Contentment/Discontentment

Focus on your breath and be content to be right here. This is a good place to be, right where the body and the mind meet at the breath. That way, you get to see the influence that the body has on the mind, and that the mind has on the body. And you can filter things.

On a warm day like this, you want to make sure that the heat outside doesn’t get to the mind. In other words, it doesn’t become a preoccupation. You look after the body, make sure it gets enough salt and enough water. Try to find a relatively cool place to stay. As for what the heat is going to do, that’s the heat’s business.

Your business is what the mind is doing, because right here the Buddha says you don’t want to be content. If there are unskillful qualities in the mind, you want to see what you can do to get rid of them. Even with skillful qualities, you have to ask yourself: Is this as far as they go? Can they be made better? If there’s something more to do, then you’re happy to do it.

This is called discontent with skillful qualities, which the Buddha said was the key to his awakening. You see all the knowledges that he gained on the night of his awakening, starting with the first knowledge, the second knowledge. A lot of people stopped right there. They had had those knowledges before him. They decided that was as good as it gets. But it was because he was not satisfied with that that he found something a lot better, which was the end of suffering.

So there are good things to be found in the mind. As you don’t rest content, you’re happy with what you’ve done, but you realize there’s more work to do. As the Buddha told Rahula, your attitude should be that if you realize that you’ve done something harmless, you take joy in that fact but then continue training, realizing there’s more to be done. Take energy from the fact that you’ve done things skillfully so far.

The path doesn’t require any superhuman effort. It does require, though, that you give the most of what your human effort can be. On a day like this, you may not want to think about effort but, again, remember what the effort is: effort in the mind. If your mindfulness slips off, bring it back. Slips off again? Bring it back again. Be tenacious.

The image they give in Thailand is of a red ant. They have these large red ants that crawl over mango trees. They can’t eat the mangoes, but they like to bite everybody who tries to get the mangoes. And when they bite, they bite so hard, so persistently, that if you try to pull them off, sometimes the head will detach from the body before it’s willing to let go. You want to have that kind of tenacity as you stay with the breath.

So keep coming back, coming back, coming back. The effort is not impossible. It’s not something that you can’t do in 90-degree weather. As for what the heat is going to do outside, that’s its business. Your business is making sure that the mind stays with skillful qualities inside.

So. Learn where to be content, where not to be content. Don’t get them confused. That way, you stay on the right track.