Worms of Defilement
October 05, 2023

When we meditate, we close our eyes so we can see the mind more clearly, see the breath more clearly. That’s because the cause of suffering doesn’t come from outside. It comes from within. Like a story I was told by a dentist I knew in Bangkok who liked to give free dental care to phra farang—Western monks. He told me when he would pull out teeth and put them aside, then after a day or two, little worms would develop from within the teeth themselves. Which is a sign that the potential for the worms is already in our teeth somehow, and something in our saliva keeps them from growing and eating away at the teeth.

In the same way, the mind has its defilements coming from within. And as long as you have some restraint, you can keep them under control. But you have to realize these are the real problem. When we have a disease we think, it’s coming from outside. But we’re susceptible to the disease. The fact that we’re susceptible means that we can pick up these germs.

It’s like the theory that the mind is basically good, and it’s because of our social conditioning that we suffer. But if we didn’t have the germs for greed, aversion, and delusion inside, social conditioning couldn’t give rise to these things within us. So the problem is inside. The Buddha never said that we’re basically good. He never said we’re basically bad. But he did say the mind is very changeable. It can take on all kinds of forms. And it’s very quick to change direction. So that’s what you’ve got to watch out for.

This is one of the reasons why we try to get it steadily with one thing—one good thing. Like the breath right here, right now. When you’re here, you can gain a sense of well-being that doesn’t have to cause any harm to anybody else. And it puts you in a position where you can observe your mind more clearly. You begin to see where the germs are inside.

So when we meditate, we close our eyes so that we can see. We focus inside because this is where the problem is. This is not to say that the world outside doesn’t have a lot of bad people and a lot of bad things going on. But the reason we suffer from those things is because of our own lack of skill in how to think about them, how to observe them, how to plan what to do in response. So those are the skills we need to develop.

They’re going to require mindfulness and alertness and ardency, which are precisely the qualities you develop as you focus here on the breath: mindful to keep the breath in mind, alert to see what your mind is actually doing and what the breath is actually doing, and then ardent to make any adjustments, any changes that need to be made to make it better.

We work on these qualities, we strengthen these qualities, so that they can be applied to other, bigger issues in life. So don’t think that when you come here to meditate you’re running away from anything. You’ve come here to develop the skills you need so you can live in the world but not suffer. You can be surrounded by the germs of greed, aversion, and delusion and not pick them up. That way, you make yourself totally safe: safe for yourself and safe for others.