You Are a Factory

Close your eyes. Take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths and try to stay with your breathing. Notice where it’s most obvious that the breath is coming in, the breath is going out. Focus your attention there and keep it there. The best way to keep it there is to check and see if the breath is comfortable, because if the breath is not comfortable, you’re not going to want to stay. You’re going to run away. To stay here, you can create a good place to stay.

Breathe in long; breathe in short; heavy, light; shallow, deep. See what feels best right now, because you have to realize that the mind is not just on the receiving end of things; it’s creating its experiences out of the raw material that comes its way. It’s like a factory. Sometimes it manufactures greed, aversion, and delusion. Sometimes it manufactures some good qualities.

So take this opportunity to manufacture some good qualities: qualities like mindfulness, the ability to keep important things in mind; alertness, the ability to watch what you’re doing, see what results you’re getting right now; and ardency, the desire to do this well. You’re the one who’s going to be receiving the results, so make the causes as good as you can.

This is one of the basic principles of the Buddha’s teachings on karma. All too often we think about karma as something that’s going to hit us from the past, something we can’t escape. And it is true that there are some bad things that you’ve done in the past that are going to bear results. But the question is, do you have to suffer from them or not? The Buddha says there are skills that you can develop so that you don’t have to suffer from them. At the same time, you can create good karma that provides happiness now and on into the future.

So karma is not about powerlessness; it’s about the exact opposite. It’s about the power you have to create good things in the mind, create good things in your life. If you sit around waiting for good things to come your way, some things will, depending on your past. But you can also create good things all the time right here, right now. You can create generosity, you can create virtue, create mindfulness, concentration, discernment. There all kinds of good things that you can create.

So look at your factory here. What are you manufacturing? And what kind of quality control are you exerting? Sometimes you just create things and let them out into the world without really looking at whether they really should be let into the world. Your quality control is pretty bad. And as a result, the things that come back to you are not good, and then you blame the world.

Yet they actually come out of the mind. So look after what you’re manufacturing right now. Make sure you do a good job. In that way, you’re guaranteeing yourself better and better results now and on into the future. Have a strong sense that you have the power to create a good life. Make the most of that power.

Fortunately, we have the Buddha’s instructions that give us guidelines on what kinds of things lead to good results and what kinds don’t—and also instructions on how we can learn how to judge for ourselves what’s a skillful action, what’s not. We can become a more reliable manufacturing company—sending good things into the world. And good things are bound to come back.