In an Imperfect World

We live in an imperfect world, starting with the Earth itself. It wobbles on its axis. Then we look at the behavior of people, the behavior of the weather—all kinds of things. There’s lots that we can criticize, lots that we can get upset about. And some people say we have to wait until the world is all straightened out, and then we’ll have the luxury of training our minds. But since when has the world ever been straightened out?

In the time of the Buddha there was war. In the time of the Buddha there was injustice. But he told people to take events into hand in order to find some happiness. By that he meant take your mind in hand. Because it is possible to train the mind even in imperfect situations.

In fact, those are the only situations that we have.

So make the most of what you’ve got. Outside there may be a lot of things you can’t change. But inside, there are a lot of things that you can: You can give the mind a good place to stay by the way you breathe, by the way you talk to yourself, where you focus, how much strength you put into your focus, the questions you ask yourself, the ways you go about looking for answers—all this is free range. The body as you sense it from within, your mind as you sense it from within, just the sensation of the breath: That’s yours. You can hear other people breathing, but you can’t feel their breath the way they feel it. Remember, the breath is not just the air coming in and out of the body; it’s the flow of energy inside the body itself.

So the problem is inside, but the solution is also inside. It’s in your territory. So. Try to create some space for your territory. Don’t let the world come in and overwhelm it—because even if we had a perfect world outside, people wouldn’t be satisfied.

Mara came to see the Buddha one time and pleaded with him to stay on as a universal ruler, ruling righteously. But the Buddha said that, even if you gave one person two Himalayan ranges of gold, it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy that person’s desires. So how are you going to find peace in the world outside? There’s always going to be conflict. There are always going to be disagreements. So we have to make sure that we find some space inside where we can make a difference, where we can create the conditions for true happiness, and that we become a force for good in the world because our happiness is genuine.

The help we give to the world then is not neurotic. It comes from a sense of well-being, of having a sense of enough inside, that you know that you have enough to share.

So we work on the perfections, starting with generosity, virtue, renunciation, all the way up through goodwill and equanimity.

But we have to do it in an imperfect world. Just accept that fact. Then do your best with what you can inside the mind, inside the qualities that you develop, while you’re meditating, while you’re engaged with other people. All your activities can be devoted to developing the perfections.

That way, your life is a life of Dhamma practice. The script is not being written by the world outside. You’re writing the script yourself.