The Direction of Your Life

Use the breath to sweep through your body, sweep through your mind. Clean away the cobwebs. Clean away the dirt inside so that it feels good breathing in, feels good breathing out—all the way through the body. And think of your mind being swept clean, too.

We’re coming close to the beginning of the rains retreat, and it’s a good time to stop and think. Rains retreat is usually a time for people to accelerate their practice, to focus on something that they know is a weak point in their practice—what strengths they have to build on—so that they can deal with those weak points. Make a couple of vows about what you want to do that’s going to be especially good for the next three months: now from the full moon in July to the full moon in October.

As the Buddha has you ask, “Days and nights fly past, fly past: What am I becoming right now?” What you’re becoming is based on what you’re doing. So if you want to become something good, look at what you’re doing—in terms of the precepts, in terms of your meditation, in terms of your generosity. Where are you lacking? What could you do to make up the lack, give some direction to your life?

As the Buddha said, one of the blessings that you can give to yourself is by directing yourself rightly. So which direction do you want to go in?

You may have a lot of ballast, but you don’t have to let the ballast let you down. You ask yourself, “How much of that is actually weighing me down and how much am I holding on to that I don’t have to hold on to?”

The Buddha’s image is of a fire. In those days, they believed that fire was agitated and grabbed hold of its fuel. As long as it was holding on to the fuel, it was going to burn. But then when it let go, it stopped burning. And it’s the same with the mind. There are lots of things that we’re holding on to that we don’t have to hold on to. It’s because we’re holding on that they make us burn.

So see what you can let go and what good qualities you can build in their place. In this way, you’re taking charge of your life, giving yourself a good direction. And then you want to make sure that you stay in the right direction because, as the Buddha said, the mind is something so quick to change directions that even he, a master of the apt analogy, couldn’t think of a good analogy for how quick it is to change.

So try to set yourself in the right direction and keep yourself in the right direction. Take some time to think: Where do you want to go? After all, this is your choice. You get to shape your life. So take advantage of that ability to make the choice. And choose well.