Entering the Rains

Close your eyes; take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Focus your attention there. And then ask yourself if long breathing feels good. If it does, keep it up. If not, you can change. Make it longer, shorter, faster, slower, deeper, more shallow. Try to see what rhythm and texture of breathing feels best for you right now.

We’re training the mind in good qualities: mindfulness, which is the ability to keep something in mind; alertness, which is the ability to know what you’re doing while you’re doing it; and then ardency—when you’re going to do something, you want to do it well. So when the mind wanders off, you bring it right back. You don’t let it wander around, sniffing the flowers, looking at the birds. You’ve got work to do here. The mind needs to do its work because we live in a world where there’s aging, illness, and death. These are things that face everybody. As soon as we’re born, we’re put in line, basically. But we don’t know where our place is in line when we have to go. The question is, are we ready to go? Each year that passes, we’re getting closer and closer.

This is why they have a tradition here in Buddhism that during the first three months of the rains in South and Southeast Asia, which are basically July through October, the monks stay put. They benefit from one another’s presence and encouragement in the practice. It’s also an opportunity for lay people to take on special duties if they want. These duties are not being imposed on anybody.

But just look at what your state of mind is, what the state of your general attitude toward life is. Is it healthy? Are you being heedful? After all, there are dangers outside. There are dangers all around. The dangers outside are people’s bad examples that you could follow. The dangers inside are your own defilements. Are you protected against them?

Protection comes in the form of the practice, by developing virtue, developing concentration, developing discernment. You can look at your life. Where are you lacking in these things? Even before you get to virtue, you have to have generosity. Are there ways that you can be more generous? Are there ways you can be more virtuous? Are there ways you can develop your mind with more determination? You can make up your mind that for the next three months this is what you want to do: You want to focus on improving the quality of your mind, improving the quality of your life and of your behavior in general.

So look at your life and see what’s lacking. Three months is not too long to try something out, to see if it’s actually going to be good for you, to see if you’re actually up for it. Try to choose something that stretches you. If you’re already doing good in certain ways, and you say, “Well, I’m just going to keep on doing good in those ways,” you don’t really grow. You grow by saying, “I’ve got to get better.”

Think of the Buddha himself. He said the secret to his awakening was not resting content with the skillful qualities he’d already developed—to say nothing of getting rid of unskillful qualities. But if there was any area in his mind and his behavior where there was a possibility for more skill, he would work on it. Nobody told him he had to. This was something that was generated from within. And the same can apply to you: Realize that the goodness of your life is something you have to generate from within. No one else is going to force you, but it’s in your own best interest.

This is why we talk about being heedful so much, realizing that your actions have long-term consequences, so you can’t just act on what you feel like doing. You have to think about, “What, if I do it, will lead to long-term welfare and happiness? What, when I do it, will it lead to long-term harm and suffering?” You’ve got to keep the long term in mind. Don’t let your likes and dislikes get in the way.

So here’s your chance during the rains retreat. You can focus on being more generous, being more virtuous, working more on your meditation, whatever you choose. But try to make sure that you make the best use of this time.

Time keeps going away, going away, going away. They say that space-time moves at the speed of light. That second just now is gone. And you ask yourself, “What did I get out of that second?” You can get good things out of time as it passes, or you can just let it pass and let it wear you away. That’s the choice.

Are you going to gather up good things, or are you going to let everything just go along in that river that flows away so fast, so fast? Think about it and choose what kind of goodness you really want to develop, because nobody else forces us to practice the Dhamma. It’s our own free choice. We do it because it’s good for us and it’s good for the people around us. The more good qualities you can develop in your mind, the easier it’s going to be for the people around you.

So for your sake and for the sake of others, try to make something special out of these three months so that when they pass, you look back at them and say, “Those three months were very well spent.” And then keep on developing as much goodness as you can.