Try to make the meditation the place where you stand, not only while your mind stands on its object but also make that your support as you go through the day. You’re in the body, standing on the breath, standing in the breath.

"The fewer issues the better. The fewer issues the less complexity. We know how difficult complexity is to handle: lots of balls that you’re juggling in the air. Sometimes it seems like the meditation becomes one more ball that you’re trying to juggle, but don’t think of it in that way. Try to make it the place where you stand, not only while your mind stands on its object here in meditation — that’s the image they have in the Pali, arammana, it means basically a support, something you stand on, like the breath is your arammana, it’s your support right now — but also make that your support as you go through the day. You’re in the body, standing on the breath, standing in the breath. Think of the breath surrounding you, bathing you. Let it become a force field that you carry around. Make tending to that force field your prime responsibility. Try not to have lots of other issues that make it difficult to tend to that.

All too often, you get up from your meditation and you drop everything right here on the floor. Then you go out to juggle all the different balls you have in the course of the day, and you don’t have any really solid place to stand. And of course, that makes it more difficult to juggle them. Think of yourself standing in the breath, surrounded by the breath, bathed by the breath, permeated by the breath. You can envision your body as a big wire cage, and the breath flows in flows out through all the holes, no problem at all. Nothing needs to be pulled in, nothing needs to be pushed out. And the wire starts to glow with a cool light. If you find that a helpful image, use it. If it’s not, find another image that you find helps keep you with the breath, in the breath, throughout the day. That’s your one issue. You pick up other issues as you have to, and then as soon as you don’t have to pick them up, you just put them down.

The fewer things you have to carry around, the wealthier you are. That way, it’s easier to find harmony inside, easier to maintain harmony throughout the community because each of us is trying to paring our issues down, down, down, to be as simple as possible. Anything that doesn’t have to become an issue, don’t let it become an issue, Don’t make it become an issue. Just keep it simple. That way, the really important things come to the fore, and you can deal with them straight on."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wealth of Simplicity"

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