end to all suffering. Not only do you stop creating suffering for yourself, but you’re also no longer feeding on other people.

After all, that’s what our desire does. We want something and then we create our sense of who we are around that, and then that “who we are” has to feed—feed physically, feed emotionally. It keeps on going, going, going, and when you can no longer use this body, when you get pushed out, you go find another one. It’s like a hermit crab: Find another shell, keep on going, keep on going. Who knows how long it’s been going on?

The Buddha said you can’t trace back and find the beginning point. As long as you look for happiness in things that age, grow ill and die, you’re going to have to age, grow ill and die as well, again and again.

Here the Buddha’s offering a way out. So it’s worth listening to, worth focusing on, worth taking seriously: that there is a dimension of the mind that doesn’t die. So focus your desires there.

Now, this requires not just desiring, of course. You have to act skillfully on those desires. This is why, when the Buddha taught the bases for success, it wasn’t just desire. It was concentration based on desire and then the fabrications of right effort. It also requires persistence, intent, and using your ingenuity to follow the instructions and then, if they don’t work out, you can reflect on what you’ve done. How do you have to adjust your actions? How do you have to adjust your understanding so that you do get the right results the next time around?

The Buddha set down the basic principles. Ajaan MahaBua makes the comparison with a traditional doctor. In traditional Thai medicine, they’d have a big pot of basic tonic always on the back burner of their stove. Then when anyone came in with specific problems, they’d take the basic tonic and they’d add a little of this, add a little of that, so it was just right for the disease. In the same way, when you get the Dhamma from the Buddha, get the Dhamma from the teachers, you’re getting the basic tonic. Then they give us a range of other ingredients that might be added, and you have to figure out which ingredients you need to add for your particular problems.

So it’s not just a matter of following instructions. You also have to use your ingenuity, your powers of observation, because it’s through developing your powers of observation that you develop your discernment.

So focus your desires in the right direction and then act on those rightly-directed desires. That’s how you, too, can find what the Buddha found.