Charge your Batteries

We live in this world where our actions are important. What we do, what we say, what we think does make a difference in our lives. The problem is that sometimes we know the right thing to do but we just don’t have the strength to do it.

This is one of the reasons why we practice meditation: to give the mind strength. It’s like charging your batteries. When the batteries get worn out, the flashlight is pretty much useless. Even though you have a good flashlight, you can’t get anything out of it. So you’ve got to make sure the batteries are well charged.

So. Stay inside the body. That’s how you charge your batteries. Don’t let your thoughts go leaking outside. If you’ve got to think, think about the breath. Think about the breath energies in the body. Where do you feel the breathing when you breathe in? You know that the air comes in through the nose and goes down into the lungs. But when you breathe in, where do you feel that the body is expanding and contracting? That’s breath, too: breath energy. That’s the important thing. You want to gather that energy together. As the different energies in the body work together, that charges things up.

All too often we scatter our thoughts outside, scatter our energies outside, like the man who jumped on the horse and rode off in all four directions all at once. It’s this scatteredness of our thoughts that wears them out. But when our thoughts are together inside, then they strengthen one another.

You look after the body, the breath. Use the breath as the medicine. Use your mindfulness as your medicine to clear things up inside. As I noted last night, when you think, there tends to be a pattern of tension that appears in the body to go together with the thought. It’s kind of like a little marker. If you have a lot of thoughts about things outside, there are a lot of markers all over the body.

So when you sit down to meditate, you’re basically erasing those markers, erasing those little divisions, so that the energy can flow freely throughout the body. That’s how you charge it. That’s how you charge your strength. You’re coming then from a position of strength, a position of well-being. And that way, when you know the right thing to do, you’re more likely to do it. Otherwise, you just say, “I can’t. I can’t manage it right now. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the strength to do it.” A lot of opportunities get lost.

So. When the time comes, let the mind rest inside. When it’s resting in this way, it’s not simply sitting there still. It’s also gathering its energies together, healing any energy wounds in the body, any energy wounds in the mind. That way you charge up the strength of the body and the strength of the mind, so that when you come out, you’re ready for whatever needs to be done.

People who meditate are accused of just running off and hiding from the world. But that’s not the case. We’re actually being responsible, looking after the strength of the mind, so that we can do what we know is the right thing to do. And we can see it all the way through.