Appreciating Our Human Life

Appreciating Our Human Life

This reflective or analytical meditation helps you to gain perspective of your present situation and the opportunities you now have that add meaning to your life. This is especially beneficial for those suffering from depression.

Start by sitting in a comfortable position. And make sure your back is straight and that your body is relaxed, with all the muscles in the body relaxed.

Let your breathing be natural. And focus your mind, your awareness on your breathing just for a few minutes to settle it down.

And let go of any cloud like thoughts, images, feelings, just let those flow away from your mind and just let your mind be right here in the present, being aware of your breath coming in and out, not thinking about anything else.

Generate a positive motivation for doing the meditation - one that goes beyond just thinking of your own happiness, your own benefit. See if you can generate some kind of motivation that is concerned for others, wanting to help others, wishing that the meditation will be helpful for others, in addition to yourself.

Now begin the meditation by thinking about your own Buddha nature, which is the potential of your mind to become completely clear and pure, free of all negative states of mind like anger. And to fully develop all the positive qualities, the positive states of mind - such as loving-kindness, compassion and wisdom.

See if you can get a feeling of this potential right now.

It’s possible for your mind, this very mind that is sitting here now meditating, to become completely clear and pure and very powerful and beneficial for others, able to do so much good for others.

If you find it difficult to accept this idea of Buddha nature then see if you can at least accept that the human mind has incredible potential, so much intelligence.

We are able to know what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is false.

We are able to understand other people and their suffering, able to feel moved by compassion to help others and we are able to think of all kinds of ways and means to benefit others.

We have so much potential and capability to make our lives meaningful and beneficial not just for ourselves but for others as well.

Feel a sense of that potential that exists within you.

If your mind comes up with some resistance to this idea or some doubt because you can see a lot of faults in yourself and a lot of mistakes that you’ve made, you might feel, ‘oh I have so many bad qualities’.

See if you can accept the idea that these faults, mistakes and bad qualities are not permanent; ‘these are not things that will stay in my life forever’.

They are not an inherent part of your mind but they can be cleared away, they can be reduced gradually and eventually cleared away completely. Your mind can be free of them.

Your mind is something changeable, not something concrete, permanent, fixed. It’s possible to work on your mind and change your mind and all the negative things.

This potential to transform the mind, to free it from negative qualities and develop positive qualities, this potential actually exists in everyone’s mind but not everyone is in the most ideal situation to be able to do this kind of work on their mind.

There are some people, some human beings who experience physical difficulties such as sickness or injuries, disabilities, or they are very poor, living in extremely hard conditions, really just struggling to stay alive and other people experiencing mental difficulties, mental illness or mental disability.

Even though their mind has this potential their present situation is not one in which they are able to recognise and develop it.

Spend some time thinking about people in this situation.

They may be people you yourself know or have heard about or seen.

Or just use your imagination; think about the lives some people have, the difficulties some people have that make it almost impossible for them to understand the potential that lies within their own minds.

Let’s see this potential within us and develop it.

And then there are other people, the human beings who may not be experiencing those kinds of problems, physical and mental problems.

But they may not have access to spiritual teachers, spiritual teachings that will enable them to become aware of the potential that they have; the possibilities they have for transforming their mind, developing the potential and how to do that. They may spend their whole life completely unaware of this potential and how to develop it.

Again think of people living in very remote places where they don’t have access to these kind of teachings and teachers.

There are other people who are not experiencing the problems, they are not suffering physically or mentally, but are well off, living comfortable lives, and they have the opportunity to learn spiritual teachings from teachers but from their side they don’t have interest.

There’s no interest there to understand themselves or their minds, to develop the potential of their minds, to make their lives more beneficial for others and so on. There are probably people, family members, friends and people that you work with, who are totally uninterested in anything spiritual.

Instead their interests lie in other things like accumulating money, possessions, property or worldly kinds of knowledge and skills.

Maybe they just enjoy themselves as much as possible, spending their life that way and maybe doing negative things, not realising that doing negative actions brings suffering, problems to themselves and to others.

An ignorance that actually creates more problems, more obscurations, ignoring their Buddha nature, the potential of their mind, rather than getting closer to developing it.

Bring to mind some examples of people who are in that situation, who are not interested in anything spiritual, who aren’t interested in developing their minds.

There are also people who have an interest in spiritual teachings, who really want to practice the spiritual path but may not have freedom to do so.

For example in some countries the government doesn’t allow people to study and practice the religions or spiritual traditions of their choice.

So spiritual teachers may not be allowed to give teachings, spiritual groups may not be allowed to gather and study and meditate on spiritual teachings. People might even be imprisoned for doing such things, books are banned, and information is banned.

People living in that situation don’t have the freedom even though they have the wish to practice.

Sometimes people face objections from family members. They may wish to study and practice but they may have parents or a spouse, or even children, who are opposed to their interest and don’t really allow them freedom to study and practice as they wish.

So see if you can bring to mind examples of people who are in that kind of situation.

Think about these conditions that some people, actually many people, find themselves in; conditions which are hindrances to recognising and developing the potential of the mind.

Probably it will become clear to you that you are free from these hindering conditions.

In fact you have very good conditions.

Your body is healthy; your mind is healthy and functioning properly.

You’re physically materially well off and comfortable, have time, leisure time to be able to study and practice spiritual teachings.

You have access to spiritual teachers and teachings. You can meet teachers and you can learn teachings as much as you want and you have the interest to do so.

You are interested in spiritual teachings and find them meaningful, worthwhile.

You are free to pursue your interest and are not hindered by government or by other people. You have the freedom to study and practice as you like.

You’ll probably realise that you have most, if not all, of these good conditions;

these helpful and conducive conditions which enable you to recognise the incredible potential that you have with your human mind, your human intelligence and the ability to develop that potential.

You have the knowledge that there is the opportunity to develop that potential.

Thinking about this see what kind of conclusion you come to.

See if you can at least feel how fortunate you are to have this situation and also how it’s actually quite rare.

Not everybody has it. Many people don’t have it. See if you can feel some sense of wanting to use this situation while you have it. Use it in a wise and beneficial way.

Finally take a few moments to mentally dedicate your merit, the positive energy of having done this meditation. Whatever positive energy you have created, remember the motivation you had to start with.

And dedicate in the same way that it will become beneficial not just for yourself but for others as well, bringing more happiness and peace, wisdom and other positive experiences, positive qualities, beyond yourself too, for as many other people, as many other beings as possible.

This meditation has been made available with gratitude from the Foundation for the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) "How to Meditate" module of their Discovering Buddhism Home Study Program. click here

You can let Dekyi-Lee lead you through this meditation by ordering the Practical Meditation 1 CD.click here