Meditation Topic #2: Your Precious Life

Hi Dears,

We are all on different time zones, so please meditate in the mornings.

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Preliminaries (See blog labeled "Preliminaries)

Contemplation : Our precious human life

The purpose of today's meditation is to come to realize how incredibly precious this human life is because we have the opportunity to engage in a spiritual practice. We have teachings, we have teachers, we have our physical and mental health. Once we realize how precious this life is, we will have a strong determination to not waste one moment of this life and to use it to practice purely.


Specific points to contemplate:
We have all lived many, many lives here on Earth. We may have lived lives where we did not have access to such teachings. We may have lived in countries where we did not have freedom to practice what we want. We may have been born into families that were struggling too much to give us an education. This life we are living now is probably the best that we have ever had. We have an opportunity now to evolve fast and we must seize this opportunity because it may not come again and it will pass, like everything does.

Many beings take rebirth as animals or in hell and don't have the opportunity to practice. Even those who are born as humans, they may not have the leisure and fortune to listen to spiritual teachings or read about them and practice. Even today, not all people have freedom to practice what they wish. Some people are physically or mentally handicapped or incapacitated by accidents. Others suffer extreme poverty and are caught up in wars or natural disasters. Any day, this could be us. And perhaps we have lived countless lifetimes where we have experience such sufferings.

Realizing how lucky we are, we can think "Now I am free from all these impediments. I am very fortunate. I have the opportunity to listen to instructions and to put them into practice. I have faith in these instructions. I have complete mental and physical faculties and I can find the conditions necessary to practice."

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From p 35 of Meditation Handbook

Think: "If I use this human life well by practicing, I shall be able to overcome all the problems of this life and protect myself from falling into a lower rebirth in the future. But practising the stages of the path I will be free from lower rebirths and attain the peace of liberation. By practising the stages of the greater scope, I can attain full enlightenment and then benefit all beings. This human life enables me to fulfill my principal wish - ultimate freedom and real happiness. I can only fulfill this with this human form."

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As you may feel, the purpose of this meditation, is to realize how precious our life is and how lucky we are so that we use our time well. It inspires us to cut out all meaningless activity out of our life (like gossiping, putting others down, needless shopping...any activity that is just filling our time and not fulfilling our goals). At the same time, we must not judge each other. It is important to relax and engage in spontaneous, pleasurable activites.

Notice the power of this meditation. We all know that our life is precious and that we use our time well. But, when you engage in these kinds of meditations and allow stillness and silence and one-pointed concentration to allow the mind to shift from contemplation to meditation to contrived realization to uncontrived realizations -- then something shifts in your entire being, your entire consciousness that will prevent you from ever wasting a moment in your life.

You see this is why these meditations are actually saving you time. It may take an hour today to get used to the contemplations so that you can eventually meditate on them. But, that hour just saved you countless hours. This is the beauty and the power of lamrim;of realizing things very intimately and directly.

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MEDITATION: Contemplate all of the above points until you generate a feeling of deep appreciation for the preciousness of this human life, seeing that you have all the conditions for a successful spiritual practice. Think "I am very fortunate" and meditate on this feeling single-pointedly.

After a few minutes, think to yourself "I will use this precious human life to practice without wasting a moment." Meditate on this determination single-pointedly and hold your mind there for as long as you can -- hopefully long enough to experience the shifts in your mind.

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Dedication:
Dedicate all the virtue you created in this meditation practice to the welfare of all.

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Subsequent practice

Throughout your day, stay appreciative of this precious life. Even when things feel a little tough today, keep the big picture in mind all the time. Really maintain it and enjoy your mind and your resolve strengthen.

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Thank you for your consistent practice and for sharing the journey.

Namaste,
Reema