Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche presents the foundational meditation on precious human embodiment through concrete metaphors: a traveler from Nepal eating fish so rarely he tried to prevent its return; a child throwing away something valuable without recognizing its worth. These show how we squander human life. He explains why this embodiment is precious (enabling liberation, Buddhahood, future happiness), why it’s rare (as rare as an insect crawling from the earth), and why wasting it merits regret. He then guides a four-part meditation: understanding why we practice (skillful action brings happiness, unskillful brings suffering); recognizing we have the capacity; grasping that practice must happen now in this life since obtaining human rebirth is difficult; and practicing immediately rather than postponing, because death is certain but its timing unknown. The next session explores impermanence and death.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-05-30 – Side 1 – Sun's Radiance – KR.MP3
UUID: cc56b17e-8616-4c66-9ceb-f946572f0b91
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1989-05-30
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,702
In dependence upon this human life that we can achieve whatever we set out to do. It has that much it has a great deal of power, capacity, ability. And that there is a there was a quotation if we were to go to a a place in which there was a great there were many jewels and come away from that place empty handed what a great waste it would be. And you know, Rinpoche was telling exemplifying this that if one were to go to a country in which there were many for the purpose of buying jewels and visiting that country having borrowed money to buy the jewels instead of actually trying to achieve your purpose you simply wasted all your money getting drunk, all the time, carousing and you went broke and you returned home empty handed. And not only empty handed but you’ve lost everything that you that you potentially had to make great profit.
And the people who loaned you all that money, they’d be extremely surprised and would be very upset with you, and it’d be a great loss and waste. It’s like this example of the situation that we’re that we’re involved in. We have this this human embodiment, which is like a jewel. You know, we’ve we’ve arrived. We’ve we’ve attained this jewel of the human body, and we can make use of it to attain anything that to that we desire.
That we can achieve Buddhahood by means of this in dependence upon this jewel of the human body. We can achieve liberation, we can achieve another human life in a future existence. You know, for example, through the practicing of correct types of ethics. That we can achieve complete happiness in dependence upon this jewel of the human embodiment. And just as in the case of a jewel, a jewel can be a great profit if we make good use of it.
You know, we can whatever we might want, we desire, we can have various material goods, we can have great nice food and drink, etcetera, in dependence upon making use of it, using the jewel as a profitable material. Likewise, through the skillful actions of this human embodiment, we can too achieve anything that we desire. On the other hand, if we use this life human embodiment in a non skillful way, that we’ve more or less taken out a loan of this human embodiment And we’re going to and if we simply use it to create negative karma, then in that having taken out a loan, having risen up from a bad migration, and and having wasted the potential for profit, will naturally return to a bad migration. And people who saw this situation that having come out of a bad migration, having this loan of the of the jewel of a human embodiment, not making use of it, they they would be completely surprised. They would be feel a great deal of compassion for such a type of person who wasted this opportunity to to great gain such great profit.
And they would in Tibet, they say something like, that’s a shame sometimes. And they’re they’re because having this opportunity and not making use of it and losing all that we could have had and returning to a bad migration. So we have this jewel of the human embodiment which we can make use of in any way that we desire to achieve whatever ends that we may seek. But if on the other hand, we use it unskillfully, simply creating more and more negative types of karma, then we’ve this would be cause action in this way would be cause for great regret. We would have wasted this opportunity.
On the other hand, this embodiment skillfully just like using a jewel that in the future that we can continually rise higher and higher the various types of human embodiments in the future. Not only is this human embodiment of great meaning, but it’s also difficult to obtain, difficult to find. And there is a quotation from Geshe Potowa in which he is asked he asked the rhetorical question, could a could an could an insect crawl out of the ground and prostrate to the Buddha? It’s possible, but it would be extremely rare for something like that happen that for it to happen, wouldn’t it? And therefore, just it’s it’s the same rarity in us crawling out of the bad migration and having this chance to practice the teaching.
It’s it’s it’s as extremely as rare as this insect crawling out of the ground and and prostrating to the Buddha. So there there’s a there was a man from a region called Tsap, which is the region from where Lama Zopa is from. It’s it’s a great distance from it’s in Northern Nepal, a great distance from Lhasa. And this man traveled to Lhasa, and he had never eaten fish before. And he went to a restaurant and he ordered this fish.
And it was and it was, you know, an extremely rare occasion for him, and it was really delicious. And he he ate the fish, and he he began to he walked out, and he was walking along. And he felt he felt he felt nauseous. He was gonna throw up. But he he he didn’t wanna lose this fish because it was such a delicious taste, and it was such a rare occasion.
So he tied a rope around his neck and and tried to strangle it so it wouldn’t come up. So this tries to exemplify, you know, that that this person felt that having this fish, eating this fish, was such a rare thing to occur that he didn’t wanna lose it. And he was even willing to, you know, strangle himself with his rope in order to block it from coming out. Therefore, in the same way, this precious human embodiment is as rare, therefore, as precious. Such a type of embodiment is extremely rare and difficult to obtain.
And with that, we have this embodiment, today we have the basis for achieving anything that we want to desire, that we desire, whether it be Buddhahood, whether it be liberation. Not to make use of it, to lead a meaningless type of life would be cause to really would be cause for a great regret to thinking about it in this way and not to make use of our life would be cause for someone to become depressed and sad. If If we were to lose say $10,000 we’d get extremely upset about it. We would see it as extremely a great problem, know, what am I going to do, what happened? We’d really worry about the situation.
But you know that in spending our life trying to gather this money and worrying spending so much energy and worrying about our money, none of this money can achieve can help you to achieve liberation. That this money can achieve help you to achieve Buddhahood. That none of this money can keep you from falling into a bad migration in the future. But but it’s in dependence upon this precious human life that we have. We can prevent all this and we can attain these these great meaningful ends.
Why don’t we why don’t we regret wasting our life? It’s simply because we do not recognize how precious in fact it is. And even to we should be we should even regret wasting one day of our life not achieving these great aims, these great purposes, which it has the capacity to bring us. If we were to see a small child and he was walking down the path and it was playing with something which is extremely valuable, throwing it around, it here, throwing it there, it didn’t recognize, it didn’t know how valuable this object was and we were to see this child, we would be amazed that the child would be treating something as valuable as that in such a such a careless manner. Right?
Simply because that child doesn’t appreciate the great value of what they may be playing with so they just simply waste it. They throw it away as if it was worthless. Likewise, this is the way that we’ve been using our human life as if it were worthless, not recognizing its great value.
That we shouldn’t allow ourselves to waste this capacity, that we should make use of it to practice. The embodiment that we now possess arose in dependence upon different causes. That the causes such as the practice of the six perfections, the perfections of generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditative stabilization, and wisdom. And additionally, making prayer petitions, prayers that may I attain a human embodiment in the future. That these are the causes for which have created our present embodiment.
And if we do not now, again, create those same causes, then we cannot expect those effects, that fruit in the future. Just as in the case when a farmer if he doesn’t plant a seed in his field, then he cannot expect any crop. So we have to create the causes to attain such a type of embodiment again. So, know, such a type of embodiment is also extremely rare from the point of view of the fruit, the effect. You know, there are many people in the world, but then there are there are many sentient beings in the world.
But amongst those in comparison, human beings are are rare. And still even more so, even more rare are those who seek to practice the Dharma. We only achieve these rare fruit by practicing its cause. Therefore, we have to because the practice of the causes is so rare, such types of effects are also rare. So in actually meditating, Leisure and Fortune, we make use of a four part meditation.
That understanding that the first part understanding the Dharma and the point of view of why should we practice. Simply most, because we want happiness and we don’t want to suffer. And coming to understand that happiness is a result of skillful action. Suffering is a result of unskillful action. And it is the Dharma which teaches us what types of actions are skillful and which types are unskillful as a method for achieving the results that we want.
So in dependence upon the first part, why it’s necessary to practice the Dharma. Understanding that because we do not want unhappiness, we do not want to suffer, we want happiness. To find happiness we have to practice skillful actions. To eliminate suffering which we do not want we have to abandon unskillful actions. And this is the practice of Dharma.
Therefore, is the necessity for practicing Dharma. So, you know, we should try to clearly understand why we have to cultivate skillful action because we don’t want to suffer, we want happiness. And this is our individual desire. And happiness comes in dependence upon skillful actions, unhappiness arises in dependence upon unskillful actions. So understanding that the necessity for practice is to begin to cultivate skillful actions as a means to find happiness, to abandon unskillful actions as a means to rid ourselves of suffering.
But we may doubt that as to whether so we make this decision. I have to cultivate skillful actions in order to find happiness. But we may doubt as to whether we possess the capacity, whether we have the ability. So we should eliminate such types of doubt by understanding that we have the external conditions necessary to practice since we have met a Lama, the spiritual master as an external condition. We also have all the internal conditions that we have the complete conducive conditions internally.
So thinking in this way that this should dispel any doubt as to whether or not we have the ability or the capacity to carry on the practice of Dharma. So the first part was that the necessity for practice in the Dharma. The second is developing the understanding that we have the ability to practice, that we have all the necessary internal and external conditions to carry on a practice. But then the third part, there still might arise in one’s mind the thought, well you know it’s not necessary I don’t have to practice in this life, can practice in the future life. That’s sufficient.
But we have to correct this way of thinking because it will be difficult for us to practice in the future because it is difficult to practice it is difficult for us to obtain a human life in the future again. The human life only arises in dependence upon specific causes and if in this life we do not cultivate those causes then we are not going to achieve a human body again in the future. So it’s necessary to practice in this life. So then the third part was that the necessity to cultivate the Dharma in this life. But then the fourth part is, okay well I have to practice sometime in this life but I don’t have to practice right away, not now, you know, sometime in the future.
So, you know, slowly, slowly I’ll get around to it. Thinking in this way. But we have to reverse this type of thinking because it’s necessary to develop the attitude that I must practice now. Because why? Because of death and impermanence.
The time of death is uncertain. We could die next year, we could die this year, we could die this month, we could die tomorrow. We don’t know when we’re going to die. When there’s no way that we can block, we can turn away death. You know, we can’t buy it off, we can’t give it present, we can’t beg that it not happen to us.
When the time comes we will die and it’s uncertain as to the time of our death. Therefore it’s necessary to begin our practice now. We can all know from various examples that the person might have been living in the morning and evening they are dead. On the other hand they may have been alive in the evening and the next morning they are dead. There is no certainty as to the time of our death.
It doesn’t really make any difference whether we are young or old. That we are still susceptible to death whether we a few years or many years old. There is no certainty as to the time of death therefore it is necessary to begin our practice So from our next talk, we’ll begin the discussion of impermanence and death. What we presented, this four part meditation for cultivating this understanding of Leisures and Fortunes is extremely important for the practice of our Dharma. So we have about ten minutes left.
And if you have any questions, please ask them. Yeah. Can the quality of one’s practice be improved or is it limited by one’s The quality of one’s practice is determined by the effort, the strength that one puts into one’s practice, and not on effort. Whether it’s a powerful practice or not depends upon the effort put into it. And in order to increase our effort and thereby to increase the strength of our practice, the quality of our practice, we have to understand the situation that we’re involved in. This is beginning to understand the difficulty for example, the difficulty of finding this human embodiment of Leisures and Fortunes, how precious it is, that it’s going to be difficult to find again.
Understanding this situation that we’re involved in will increase our effort and therefore the quality of our practice. So as was we explained previously, the purpose for taking up the the discussion of Leisure and Fortune was to increase the amount of force of our practice, to increase our effort by understanding the preciousness of a human embodiment, of a human life. And therefore as a method to do this we make use of cultivating these four sections on the preciousness of a human body with Leisures and Fortunes in a way of transforming strengthening our practice.