1. THE PRECIOUSNESS OF HUMAN LIFE

In this lifetime, each of us is gifted with a human body and with circumstances, both external and internal, that are conducive to a fruitful spiritual practice of potentially great depth. To understand how precious this opportunity is, it helps to have reached a sense of conviction that we are each endowed with a continuum of consciousness that is not confined to this life alone, and, moreover, that our actions and behavior have significance from one life to another.

As we take into account this linear progression from past life to present to future, we can appreciate the rare and precious opportunities that this fully endowed human life presents to us right now: the gifts of our teachers, the circumstances that are conducive to practice, the countless means we have for transforming our lives in a wholesome way. From this context we can also look laterally, to other sentient beings around us. Everyone desires essentially the same things as ourselves - a lasting state of contentment and freedom from suffering, pain, anxiety, and fear.

Although this common ground we share with every sentient being in the universe is utterly simple, the ways that individuals strive to fulfill this eternal longing vary with infinite diversity. And, for so many people, these methods are pathetically ineffective. We don't need to be great sages to see that many people fail tragically at finding happiness and freeing their minds from unnecessary grief. It takes no deep insight to see that the source of both our well-being and our maladies lies within our own hearts and minds. To change our experience of life we must inevitably change our hearts and minds, or rather our heart/minds.

The Buddhadharma starts from where we are right now, with our uncertainties and our shortcomings, as well as our wholesome qualities. It starts here, not after we have become Bodhisattvas. It shows a clear path for living a meaningful, wholesome life of increasing contentment and good cheer in this very lifetime, and it shows us how to sow the seeds for our well-being in future lives.

As this sinks in, priorities change. Before, we might have said, "The teachings are good. They are all very well, but given my job and my family, my bills, the city I live in, all my responsibilities and commitments, I just don't have time. I don't have time to hear teachings, or to meditate, or to read books on dharma. I don't have time to bring my mind to Dharma." This suggests a set of priorities that leaves precious little time for dharma. What could be more important? Keep in mind that Dharma is not confined to formal practice, sitting cross-legged in meditation or reciting sadhanas. Dharma is meant here in a broad sense; but not in a sense so diluted - or deluded - that "living Dharma all the time" means very little Dharma at all.

2. DEATH AND IMPERMANENCE

An awareness of death and impermanence enhances the vivid realization of the preciousness of a fully endowed human life in a way that transforms the heart and mind. It is possible to be lethargic in a very dynamic way: lethargic in relation to dharma but dynamic regarding samsara. We have plenty of time for entertainment, movies, vacations, sports, and partying. We have plenty of time for work. But we have precious little time for dharma, thinking, "Perhaps, when the kids are older, when I retire, when the work eases off a bit, or when winter comes, or summer. . . ." We always assume that there will be time later, but in the process we are aging and our vitality is waning. Impermanence means we are changing, and approaching death.

Meditation on death and impermanence shows that there is no time to squander. The need for dharma is urgent. Death may be imminent for each of us, and the fact of our death is utterly certain. All mundane goals that we strive for will certainly pass, and all that will remain is the imprints: the growth derived from our Dharma practice or, on the other side of the ledger, the force of habits that are motivated by mental distortions.

3. ACTIONS AND THEIR RESULTS

An awareness of death and impermanence leads very quickly to an investigation of the nature of actions and their results. Actions provide the coherent relationship that links one life to another. Each action leaves its imprint upon our consciousness and, sooner or later, inevitably manifests its fruit unless it has somehow been nullified by other actions. Actions need not be physical. With each phrase, each comment, and, most frightening of all, each thought, we are creating our futures for better or worse. And the present that we experience right now is what we have created by the karma of our past actions.

Having reached the certainty that each of our actions and its results is profoundly significant, not only within this lifetime but beyond, it is important to use this wonderful discovery. Let the understanding of karma transform our priorities, our values, our world view, and thus transform our way of life.

4. THE UNSATISFACTORY NATURE OF THE CYCLE OF EXISTENCE

The last of the four fundamental preliminaries emphasized in Geshe Rabten's commentary is the unsatisfactory nature of the cycle of existence. The term samsara, translated as cycle of existence, is often misused by Westerners. Even people familiar with Buddhist teachings use the term casually to refer to their physical environment, be it the planet earth or Los Angeles. This is missing the point. Samsara is not a geographic location, nor is it nature. Buddhas have lived on planet earth, and yet they are utterly free of samsara. Samsara is a condition of life, but it is not life itself. Escaping from samsara does not mean being extinguished or annihilated, any more than it means leaving the city for a mountain retreat.

Thpriorities change. Before, we might have said, "The teachings are good. They are all very well, but given my job and my family, my bills, the city I live in, all my responsibilities and commitments, I just don't have time. I don't have time to hear teachings, or to meditate, or to read books on dharma. I don't have time to bring my mind to Dharma." This suggests a set of priorities that leaves precious little time for tantric sadhanas, dream yoga - for that matter, we could go to a good movie or out for a pizza! With all of this competition, why meditate on suffering? So we can escape from suffering.

There is something unsatisfying about the way we live, and this need not continue. Otherwise, the Buddha would never have troubled us by pointing out the unsatisfying nature of life - even a successful life, a delightful family situation, a good job, a sunny day. Why is there an element of dissatisfaction and anxiety in all human relations, lying so often just beneath the surface, even in times of pleasure? Something is awry, but the fault is not outside us in the environment. Samsara is not out there, but rather in the way that we experience our environment. To target it precisely, samsara is in the quality of our minds. Our minds are not functioning in accord with reality, and therein lies the problem.

The New Age movement has emphasized the power of affirmative thinking: focusing on the positive aspects of our lives can reinforce or help to realize them. This could imply that meditation on suffering increases the experience of suffering. If we practice incorrectly, this can be quite true. I have met very sincere Buddhists - usually Western Buddhists - who walk about in a cloud of pessimistic gloom and doom that they have created in their meditations. Their enjoyment of something as simple as ice cream is soured by the notion that everything is suffering. This response to life is a distortion of the practice. On the other hand, people who have spent a great deal of time in Lam Rim meditations on suffering and its sources tend to be cheerful, serene, and contented as a result.

I once translated for a Tibetan lama who spoke to a large group about the different types of suffering that we experience. When it was time for questions, a member of the audience asked, "Lama, you have been speaking at such length about all these forms of suffering and the fact that all of our experience is permeated by dissatisfaction. Yet, while teaching this, both you and your interpreter seemed so happy. How can you talk so cheerfully about suffering?"

The lama paused and then responded, with a big smile, "There is such a thing as untainted joy." By this he meant joy untainted by the mental afflictions of attachment, anger, or confusion. Why meditate on suffering? So that we can escape it and discover, gradually through our own experience, the contentment that arises from a wholesome and balanced heart and mind. What can prod us to cultivate this quality of awareness from day to day, from moment to moment? A vivid awareness that investing our lives in the acquisition of pleasant external stimuli results only in dissatisfaction.

What it would take to be really happy? Do we think of a change in our environment, relationships, acquisitions, or health? Or do we answer instead, "If my heart and mind were more loving, if I were free of resentment, more forgiving, more fluid in my responses to life, endowed with greater wisdom and mental stability...."

Meditation on suffering holds enormous practical value and is a necessary foundation for making full use of the Seven Point Mind Training. Many Buddhist teachers have emphasized the need for deep insight into the nature of suffering in order to develop true compassion and loving kindness towards other living beings. Otherwise compassion arises only when we see someone in obvious pain. When we see the bland, expressionless faces of people walking down the street, we may feel nothing much at all and think, "So what? They are living their lives and I am living mine." But if we look deeper, with vivid awareness, into the actual nature of our existence, the source of happiness and suffering, the role of karma, the fact of impermanence and of death, and the precious value of a fully endowed human life, then a much deeper sense of compassion for other beings can arise and endure. Only this compassion can form the basis for bodhicitta, the spirit of awakening.

Excerpted from: A Passage from Solitude, by B. Alan Wallace. 1992 by Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York 14851.