The Morning News

It’s time to watch the morning news: What’s going on inside your body? In the breath? What’s going on inside your mind? We spend way too much time looking at the news of the world outside, what other people are doing, other places. Even though we may learn about these things, there’s not much we can do about them.

But what’s going on inside you right now, that’s something you can do a lot about. You don’t have to just accept what’s there. There are potentials you can change.

Work with the breath. You can make the breath longer, shorter, faster, slower, heavier, lighter, deeper, more shallow. See what feels best for the body right now.

The breath is like free medicine for your body. You can adjust it to give yourself energy; you can adjust it to relax; you can adjust it to soothe your nerves. And it’s yours, it’s free. But you can take advantage of it only if you pay careful attention to it.

The same with your mind. Your mind can be thinking all kinds of things. As the Buddha said, the mind is more variegated—in other words, it has a lot more variety—than even the whole animal kingdom. Think about that. Think of all the animals that are out there: all the different kinds on land, in the water, in the sky. All those come from the mind.

There was a mind that wanted to be born as a land animal, or a water animal, or sky animal. And each mind has more potentials than even that. So which potentials are you going to focus on? Which potentials are you going to encourage? You’ve got the right to do that. It’s just a matter of learning the skills.

The Buddha gives you the skills to start with:

• You’re generous. Learn how to be generous as a skill.

• You follow the precepts. You develop virtue as a skill.

• You learn how to bring the mind to concentration. That’s the big skill.

Focus your mind on the breath. Learn how to keep it here. As you keep the mind here, you’re going to be learning a lot about it.

This is called watching the morning news and then doing something about it. You’re not just on the receiving end. You’re learning about these things so that you can make changes where they have to be made. These things lie within your power. So this is the kind of news that’s most fruitful to watch, most fruitful to know.

As for the world outside, you’re going to suffer from the world or not suffer from the world, not so much depending on how bad or good things get outside, but on your skill in dealing with it—dealing with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, ideas: in other words, things you’re doing right here, right now, too.

So the really important things are right here. Learn how to focus right here; make the most of them. When you have the attitude that what you’re doing right now is important, that’s when you’re on the right path.