Your Most Valuable Possession

Close your eyes and be aware of the breath—all the way in, all the way out. Keep your attention focused right here, because you’re trying to catch the mind. The best way to catch the mind is to give it something pleasant, something that’s always there.

So the breath is always here. As long as you’re alive, there’s going to be breath. It’s always got you in the present moment because that’s where you want to be. You want to learn how to watch your mind there, because that’s where your mind is making decisions—right here, right now. You want to make sure those decisions are good, because once they’re made, you can’t go back and undo them. So do them well from the very beginning.

We’re looking after our mind because our mind is our most important possession. Our possessions outside have meaning only to the extent to which they serve us, serve our needs. And whose needs are we talking about? We can talk about the needs of the body, but the body on its own doesn’t have any needs. It’d be perfectly happy to die. It gets sick without asking permission. It does its own thing. It’s the mind that has needs. The mind needs to be cared for because it’s creating pleasures and pains for itself.

As the Buddha pointed out, all too often we’re creating pains, creating suffering, when we don’t have to. It’s because of our ignorance. So we have to learn some knowledge, some awareness of what’s going on, and also some mindfulness to remember the Buddha’s teachings.

Remember, that’s what mindfulness means: to remember, to keep something in mind. We apply those teachings to our mind. They give us good standards, good questions to ask about what the mind is doing and what it could be doing better—and where it’s causing itself suffering that it doesn’t realize and how it doesn’t have to.

So we depend on the Buddha’s discernment. We borrow his discernment to begin with, then we train our mind so that we can develop some discernment of our own. And then we can protect ourselves.

Up until that point, we’re dependent on him, dependent on others who are more advanced on the path to give us help. But as we develop our own powers of observation, we begin to see that, yes, the Buddha’s right. If you act on greed, aversion, or delusion, there’s going to be suffering. If you learn how to get rid of the greed, aversion, and delusion, then you don’t have to cause yourself any suffering.

So. Take care of your mind. It’s your most valuable possession. And where do you take care of it? You take care of it right here. As long as you choose to act on your skillful intentions, you’ve got it covered—you’ve got it protected.

Just believe in the power of those intentions. And have a sense of heedfulness that, on the one hand, you have this power that could be abused, and you have been using it in many wrong ways up to now, creating unnecessary suffering for yourself. But, on the other hand, you also have the power to learn how not to do that. You can make a difference by the choices you make. So be very careful in those choices.

This is how you care for your most valuable possession. Keep it in good shape so that it becomes something that can rely on itself—your mind can rely on itself. That’s when it’s safe. That’s when it’s going to be happy.