Meditation on our precious human life

• Continuation of the four preliminary practices
• Benefits of meditating on the eight freedoms of a precious human life
• Discussion about how to structure a meditation session

MTRS 05a: Preliminaries—Precious human life (download)

Let’s cultivate our motivation and reflect on how fortunate we are to have encountered the Buddha’s teachings. Many people don’t have the opportunity to even encounter the Dharma. Some people encounter it, but have no interest or no faith. Some people have encountered it, have interest and faith, but have a multitude of other hindrances and obstacles in their lives, so it’s actually quite difficult to have the opportunity to hear, reflect upon and meditate on the Dharma. 

And since the Dharma is so precious because it leads us to liberation and enlightenment, we need to relish this opportunity while we have it—without wasting it, without taking it for granted. One of the best ways to use this opportunity is to generate the bodhicitta, the aspiration to benefit sentient beings by attaining full enlightenment. So, let’s generate that as our long-term aspiration and, together with that, let’s generate a mind with a lot of patience and fortitude that can bear the difficulties of practicing the path, and can bear them happily because we know that it brings a good result. Let’s contemplate that motivation and generate it now. 

Review of the six preparatory practices

We were on the first point in the book where it talks about performing the six preparatory practices such as cleaning the room, establishing the altar, and so on before meditation. Then, secondly, is the actual meditation session. Remember the six preparatory practices? What was the first one?

Audience: Cleaning the room. 

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): Cleaning the room and preparing the altar. Second?

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Not yet. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Not yet. What do you do every morning? Come on.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: No. It’s make offerings. My goodness, you didn’t even review your notes from last week before we started? Well, if it weren’t for the people online, I would stop right now and have you review. But you’re saved by the people online, so next time. Third preparatory practice? 

Audience: Get yourself seated correctly.

VTC: And do what else?

Audience: Breathing meditation?

VTC: Yes, calm your mind down. Fourth?

Audience: Take refuge and generate motivation.

VTC: Okay, take refuge and generate your motivation. Fifth?

Audience: Seven limb prayer.

VTC: Seven limb prayer. Sixth? 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Requesting the lineage. Remember? We do this with the Prayer of the Three Purposes. Some of you have been around for many years—how can you not remember this? What are you practicing? 

Audience: We’re doing it; we’re not reciting the sequence.

VTC: If you’re doing it, then you should be able to know what it is. And if you’re not doing it, then you should be doing it, because otherwise I am wasting my time. Why should I teach if nobody does anything with it?

The Meditation Session

Next it’s talking about the meditation session itself. Before, that was talking about the preparatory practices and now we have the actual meditation session. What he’s talking about here is, again, really generating the motivation, the correct world view and the correct idea of what we’re doing. So he says:

Secondly, during the actual meditation session, we should reflect that throughout beginningless time we have been under the power of the mind and the mind in turn has been overcome by disturbing emotions.

Or, we might say afflictions. These afflictions “are what have given rise to the actions.” And here it says, “The actions that are the root of cyclic existence.” But I think there’s a mistranslation here because the root of cyclic existence is ignorance and ignorance gives rise to the afflictions, which give rise to the karma, which are the origin of cyclic existence, but not the root. 

From these actions have arisen the various types of sufferings that we experience in the round of existence.

So, those are the situations in which we live right now. We’re not talking about theoretical abstractions. What our life is right now and all the things that happened today that we didn’t like— and even all the happiness we have today that we did like—all of that is unsatisfactory and all of that is what we’re experiencing in cyclic existence. Don’t think that cyclic existence is something else that other people experience, or that it’s something that I only experience when I think about it, or it’s something that I only experience when I’m miserable. Our life from moment-to-moment—answering the telephone, driving in the car—this whole thing is involved with cyclic existence. Not studying your notes, forgetting the answers to the questions—that’s all involved in cyclic existence.

To turn away from such tendencies we must try to develop an independent, controlled and workable mind.

I think the word independent is a bit strange there. Again, I don’t have the Tibetan to be able to check it, but the mind is never independent, so I’m not quite sure what it means. When it talks about a “controlled and workable mind,” it means a mind that’s serviceable, a mind that’s open and receptive, that has pliancy, meditative pliancy, so it can remain on the object. It’s a “controlled and workable mind that will stay where it is put or go where it is sent.” We want to be able to “send our mind” to the object of meditation and also keep it there.

To acquire such a state of mind it is necessary to focus on the specific subject of meditation without being distracted by either by laxity or excitement.

Laxity is a subtle thinking— it’s like being spaced-out in your meditation. And excitement is distraction to an object of attachment. When it says, “these meditations,” it’s talking about the meditations of the stages of the path, of the lamrim.

These meditations should follow the given order and, except for training in the perfection of concentration, are all analytical meditations.

If we look at all of the meditations in the lamrim, we should do them in the order that they’re presented because that order has a whole psychology behind it. The meditations are divided into the initial level of practitioner, the medium and the highest level of practitioner. And within each of the three levels, there are the meditations that you do to cultivate a certain motivation. There’s the motivation itself, the attitude that you’re trying to develop, and then there’s what you do as a result of that. If you do these meditations in order, then you’ll have all of that, and you’ll be developing it in a proper sequence. For the meditations on the lamrim, they’re all the analytic meditations except for far-reaching concentration, and that is stabilizing meditation. By saying they’re all analytic meditation, remember that when you do the meditation at the end then you can practice some stabilizing meditation in keeping your mind on the experience, or the feeling that was generated.

 And then:

Third, in conclusion, we should make perfect prayers such as the Prayer of Good Conduct, and so forth.

The Prayer of Good Conduct—that’s the extraordinary aspiration of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra, if you translate his name, it can mean good conduct. So, it’s the King of Prayers. And that’s how you dedicate. And he says:

We should practice in this way three times during the day and three times during the night.

What this means is that the ideal situation is to practice the lamrim meditation six times a day. Now, you may not be able to do that in your regular life, so at least do however many sessions you can. When it talks about six sessions it means one before dawn, two between breakfast and mid-day, two in the afternoon, and then one in the evening. 

During meditation sessions the senses should be controlled. 

So that means that your senses—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind—they should be controlled. In other words, your senses shouldn’t be running all over the place. When you’re meditating, you shouldn’t be looking around the room wondering, “What’s everybody else doing?” How many of you look around the room and see what everybody else is doing? A little bit? Every once in a while? Okay. Our ears shouldn’t be active; we shouldn’t be listening to things, so that means we shouldn’t be focusing on whether somebody’s breathing loud or clicking their mala, or whether the heater’s going on and off. Smelling: You shouldn’t be imagining smells or focusing on the smells, wondering, “Who didn’t take a shower?” Taste: you shouldn’t be imagining what’s happening for breakfast, thinking, “What’s going to be served?” And you shouldn’t be thinking of what you’re going to cook if it’s your day to cook.

The mind also should be controlled. 

The mind shouldn’t be wandering all over making lots of plans or thinking, “What am I going to do? Who am I working with today?” We should have a controlled mind and then we should practice mindfulness and here it says, “during meditation sessions.” I think it means between meditation sessions. Senses should also be controlled during meditation sessions, but this instruction calls for the senses to be controlled, to practice mindfulness and introspection, and to have a balanced diet. You aren’t going to practice a balanced diet during your meditation sessions, so I think maybe this should be between meditation sessions. Your senses should be controlled; you should not be planning your shopping list and things like that. Practice mindfulness and introspective awareness—that checking mind that reports what’s going on in your mind.

In between meditation sessions you should know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. If you’re going somewhere, be aware that you’re going, why you’re going and how you’re going. You don’t just get in the car and go somewhere and then figure out where it is later on. Many people in the city do that, don’t they? They think, “Oh, I’m bored; let’s get in the car.” If you’re walking, you should be walking mindfully and be aware of what you’re doing and why you’re doing something, not just kind of going here and there, and talking all sorts of nonsense and chattering with our friends, and things like that. 

Because if we do that during the break sessions, then when we get back in meditation we’re reviewing all the conversations that we had and what everybody said and what I should have said, and then we’re worrying about whether they got the right idea of what we said. Or maybe they don’t think so well of us because we didn’t express ourselves well, so then we start planning the next conversation so that we can correct the mistakes of the previous conversation because we want everyone to like us, don’t we? We don’t want anybody to think badly of us. So, we plan all of this in our meditation session, right? And then we review it: “Oh, I’m on lunch today. What should I make?” And then it’s off we go. 

In Between Meditation Sessions

In between sessions we should maintain a balanced diet, not eating too little and not eating too much. 

If we eat too little then our body is unhealthy and it’s weak, and that influences our meditation. We won’t be able to concentrate very well. If we eat too much, the body is heavy and we tend to fall asleep in our meditation. Also, if you’re eating a lot of sugar, you’re likely to have sugar rushes and then the drop from the sugar rush afterwards. If you have a lot of caffeine, you have this subtle energy in your body. 

I have never been a coffee drinker, but when I lived in Italy in 1980 I decided that I would try coffee. I had one small cup, and the whole night I could feel this energy going through my body. Forget about sleeping; it was just like “vroom!” It was like a generator motor going on in my nervous system and not conducive for meditation. It’s also good if we can be vegetarian. It’s not necessary, but it actually is very much preferred because if you eat meat then you also pick up the energy of the animals that you’re eating. 

Efforts should be made to become an unsleeping yogi. 

Well, I think the yogis actually sleep four hours in the middle of the night. What the Buddha recommended is that you sleep four hours, just right smack in the middle, like from ten to two. We do the opposite, from two to ten, but it should be from ten to two. 

And you should know how to use the period of sleep to develop calm abiding and special insight as taught by the exalted Asanga.

 Actually, the whole thing about sleep is a very important topic in terms of your meditation practice. If you sleep too little, it’s going to affect your health. If you sleep too much, you’re going to be sleepy in your meditation sessions. Many times when people get sleepy in their meditation sessions, they think that the antidote is to stop the meditation session and go to sleep. That’s not always the antidote. If you slept maybe three hours the night before and your body and mind are really exhausted, well then you are short on sleep. But just because you’re sleepy in a meditation session does not mean that your body is not rested because sometimes the sleep comes as a karmic obstacle. 

We sit down to meditate and the body and mind are not tired, because if you had an opportunity at that very moment to spend some time with some friends, you would be wide awake; you wouldn’t be falling asleep. We would be chatting with our friends, taking a walk or playing basketball, and we wouldn’t be falling asleep. So, it’s just a karmic obstacle that’s coming in the form of sleep. If every time we get sleepy in our meditation session we say, “Well, I’d better go to sleep,” then we’re never going to meditate. And what’s going to happen instead is that you’re going to oversleep, and when you oversleep then your mind is very dull. When you sleep too much, the mind is very dull; you can see it. 

So, sleeping too much and being very attached to sleep are causes to be reborn as an animal. If you’re sleeping a lot, and you’re sleeping unnecessarily, just think, “Well okay, I’m creating the cause to be born as an animal where I’m going to sleep a lot. But do I really want to be born as an animal?” Yes? That cat’s sleeping there. Do you want to be reborn as a cat sleeping? Yes? Look at the cats: they’re so fortunate. They’re around so much Dharma, but they can’t take it in. 

It breaks my heart to see the donkeys in Dharmsala. They pack them on their backs—you’ve seen them—with this incredibly heavy gravel, and then they beat them to get them to walk up the hill. And you just look in the donkeys’ eyes, and they’re just so blurred; it’s really miserable. I think of being born like that, and it’s actually quite scary. So, if you have a lot of attachment to sleep, spend some time doing the meditation imagining yourself being born as an animal. And just be aware. 

If you’re sleeping because your body and mind are legitimately tired, it’s one thing. But if you’re attached to sleep and indulging in sleep, then just think, “I’m creating the cause to be born like some of these grasshoppers we see outside.” And then think of your mind being like a grasshopper because those beings are sentient beings just like us. They’ve been our mothers in previous lives. But if you create some negative karma then you get that kind of rebirth. If you really do a good meditation like that, then you’ll stay awake. It really wakes you up.

I remember my first Dharma course where somebody was saying, “A lot of people think sleeping is so relaxing and enjoyable, but you’re not even awake to enjoy it, are you?” While you’re sleeping, are you enjoying sleeping? You can’t enjoy sleeping while you’re sleeping because you aren’t awake to enjoy it. What is so marvelous about sleeping? If the body’s tired or if the mind’s tired, okay, that’s one thing, but we really need to look carefully at this because otherwise, we could spend a third or more of our whole precious human life just sleeping. If you sleep eight hours a day, that’s a third of your life. Think of that. It’s a third of your life. 

If you live to be sixty, you’ve spent 20 years non-stop sleeping. Think about it: our whole life can go by just sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. And then when we’re not sleeping, we’re dozing, or we’re trying to wake up, or we’re preparing to go to bed. So, I think it’s quite important that you should carry an alarm clock with you. I never wait till my body wakes up naturally. If I did, forget it; you’d hardly ever see me. I don’t think your body waking up naturally is the definition of sufficient sleep. I can function on a lot less sleep than it takes for my body to wake up naturally. If I wake up naturally, then I’m usually very groggy afterwards. 

Take an alarm clock with you wherever you are and use it, especially if you’re going to do meditation practice in the morning. Because if you wake up too late, then the activities of the day have already started, and it’s very difficult to meditate. Because then the phone’s ringing, the other people you live with are running around doing something or you’re hungry. It’s really important to get up early, when it’s still quiet and there’s nothing else to do, and you just go to your cushion and sit. It’s very nice that way so we should make a practice of doing that, whether we’re at the Abbey or not at the Abbey. It is important to have a very consistent meditation practice like that. 

Some people are very consistent when they’re at the Abbey, but then the day they leave the Abbey or the Dharma environment, they act completely different. That’s not good because for our practice to succeed, we need to keep it steady and stable. If we do a whole lot one day and nothing the next day, or if we get four hours of sleep one day and twelve the next day, that’s not a good internal or external environment for Dharma practice. We should try and keep our body and mind balanced. We should do our meditation practice every day and go to sleep about the same time every day. 

We need to keep some kind of balance and regularity in our lives. I wonder who fell asleep while I was talking about this. We have all sorts of interesting ways of not hearing the teachings, don’t we? If you’re falling asleep in your meditation then you should do prostrations before you sit down to meditate. If you do a full set of full-length prostrations, your body is moving and you’re wide awake. Or you can put really cold water on your face and your head, and don’t wear so many clothes so that you’re a little bit cold.

Review of the Four Preliminaries

Now we’re going on to the first meditation in the Preliminary Practices. Remember the four preliminary practices that we’re doing? The first point says, “First, train in the preliminaries.” What are the four preliminaries?

Audience: Precious human life.

VTC: Precious human life.

Audience: Death and impermanence.

VTC: Death and impermanence.

Audience: Karma.

VTC: Karma and its effects.

Audience: Sufferings of cyclic existence. 

VTC: The sufferings of cyclic existence. So we’re starting on those four meditations now, explaining what they are. 

Nāgārjuna’s letter

The nature of life as a free and fortunate human being is freedom from the eight states without leisure and possession of the ten beneficial circumstances. The eight states with no leisure are given in the ‘Friendly Letter’.

This is talking about Nāgārjuna’s Letter to a Friend. I’ll read the verse and then go back and explain it: 

Being born as one holding wrong views, as an animal,
A hungry ghost, or a hell-being,
In a place where the Buddha’s word does not prevail,
As a barbarian in remote regions, stupid and dumb,
Or as a long living god are the eight
States without leisure.
Having found the opportunity of freedom from them,
Exert yourself to turn away from birth.

Okay, it also says:

The eight states without leisure fall into eight categories: four pertaining to humans, and four to inhuman life. 

States without leisure

The first one is being born as one holding wrong views. It says born but it means “living as.” Somebody who holds wrong views is somebody who doesn’t believe in cause and effect. It’s somebody who thinks that our ethical actions have no ramifications at all and that things just happen by chance and that sort of thing. It’s also somebody born as an animal—the cats, the grasshoppers, the chipmunks, your dogs, the squirrels—all these other living beings with whom we share the space. In meditating on these eight, we have been born as all these things in previous lives, so we are free from that kind of birth in this lifetime, but we’re not free from that kind of birth forever because at any moment, this life stops. And then according to our karma, if we have the negative karma, we could be in one of these lives. Just for right now, we’re free, but we don’t know for how long. 

I’m sure you know lots of people with wrong views—very stubborn, cynical, wrong views. So, this is talking about being born like that and then, if you live your whole life like that, you might even be famous and write a few books, and people might honor and respect you in society but what kind of karma are you going to create? What kind of life are you going to have after this lifetime if you’re a person who has wrong views? 

Or imagine being born as an animal. Just do that: imagine being born as one of our kitties, or one of the grasshoppers. I remember one time I was in Malaysia, and they took me to a zoological park because they have all sorts of interesting looking animals in Malaysia, and there was a bird—some kind of incredible bird that was so colorful with this huge long beak and it was many different colors. And that bird and I looked at each other in the eye for the longest time and I had the real sense that there was a human being but trapped in that kind of body. It was unable to communicate or really think clearly, but it was such a feeling of “Wow, that’s a human being but totally trapped in that kind of body for a whole life.” You have a big beak, eating food, and everybody comes and you’re famous. Do you know what this is probably the result of? It’s probably from being attached to being beautiful and being noticed. When you’re really attached to “Am I beautiful? Do people look at me?” then you have some negative karma for a lower rebirth, so we wind up as some kind of animal that everyone wants to look at. And you’re sitting there with that all day and can’t think. 

When you walk down the road, look at the cows. Look at the horses? Stop by the fence and really look in the eyes of those cows or look in the eyes of those horses, and think, “What is it like being in that body?” Because you can’t think in the same way. Cows and horses think, but not in the same way as human beings. Do you want to be whipped? Do you want to be branded? Do you want to be fed only so they can stuff you in a cattle car and then cut your throat and eat your body? Think about what it’s like being born as an animal. It’s actually fairly scary. 

When I stayed at your house, Kathleen, there were the fish in the bedroom I stayed in. I used to look at those fish and think, “Oh my goodness, what kind of life is that?” Your whole environment is just this tank, and you just swim back and forth. And if you had a bigger environment, it would be more dangerous for that kind of fish because they’d get eaten up sooner. But what do they think about all day? What does a fish think about? What do you do? All you do is swim back and forth and you breathe and hope to get some food and that’s it. You spend the whole day totally spaced out like that. To me, that’s really scary. Spend some time thinking like that and then think, “Oh, but I’m not born like that right now. How fortunate I am. I’m a human being and I’ve met the Dharma and I can practice.” It’s unbelievable.

We could be born as a hungry ghost, and we might have a harder time because they describe them with big bellies and narrow necks, and they run around trying to get food but they can’t get it. Think about that. If you can’t identify so much with the body description, that’s okay. But try even thinking about the body description. We don’t know what kind of beings there are that we haven’t seen, do we? So, try thinking like that. You have a huge extended belly, a tiny throat and you’re starving. You see some food, you run towards it, and as soon as you get there it’s pus and blood. Or, you manage to get there, get a little bit in your mouth and you can’t swallow it because your throat’s too small. 

Some people in the hospital, some human beings even, have this difficulty, but this is far worse as a hungry ghost. Or you swallow the food and then your whole stomach is on fire. Think about that in a literal way in terms of food. But also, do you know what I think about being a hungry ghost? To me, it could mean a hungry ghost mentality. I was mentioning it this morning. It’s like there’s a very needy mind. It’s the mind that says, “I want, I want, I need, I need.” It’s the mind of such incredible attachment that it says, “I’ve got to have it. I can’t imagine going without this.” And then you rush to whatever it is that you think you really have to have and you’re on the verge of getting it, and then it falls apart before your eyes. You know how some people are in romantic relationships that they want so much? They think, “I just want somebody to love me. I just want somebody to love me.” As soon as they rush and find a relationship, what happens? 

Audience: The person goes away.

VTC: The person goes away. 

And so that’s that same idea of frustration that a hungry ghost experiences. Or maybe you want to be famous, or you want a certain status in your job. You’re incredibly attached, and then it’s almost within your reach, and it’s gone. That’s kind of like that mind. It could be like an Olympic athlete who craves a gold medal and they’re almost there, almost there, and then they can’t get it. Or they get it and then the judges change their mind and invalidate their participation in the competition. It’s that kind of frustration and pain. 

Or maybe it’s being born as a hell-being, where your whole world is just intense physical suffering. So, ask yourself: “If I’m born as an animal, how am I going to practice the Dharma? If I’m born as a hungry ghost, how am I going to practice the Dharma? If I’m born as hell-being, how am I going to practice the Dharma?” Our mind always says, “Well, if I’m a hell-being, I will have faith in the Dharma. I’ll manage. I’ll do the taking-and-giving meditation as a hell-being.”

But we’ve got to put our feet on the ground. What happens when we have a little mild stomach ache? Can we even sit in the meditation hall with a little teeny, weenie stomach ache? No, we’re out of there: “Oh, I’ve got to go to bed.” Some tiny, tiny thing hurts, and we can’t meditate at all. It’s true, isn’t it? “I can’t even sit in the meditation hall. I’m so hungry that I can’t sit in the meditation hall. I have to go eat something.” And we think we’re going to be able to practice as a hungry ghost. We’re such wimps. If we’re with a friend doing something fun, it doesn’t matter if we have a stomach ache; it doesn’t matter if we’re hungry, does it? But we’re in the meditation hall with a little bit of hunger, a little bit of sleepiness, a little bit of bad mood and we think, “I can’t practice. I’ve got to leave.” We walk out of the meditation hall. It doesn’t matter if we disturb everybody else’s meditation. “I can’t stay in here. They said to take good care of myself, so I’m doing that.” We are wimps galore, aren’t we? We’re so wimpy. 

Living where Buddha has not taught

Okay, so next it talks about being born “in a place where the Buddha’s word does not prevail.” That’s in a place where the Buddha has not taught the Dharma, where there are no teachings of the Buddha at all: “As a barbarian in a remote region.” So, this means it’s in a kind of place where people don’t have any idea of ethical conduct. We’re not talking about primitive societies, because very often primitive societies have a much better idea of ethical conduct than civilized societies do—or what we call civilized societies. But this is talking about a place where there’s no respect for ethical conduct. Being born stupid and dumb so your senses don’t function properly. You can’t read the Dharma. You can’t hear the Dharma. You can’t think properly, so you might actually be born in a very rich country and have this kind of hindrance. 

I went to Denmark once. I was invited there to teach and one of the women at the center worked in a home for disabled children, and so she took me there. I asked to go and I remember walking into this colorful room—and Denmark’s a very wealthy country—with so many toys and balloons and balls, and educational equipment. I remember the first thing I saw was all these beautiful colors everywhere and at first I didn’t hear or see any people. And then I started to hear these funny sounds. And I started looking closer, and there were these kids who were really severely disabled. Some of them were 15 years old but lying in cribs, or lying down. They would have these things that had like four wheels so they could move the kids easily, and they were just kind of lying over that or sitting in all sorts of weird positions. And the kids were so severely handicapped. 

Some of them couldn’t see; some of them couldn’t hear. None of them could think very well, but they had incredible wealth. What kind of karma is that? They’re born as human beings as a result of ethical conduct. They live in a wealthy place as a result of generosity, but their minds are incapacitated and very often their bodies are incapacitated, too. This is because of some very strong hindering karma—maybe karma from wrong views or something like that. It can be very scary to think of being born like that because you’re using up all your good karma of ethical conduct and generosity. It’s all getting used up, but nothing good is coming out of it because you can’t use your mind properly. It’s the same thing with somebody who has wrong views: they’re using up a lot of good karma and just creating horrible karma in the process of it.

And when it talks about rebirth as a long-living god, it’s talking about a certain realm where the beings have neither perception or non-perception. There’s the kind of concentration where they are so spaced out that it’s almost difficult to tell whether there’s even perception or consciousness at all. 

And so all of these are considered states without leisure. Here, leisure means leisure to practice the Dharma, or freedom to practice the Dharma. Because if you’re born in any of these situations it’s impossible. When we’re in the meditation hall and we’re a little tired or a little hungry, or a little bit in a bad mood, or whatever, if we remember what these hindrances are, and then we can think, “I have this itty bitty, tiny thing, but, wow, I actually am free from these eight big non-leisure states. I’d better take advantage of my opportunity to practice right now because if I don’t take advantage of the present opportunity, when am I going to have a better one? Because tomorrow my mind is going to make the same excuses isn’t it?” Yes. “So, if I don’t take advantage now, when will I? And at the time of death, what am I going have to show for it?” 

So then, the mind says, “Well, I listen to Dharma teachings. I’ll have that to show for it.” Well, that’s good, we’ve created some good karma with some Dharma teachings, but we could have created a lot more good karma if we had actually put them into practice. But instead, we’re so attached to the happiness of this life that we go for our creature comforts and waste so much time.

Ways of wasting time

And you know what I’ve been thinking about, too—you know what is a huge waste of time? Getting angry is such an enormous waste of time. I don’t know about you, but when I get angry I can spend a long time reciting the story that “They did this and this, and dah dee dah dee dah.” It is such a waste of time. Here we have a precious human life with the opportunity to generate bodhicitta and to realize emptiness, and we’re spending our time reliving all the horrible things people said and did to us. What a waste of time, isn’t it? When we really believe it’s a waste of time, then we just stop it.

Similarly, another big waste of time is day dreaming and having the mind of attachment: “Oh, I want this pleasure and I want to get this, and I want to eat that. And I want to be with this kind of person. And then I’m going to meet this person. And then we’re going to go here, then we’re going to do this. La dee dah.” It’s planning our future. That’s such a waste of time, isn’t it? We’re daydreaming in la-la land. Sometimes we even daydream about all the future retreats we’re going to do. We’re in retreat now, but instead of focusing on the object of meditation, we think, “Oh, I really like retreat. After this retreat I want to do that retreat. And then I’m going to do that retreat. And then I’m going to do this one. And then I’m going to do that one.” And we spend the whole meditation session planning out our Dharma practice, but we never actually do any Dharma practice. Right? 

I got an email from a friend of mine who was doing retreat, who wrote me all about health insurance for one of our teachers, which was clearly one of his objects of meditation during the retreat. It was “How to come up with perfect health insurance for one of our teachers.” It’s true! That’s a very virtuous thing to try and arrange, okay, but not in the middle of your meditation session in retreat when you’re supposed to be focusing on something else. We’ll do this, won’t we? We’ll plan our other retreats. We’ll design Chenrezig Hall. Right now we’re building this building, so then we’ll design the next building, this winter. In our winter retreat we’ll design Chenrezig Hall, and then at the end of the retreat we’ll conglomerate all of our ideas and take them to the architect. Our mind is so creative with ideas for distracting ourselves, isn’t it? And it is all such a waste of time. 

And you know what else is a big waste of time? It’s the mind thinking, “If I only had this situation, then I could really practice Dharma well.” Yes. “If I were only at this place, then I could practice Dharma well. If I could only study that text, then I could practice Dharma well. If I only had this initiation, then I could do some serious practice. If I only didn’t have a cramp in my knee, then I could really develop single pointed focus. If only my tooth didn’t hurt, then my meditation would be wonderful. If only the room was a little bit warmer, or the room was a little bit cooler, then my meditation would be very nice.” And we can spend so much time on “if onlys,” can’t we? “Why can’t I practice Dharma? It’s because of this one tiny thing.”

Like I said, we’re wimps, aren’t we? So, we do the “if only” meditation. And it’s such a waste of time—a glorious waste of time. Why? Because the only time to practice Dharma is now. It’s not when we get another situation or move to another place, or hear a certain teaching, or do this or that. The only time we have to practice is now. And the situation we’re in right now is the situation we can practice in right now. Not our dream situation in the future—we practice now with what’s happening now. And transforming our mind right now is what Dharma practice is. 

So, you’re in a bad mood and you don’t feel like meditating. Then you sit on the cushion and you meditate anyway and you transform your mind. You say, “I’m too tired; I can’t meditate.” You sit on the cushion anyway. You do some prostrations or you put some cold water on your face. You sit down and you do some practice because when else are you going to practice? When are you going to be totally wide awake and able to practice? Will it be after you have some coffee? “If only I had some coffee, then my meditation would be good. If only the Abbey would let me have some coffee. Why don’t they let me drink coffee at the Abbey? Tea is okay. Why do they drink tea and they won’t let me drink coffee?” And you spend a whole meditation session on that. “It’s not fair; they’re hypocrites.” And the whole life goes by, doesn’t it? We waste so much time. So the eight states without leisure fall into two categories. Four pertaining to human and four to inhuman states. You got them?

Questions & Answers

Audience: I’m trying to understand how a fish in a fish bowl would ever create merit? I’m wondering if they do. Would it even happen?

VTC: Okay, so how would a fish in a fish bowl create merit? It would be extremely difficult. How does somebody get out of the lower realms after you’re born there? It’s with great difficulty. Once you’re born in the lower realms it’s usually a karma that you created as a human being in a previous life that has to ripen at the end of your animal rebirth life. Sometimes animals can create some good karma. There is some possibility, but it’s very difficult. So, it’s usually some good karma that you created before as a human being. But then, to get it to ripen at the end of your animal life you have to have a positive thought, or you have to hear mantra, or something has to spark that. How many animals have the opportunity to die in that kind of situation? It’s very difficult, isn’t it? Look at how many animals there are on this planet compared to the number of human beings. You can see how even having a human life, not even a precious human life but just a human life, is very rare compared to an animal rebirth. Let alone a precious human life. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Okay, so you have a dog that is a hospital dog. Would that help him in his next life? I would imagine to some extent that would. But it might be hard for him to generate a really positive motivation. But still, he had an attitude of friendliness and kindness often toward the patients that he visited, so that’s good, yes. But it’s good that when he does pass away that you say lots of mantra. And it’s good if you read the Three Principal Aspects to him and The Foundation of all Good Qualities. And don’t even wait until he dies to do this. Pet owners should definitely read Dharma things out loud so their pets can hear.

Conclusion

Okay, this week spend some time meditating on these eight. And really imagine in your meditation having that life. Really get into it. And then come out of it and say, “Oh, but I’m not born like that right now. I have a precious human life with the opportunity to learn, reflect and meditate on the Dharma—unbelievable.” When you’re meditating, really go into that state and then at the end think, “But actually, I’m not like that now. I’m so fortunate, and I’ve got to make use of this life.” And then you might ask yourself, “How do I make use of this life?” 

Well, it’s by transforming your mind and by observing karma and its effects. It’s by generating wisdom, by meditating on love and compassion and bodhicitta, by practicing generosity, by practicing ethical conduct, by practicing fortitude and joyous effort, and concentration, and wisdom—all these things. That’s how you make your life meaningful. Make this meditation very practical so you come out of it with a very strong determination to make your life meaningful and so that you know exactly what you need to do to make your life meaningful. And you’re determined to do it, and you’re not going to waste your time on “stupidaggios,” okay? This meditation can be very helpful for clarifying our mind.