The Day After

Last night we celebrated Visakha Puja, the Buddha’s birthday. And then later on it became the day he gained awakening. And then later on it was the day that he passed away. So today is the day after.

You can think of what it was like for him the day after gaining awakening. The texts say that for seven weeks he just stayed in the area of the Bodhi tree, experiencing the bliss of release. After all those many eons of working and working to become a Buddha, now he’d accomplished it.

So we think about him; then we think about ourselves. How much have we accomplished in terms of our practice? What still needs to be done? After all, the work is ours. We’re inspired by the example of the Buddha, we’re informed by his teachings, but for the mind to be really cleaned out, for the mind to be freed, that’s an inside job—something you have to do for yourself.

So it’s going to require a lot of mindfulness, alertness, and ardency. These are the qualities the Buddha said we develop as we meditate. Like right now, you’re remembering to stay with the breath. That’s mindfulness. Any thoughts that would go out in other places, you just don’t pay any attention. You keep reminding yourself that this is where you want to be, with the breath coming in, with the breath going out. Those other thoughts you can think some other time. Right now is the time to train the mind to be still, to train the mind to stay with one thing.

If you’re going to understand things in your life, especially if you’re going to understand your own mind, you have to be able to watch it continually. Otherwise it’s like listening to a record, one of those old-fashioned LPs where the needle is bouncing around. You can hear little bits and pieces here, but it doesn’t make any sense. That’s the problem with our minds. We watch our minds for a while; and then we go outside and come back, and we watch them a little bit more. Even though we can see what’s going on in the mind, it doesn’t make sense because we haven’t been here continually. So keep reminding yourself: Stay here.

Then you’re alert to watch the mind, to make sure it doesn’t go wandering off. If it does start wandering off, you’re ardent in bringing it back. When you bring it back, you’re ardent in paying full attention to the breath.

So these are the qualities you need to develop if you’re going to clean out your own mind: mindfulness, alertness, ardency. Give them some time to develop. Exercise them day after day after day, and you’ll find that you become more observant of your mind, not only while you’re sitting here meditating, but also as you go through the day. You can catch the mind when it’s doing something unskillful and stop it. You’re on top of things.

After all, this is your job. Nobody else can do it for you. And it’s not going to get easier as you get old and sick, or as you die. So you want to develop these skills now, because they will see you through all kinds of issues in life. It’s like exercising the body. It’s strong not only when you’re in the gym, but it can also be strong for anything else you want to use if for outside of the gym. The same with the mind: You exercise your mindfulness, your alertness, your ardency, and you find that they’re useful in all kinds of situations.

But most importantly, the most valuable thing you can do with them is to learn to use them to be alert to your own mind, to be mindful to watch for when its causing you suffering, and to be ardent in learning how to stop that. Those are the best uses for these talents that we’re developing here.