“It’s like having a chicken and putting it into a cage. Let it stay in just one cage. When the chicken’s in the cage, it won’t get out of the cage, but it will walk back and forth inside the cage. Its walking back and forth is no problem, because it’s walking back and forth in the cage.
It’s like the things we sense in the mind when we’re mindful and still.
When we sense things in the stillness, it doesn’t disturb us. When we think and sense things in the stillness, it’s no problem.
Some people, when they sense things, don’t want there to be anything there. That’s wrong. There are things you’ll sense in the stillness—you’ll sense them, but they won’t annoy you. The mind is still. There’s no problem.
The problem is when the chicken leaves the cage. For example, you’re focused on the breath but then you forget. You go traveling to your home or into the market—way out there. Sometimes it takes half an hour to come back.
That’s dying without knowing what’s happening. This is important, so be careful. This is important. The mind has left the cage. It’s left its stillness. You have to be careful. You have to be mindful. As soon as you’re aware that it’s left, you have to pull it back in—although to say that you pull it back in, you’re not really pulling it back in. Wherever your thoughts go, it’s just a matter of changing what you sense. When you get the mind to stay here, it stays here. As long as you’re mindful, it stays here. It doesn’t go anywhere. The change is right here in the mind. Notice that when it seems to go over there, it doesn’t really go. The change happens right here. As soon as your mindfulness remembers again, it’s immediately here. It doesn’t leave from here. Everything is sensed right here.”