At Home

Close your eyes and take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Wherever you feel the breath most clearly in the body, focus your attention there. Then ask yourself if long breathing feels good. If it does, keep it up. If it’s not comfortable, you can change. Make it shorter, faster, heavier, slower, lighter, deeper, more shallow. Try to find a way of breathing that feels good for the body right now.

Think of yourself settling in, at home. That’s the term they have in the Pali for the mind in meditation: vihara-dhamma. It literally means a home for the mind. The mind needs a home. Otherwise it’s like a homeless person. You wander around. You’re exposed to the rain. You’re exposed to the sun. You try to sleep someplace, and they drive you away. You try to keep your belongings safe, they steal them.

You’re not safe at all. Most people are like that. Their minds just wander around. They don’t have any place inside where they feel at home.

What you want to do is to create a home inside. That way, you can sleep peacefully, rest peacefully. When there’s work to be done, you can work from home. As for your belongings, all the good qualities of the mind, they have a good, safe place to stay.

Someone came to see Ajaan Fuang once for the first time, and he asked her, “Where have you made merit?” She started listing the names of the different monasteries she’d given donations to. He said, “How about making some merit in your mind?” In other words, this is where the real merit is. This is where the real goodness is, when the mind can feel at home inside. When you have a good foundation inside, you can create a sense of well-being simply by the way you breathe, a well-being that doesn’t have to depend on things outside being a certain way.

If you’re a homeless person, it has to be just right outside for you to be comfortable. If it’s too hot, too cold, if it’s raining and it’s windy, you can’t find any peace, can’t find any rest. But when you have a house, you have a home, you can protect yourself from things outside. Even though things outside may not be very good, you can have a good state of well-being inside.

That’s your strength. We often know what the right thing to do is, but sometimes it’s hard. If you don’t have any inner strength, then it’s very likely that you just won’t do it. But if you have strength inside, a sense of well-being inside—one, it’s easier to see what the correct line of action would be in any situation. And then, two, it’s easier to do what you know is right, even though it’s hard, because you have the strength.

So. Build a home for yourself here inside. Then you can take this home with you wherever you go. You don’t have to just sit here with your eyes closed or do walking meditation under the trees. You can be at home wherever you go. That way, your belongings are safe, your good qualities are safe, and you can live at your ease.