Be Still
January 15, 2024

Close your eyes and be sensitive to your breath. Notice where you feel it as it comes in, as it goes out. And stay right there. The mind isn’t used to staying. It’s used to traveling around. It wants one thing, it gets it, and then wants something else. When it gets that something else, it wants something else again. It just keeps going and going and going like that.

But running around like this, you don’t see anything clearly. You want to get the mind to be still so it can see things clearly. It’s like looking at a tree. If you run past the tree, and then someone asks you, “How many squirrels were in the tree? How many birds? What kind of leaves? What kind of tree was it?” you usually can’t say because it was just a blur. But if you stand still and watch, you can see clearly what’s going on in the tree—how many animals there are, how healthy the tree is.

Then you’re in a position to make some changes—because the meditation isn’t just about accepting whatever comes up.

The mind has skillful potentials and unskillful potentials, and you want to be able to recognize them. But to recognize them, first you’ve got to get the mind still. Then you can see—when a thought comes up, when an emotion comes up—where is it coming from? From a good part of the mind or a not-so-good part of the mind? When you see that, you can have a good idea of what to do with it. The things that are good, you should encourage. The things that are not so good, you can let go. You don’t have to get involved. The fact that they come into the mind is just an instance of past karma showing itself. But what you do with it right now, your present karma: That’s what makes a difference.

So you want to be in a position so you can see clearly what are the skillful things to do with what comes up in your mind. For that, you need stillness. So try to be right here so that you can see what comes and when it comes. The thing is, you can’t make any appointments ahead of time saying, “If something unskillful is going to come, can I have it right now so I can deal with it and be done with it and then move on?” It can come at any time.

The same with skillful qualities, the ones you want to develop: They can come at any time as well. So you have to be prepared. You have to be watchful. So be still but alert. And be patient. Sometimes it takes time for the mind to show its potentials. But you want to be ready for whatever comes.

This is a good principle to hold to, not only with things inside your mind but also with things outside in the world. We make so many snap judgments based on just a little whiff of an idea or a whiff of a perception that comes zipping past. If we’re not still, it’s like we’re running in one direction and someone else is running toward us from the other direction. We go right past each other. That’s even harder to see. So you’ve got to get still, then you can see what’s moving and what’s not moving in the mind.

For most of us, it’s as if we’re born on a train, and the train is constantly going. You look out the window and everything is moving. Cars move; people move; trees move; mountains move, because we’re moving. But if you want to see what’s standing still and what’s moving, you’ve got to get still. You’ve got to get off the train. Just stand still. Watch.

So if you really want to know anything—if you really want to understand anything in your life, either in your own mind or the world around you—you’ve got to get still so that you can watch clearly. Without that stillness, no matter how many amazing ideas you may have, they’re all built on very slim evidence. Give yourself solid evidence so that you can have good ideas that really are useful. It all comes from getting the mind really still, giving it a good place to be still, like the breath.

So. Take care of your breath. Make the breath comfortable, so that it’s a good place to be. You’ll not only have a sense of well-being in the present moment, but you’ll be in a much better position to see things as they’re going on, for what they are. Then you can do something about them.