More Solid than Earth

Close your eyes and watch your breath. Notice where you feel the breath as it comes in, goes out, and focus your attention there. And try to stay right there. We focus on the breath, which moves, but we try to make our mind like earth. That was the Buddha’s instruction to his son when he first taught him meditation: “Make your mind like earth.”

The problem is that the Earth can still have earthquakes and tremors. You want to make your mind even more solid than that, because if you want to see anything clearly for what it is, you have to be very still. Otherwise, you’re like a person born on a train and you look out the train window: Everything moves: Cars move; trees move; houses move; mountains move. It’s only when you get really still you can see what really moves and what doesn’t really move. Then you can understand your mind much better.

This quality of making your mind like earth is good not only as you meditate, but also as you go through life. As the Buddha said, when you’re dealing with other people, you help them through the good qualities you develop in your meditation. You’re also helping yourself by developing good qualities in helping them.

One of them is equanimity, the ability to not be shaken by events. We’re going to be working together this week to prepare for a big event next Sunday, and we’re going to be running up against one another. So we try to make sure that there’s a minimum of conflict, a minimum of confusion: Try to make your mind like earth.

Whatever happens, you know what’s happening. But you don’t stop with equanimity. You also have patience. In other words, you endure things. Some things you don’t like, well, you can endure it for a while. But also you have kindness and goodwill. You mean well for everybody you encounter. And you’re kind to them. You go out of your way to help them, do favors for them, help them when they need help—even if they don’t ask for it. As you do this, you’re developing good qualities inside you, good qualities in the mind that will serve you well throughout your life.

As I said, the four words the Buddha has you keep in mind are equanimity, patience or endurance, and then kindness, and goodwill. If you keep those uppermost in your mind when you’re dealing with other people, then when the time comes to sit down and meditate, there’s very little that you need to clean out of the mind.

All too often, we go through the day gathering up garbage. And the garbage is not what other people do to us. A lot of it’s the things we do and say to other people. We get back home, and we reflect on the day. Well, we didn’t do that right; we didn’t do this right. It’s hard for the mind to want to settle down.

But if you actually keep those four words in mind—endurance, equanimity, goodwill, and kindness—then the mind is free from all that kind of garbage. The things that other people do and say, that’s their business. You can just let it ride off your back like water off a duck’s back. But try to keep your mind as earthlike as possible, even more “earthlike” than earthlike. Try to make sure that it doesn’t tremble under any conditions. That way, you’ll be able to help the group as a whole, as you develop good qualities in your mind.