Our lives are short and we only have limited time to bring about any real and lasting change. If we fail to separate the essential from the nonessential, we will lose ourselves in everyday preoccupations and petty pursuits, and when the time comes to die, it will be too late to change. While we have time, instead of harping on our dissatisfactions, we should reflect on the favorable conditions for practice and resolve to make the most of our opportunities by inscribing the following thought permanently in our minds:

“I have wasted enough time. Why waste any more? From now on, I’ll do something constructive and beneficial with my life, instead of squandering it in meaningless activities.”

Precious Human Body

We begin by recognizing that our human body is the basis for enlightenment, because it provides a genuine opportunity for spiritual practice. Normally we take our human body for granted, allowing the negativities in our lives to overwhelm us. Our all-consuming preoccupations mostly consist of worrying about life’s many minor irritations without ever thinking how fortunate we are just to have a body that functions. Instead of thinking,

“How terrible, I put on another two pounds!” or getting up in the morning to see three more lines around our eyes, only to go back to bed, we need to capitalize on our opportunities to reap the benefits of spiritual practice while we can. The renowned yogi Milarepa (1040–1123), admonishes his listeners about this in the following verse:

Oh you confused and worldly beings, You always waste your leisure, letting time slip by. Though your mind is ever saying, “I must practice Dharma,” Your life is wasted as the hours slip by.

One of our biggest faults is the tendency to overlook the things that are important to us while we still have them. We only realize how precious something is once it’s gone, but by then it’s too late. According to the traditional Mahayana teachings, a human body is very precious and hard to obtain. We may think this is just a rhetorical statement, but if we look at the vast multitudes of insects in the natural world and compare that to the number of human beings, we can see that a human life is relatively rare. In this way, we need to broaden the way we think about possible states of existence. Shantideva (685–763) makes this point in the following verse from the Bodhicharyavatara (spyod ‘jug):

This is why Lord Buddha has declared That like a turtle that perchance can place Its head within a yoke adrift upon a shoreless sea, This human birth is difficult to find!

This practice of meditation itself sharpens your mind and improves your memory, qualities that are certainly useful beyond spiritual practice, whether in business, engineering, raising a family, or being a teacher, doctor, or lawyer. This practice also helps on a daily basis with anger. When you get irritated, you can concentrate on the nature of the anger itself and thereby undermine its force.

Another benefit of such mental training emerges from the close connection between body and mind. When you are young and physically fit, your mind is powerful. It is particularly valuable to begin training then, so that as you age, your mind stays fresh and positive through the body’s changes. After all, the human brain is a special endowment, and it would be a pity to let it weaken through neglect, surrendering its powers to age until, animal-like, its only job is to take care of the body. For practitioners, early mental training, and especially concentration on the mind, is important preparation for the final day, when your mind must remain clear and sharp to make use of special techniques during the stages of death or at least to influence rebirth into the next life. Dullness of mind at this critical point can be very dangerous. A real guarantee for a good rebirth is to be able to conduct your practice during the stages of dying.

Your state of mind just before rebirth is influential in determining the character of your next life. You may have accumulated great merit in your life, but if you leave it with a dull mind, you jeopardize the form that your next life will take. On the other hand, even if you committed some regrettable deeds in your lifetime, when the final day comes, if you are prepared and determined to use that occasion to the fullest, your next rebirth will definitely be good. Therefore, strive to train the mind to be fresh, alert, and sharp.