Our State of Mind

Another useful thing our friend can show us is our state of mind. We all know what happens to our friend when we are affected by a strong emotion like anger, fear, excitement, stress and insecurity. What happens to our breath? It moves very, very fast. So it can be a very useful signal, a very reliable signal to show us what is happening in our mind. If we have problems with an emotions like anger, our friend will immediately show to us from the way the breathing moves that we are getting angry. So it can be a very useful signal, as I said, and then if you can listen to the signal, heed the signal, you’ll be able to recover from that anger or whatever emotion immediately.

In the same way when our mind is calm, when our mind is relaxed, when our mind is still, what happens to our friend? The breath also becomes calm. Sometimes it becomes so subtle that you don’t even realise that you are breathing. So if we can learn to make a connection with our friend, the friend will always tell us what is happening in our mind. Some of the friends we have can sometimes be wrong – or maybe most of the time they can be wrong – but you’ll realise this friend is always right, this friend is always reliable.

Thoughts Control Us

We are sometimes affected by our thoughts. Most of the time thoughts control us. Here again our friend, the breath, can help us to learn to let go of the thoughts, maybe even for the first time; to learn to control the thoughts rather than allow the thoughts to control us by being with our friend and experiencing the present moment, letting go of the thoughts about the past, letting go of the thoughts about the future.

And related to our thoughts are our emotions. There’s a very strong connection between our thinking, between our thoughts, and emotions. So sometimes thoughts can create emotions, and then what happens is that when we have these emotions we can make them bigger than they really are. Here again, if we can remember our friend immediately it will help us to recover from our emotions. Because if we can spend a few minutes with the breath in such a situation it will help us to find some space in our mind and then that space can help us to recover from whatever emotions we are experiencing. You can experiment with this. You can try it for yourself.

Observe

We should try to observe every thought. Can you be conscious of every thought that arises in your mind? And it is very important to learn to observe thoughts without judging them: this is delicate, this is not delicate, this is good, this is bad. Without judging, without giving plusses and minuses, can we just observe the thoughts as they arise and as they pass away?

Here and Now

One important aspect of meditation is learning to experience the present moment, the here and the now. So when we breathe, it is very interesting, we always breathe in the present, we always breathe in the here and the now. Sometimes I like to refer to our breath as our friend. If we make a connection with our breath as a friend, then whenever we think of our friend, our friend will help us to experience the present moment. Whenever we are lost in thoughts about the past and the future, and there is confusion and disorder in our mind, we have only to think of our friend and immediately we can experience the present moment.

Awareness

A very important aspect of meditation is developing awareness, mindfulness. So here we can use our breath to develop awareness. In Pali this technique is called Anapanasati, developing awareness, mindfulness, in relation to the in-breath and the out-breath. We can use the breath to develop the practice of mindfulness and awareness because we are breathing all the time and the breath is with us all the time. Ajahn Chah, one of the meditation masters in Thailand, has said that if you have time to breathe, then you have time to meditate. So this is the first point why the Buddha might have chosen breathing as a technique for meditation.

Meditation on Loving-Kindness

Feel grateful that we have this body, that we can use this body for our practice.

Can you see yourself as your best friend? Can you really feel it? Feel it in every part of your body, your whole being.

Feeling it in the area of your heart and allowing your heart to open up to yourself, like a flower.

And feeling yourself as your best friend, can you forgive yourself for any mistakes you have made in the past?

In forgiving yourself, really say to yourself and feel these words: May I be well; may I be happy; may I be peaceful; may I be free of suffering.

For anyone who does not have such wounds, you can feel happy that you have healed your wounds.

For those who have wounds in relation to what others have done to you, let us heal these wounds by learning to forgive others, by learning to let go of the past.

Learning to let go of any hatred or ill-will that you are carrying.

Can you think of those others and wish that they also be well, that also they be happy, that they may be peaceful and that they may be free of suffering.

In healing our wounds may we experience more joy, more lightness, more friendliness to ourselves and more friendliness to others.

Let us now learn to rejoice that we are learning to develop loving-kindness to ourselves, to develop loving-kindness to others.

Look at the Mirror

I once met a woman who had a terrible temper, anger was her big problem. I gave her a simple suggestion and it worked very well. I told her to carry a mirror in her pocket. And I told her whenever she got angry, please look at the mirror, don’t open your mouth but just look at the mirror. And when she did it she was shocked to see the reflection in it. So whenever she did that she felt bad about how she was looking because she was concerned about her appearance. And there was an immediate recovery from the anger and sometimes she was even able to laugh at her anger.

Failures

If you are unable to observe anger at the time that it arises, at least later on you can start reflecting on what happened. So why did I get angry? Why did I use those words? What really made me lose my control? Our failures can become very valuable spiritual friends. And this kind of reflection has to be done in a very friendly, gentle way rather than doing it in a very hard way, beating yourself and unnecessarily experiencing guilt and remorse in relation to what has happened. And then you can forgive yourself: I’m still human, I got angry, but let me see now when I meet that person next week or whatever, how I will be relating to that person. So then you’ll be learning from such experiences, then you can experiment with such situations.

And if we need to have an ideal, the ideal should not be that we will not get angry. The more realistic ideal we can have in relation to anger is, how soon we can recover from that anger? This is the importance of practising awareness in everyday life. So that if you can practise such awareness, if you can have a connection with your breath, then as you are getting angry the breath will tell you that you are getting angry, and with awareness you can notice it and that will help you to recover from that anger.

Hating Ourselves

When we have unpleasant experiences, whether it is physical pain or mental pain, what normally happens is we don’t like it, we resist it, and then the result is we start hating ourselves for it. By hating such experiences, by resisting such experiences, by disliking them, sometimes we might be giving them more power and more energy. So loving-kindness can be used in this context by making friends with this situation that you are experiencing.

A phrase I like to use sometimes is just to tell yourself: It is O.K. that I don’t feel O.K. You make friends with it, are open to it, then you can explore, investigate, learn about what you are going through.

Sometimes we may have such an experience when we have unrealistic goals in life, when we have expectations how we should behave, how others should behave, how life should be. Sometimes we can be making strong demands of how things should be. And when these demands are met we’re happy but when these demands are not met, this is where we start to suffer, this is where we start to hate ourselves, hate others and hate life. So with friendliness you can learn to find out, learn, explore, more about what you are really going through.

Find out whether this condition is created by thought, whether it is created by emotion, or whether it is created by sensation. Sometimes when we have such unpleasant experiences it’s a very good practice to spend some time with the sensations in the body or with the breath in the body. That technique can help you to create some space and then you’ll realise that these sensations are changing all the time. So if we can really be open to the sensations, whatever we are experiencing in our mind and body, and open to the changes, then whatever happens to a great extent you’ll be able to relate to it in a different way.

Idiotic Compassion

It is very important to realise that loving-kindness doesn’t mean allowing others to exploit you. This can be considered as idiotic compassion. In this connection there is a very interesting story. It is one of my favourite stories. I would like to share this story with you. It comes from the Indian tradition and the story is about a cobra who was practising loving-kindness.

So there was this cobra practising loving-kindness in the forest saying: May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful. And an old woman who was collecting firewood saw this cobra and mistook this cobra for a rope. So she used the cobra to tie up the firewood that she was carrying. As the cobra was doing loving-kindness practice, the cobra allowed this woman to do anything.

So the woman carried the bundle of firewood home and then the cobra escaped but with a lot of physical pain and physical wounds. And then he went to meet his teacher, and the cobra said: See what happened to me! I was practising loving-kindness, and now see the wounds and all the pain that I’m experiencing in my body! The teacher very calmly said: You have not been practising loving-kindness. You have been practising idiotic compassion, because you should have shown that you were a cobra. You should at least have hissed! So in relating to people like the person you described you have to learn to hiss, and in doing so you’ll also be doing a service for that person.