The Mind Isn’t Sick

Close your eyes and watch your breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths and notice where you feel it in the body. It can be at the abdomen, the chest, the shoulders, the neck—wherever it’s easiest to see that the breath is coming in, going out. Focus your attention right there, then ask yourself what kind of breathing feels comfortable there: long or short, fast or slow, heavy or light. See what’s just right, right now. Try to create a good place for the mind to stay, because the mind needs a place to stay. When it wanders around with its thoughts, it’s like a homeless person: exposed to the sun, exposed to the heat, exposed to the rain, exposed to the cold.

It’s hard to find happiness that way, but if you have a good home to stay in, then you can open and close the doors, open and close the windows as you have to, to keep things relatively comfortable inside. Of course, the body has its limitations, but you can use the breath to create a sense of well-being at least in some part of the body. Let your mind stay there.

The nature of the body is that it’s going to age, grow ill, and die. The problem is that the mind gets tied up with the body and so it suffers when the body ages, grows ill and dies, thinking that it’s aging or getting ill or dying at the same time. But it’s not. As the Buddha said, the body ages, but the mind doesn’t have to age; the body grows ill, but the mind doesn’t have to grow ill; the body dies, but the mind doesn’t die.

So look after the quality of the mind, make it independent* *of the body, so that even if there may be pains here and there, the mind doesn’t have to suffer from the pains. You’re able to separate yourself out.

We start by getting the mind into concentration like this. Then it can see itself a lot more clearly and can understand what’s going on inside. This is the skill the Buddha taught.

We live in this world where all things are changing. There’s only one thing that doesn’t change and that’s nibbāna. We can find that inside, but it takes some digging, and a lot of persistence, but it’s well worth the effort. Usually, when the body goes, the mind goes flailing around. Even before it goes, when it’s ill, you don’t want the mind to be flailing around. You want the mind to be calm, still, collected, clear. Even as it ages, you can still be clear.

So try to develop this ability to separate the mind out from the symptoms of the body, so that it can be independent, it can have an independent goodness inside. Then you have a real refuge.

We talk about taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, and this is what it means: You take their qualities and develop them inside you. Like the qualities of the Buddha: He was wise, he was compassionate, he was pure. We try to develop those qualities within ourselves. He was a person of mindfulness and wisdom. We try to develop mindfulness and wisdom within ourselves. Then we have a good refuge *inside, *where it’s right at hand, easy to contact at any time. That way, no matter what the world throws at you, no matter what your own body throws at you, you don’t have to suffer. You’re protected by the good qualities you’ve developed.

So try to develop this sense of *independent *goodness inside, so that, as the world goes up and down, you don’t have go up and down with it. Then the mind can be at peace and sheltered, because it’s got its home inside. Regardless of what happens in the world, regardless of what happens in the body, the mind can still find well-being inside. That’s the skill the Buddha taught, and it’s a skill we can all master.