Stillness on the cushion is easier when the rest of your life quietly cooperates. This chapter is about the scaffolding — the ordinary conditions that make the sit go better.
A few the teacher keeps coming back to. A clean conscience: it’s hard to settle a mind that’s hiding something, so basic ethics isn’t a side quest — it’s what lets the mind relax in the first place. Good company — what the tradition calls a kalyanamitra, a “beautiful friend” who’s a little further down the road and keeps you pointed the right way. Regularity: a set time beats waiting for the mood, which never reliably shows. And contentment — a life that isn’t constantly grasping is a mind that can more easily let go.
The through-line: don’t treat meditation as a walled-off twenty minutes and let the other twenty-three-and-a-half hours undermine it. The hours feed the minutes.
This is environment design before it had a name. Behavioral science is now emphatic that the reliable path to a habit isn’t willpower — it’s a set time, a set place, the right friends, and removing friction. He’s prescribing exactly that, several decades early.
Don’t rely on discipline to carry a practice. Build a life that makes the practice the path of least resistance: clean conscience, good friends, fixed time, fewer wants.