Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Thubten Chodron guides a meditation on recognizing the extraordinary conditions that make spiritual practice possible in this lifetime. She systematically walks through eight factors of precious human life: freedom from extreme suffering, healthy sense faculties, access to authentic teachings and lineage, freedom from heavy negative karma, a natural inclination toward spirituality, supportive Dharma friends and community, adequate material resources, and access to qualified teachers. Throughout, she emphasizes that lacking even one of these conditions would severely hinder practice, yet all are present for practitioners today. The talk concludes with an instruction to reflect deeply on this good fortune and cultivate genuine determination to use these rare conditions wisely, moving from intellectual understanding toward felt joy and commitment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 GM.mp3
UUID: a1e72974-864f-4270-a0cd-bcb2ff501bfe
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~893
It’s very important when we practice that we recognize the great opportunity that this life presents us with. So often, we only look at what isn’t going right in our life and are totally oblivious to all the good conditions that we have. When we meditate on precious human life, we’re not just talking about any human life, but one in which we have the possibility to practice the Dharma and gain spiritual realizations. So it’s very important to appreciate all the factors that go into making this life very precious and then to use it wisely. So first, reflect that you’re free from unfortunate states.
In other words, you’re not born in states of extreme suffering with great pain, great hunger, and thirst. And you’re even free from being born with too much luxury because too much luxury distracts us from the path in the same way that too much pain distracts us. So just for a moment, appreciate the fact that you have the right balance of comfort and suffering. Enough comfort so that you’re secure to practice the path and enough suffering to motivate you to practice so that you can be free of it. In other words, really appreciate the fact that you have a human body and the human intelligence to use for Dharma practice.
Not only do you have a human body and human intelligence, but all your sense and mental faculties are healthy and complete. You can see and hear and think properly. And this is an incredible thing to be thankful for. And in addition, you live at a time when a Buddha has appeared and has given teachings. There are many times in history where there’s no lineage of the Buddha Dharma, but we live at a time where Śākyamūni Buddha has appeared and taught.
And those teachings have been passed down to us in a very pure lineage from master to disciple for centuries right down to our own teachers and to us. And in addition, we live in a place where we have access to those teachings and to the teachers who can help us. So this is a very great boon in our life, something to cherish very much. In addition, you haven’t committed any seriously heavy negative karmas, which would obscure your mind and make it very difficult to practice. These are actions such as killing your father or mother, killing an arhat, causing schism in the Sangha, drawing blood from a Buddha.
So we haven’t committed those heavy negative actions. We’re free from that kind of obstacle. This is something to appreciate. In addition, we have an inclination for spiritual practice. There are so many people who aren’t interested in it.
But by some good fortune, we have that inclination. We have some faith. We have some curiosity. We have some feeling that there’s got to be more to life than just making money and having a good time. So that spiritual side of us, something very precious.
We should really respect that in ourselves and appreciate it. You also have a group of supportive Dharma friends around you, people who encourage you in your practice and who act as a good example. And you may even have access to a Sangha community of monks and nuns, which can provide a lot of inspiration for your practice. So appreciate the support that you have from other people that enables you to practice. This is something very precious.
You also have all the material conditions for practice. You have food, clothes, shelter, medicine. Your health is okay enough so that you can practice. So these conditions are very important. And while many people don’t have them at this moment, we do.
Something to appreciate. You also have access to qualified spiritual teachers who can guide you along the correct path. This is incredibly important because if you meet wrong teachers, uninformed teachers, teachers with bad motivations, or even teachers with good motivations, but the path they practice is misinformed. If you learn from somebody like this, then very difficult to gain realizations. But you have access to many teachers who are qualified who can help you.
It’s important to take advantage of that. And you also live in a country where you have religious freedom, where you don’t need to fear for your life because you have spiritual interest. So our religious freedom is something also to cherish very much. So if you reflect deeply, if even one of these conditions is missing, then it becomes extremely difficult to practice. Even one condition is missing, then it’s hard to make use of the others that we do have.
But this lifetime, at this moment, we have so many conditions, things that make it possible for us to practice. And it’s very hard to come by all these proper conditions. When we think about it deeply, we begin to have a very deep sense of joy and happiness and wonder, astonishment that how could we have been so lucky to have all these good conditions to be able to practice the Dharma? So think about these conditions deeply and let yourself feel like a beggar who just found a jewel. Let yourself feel incredibly fortunate.
And together with that, have a determination to take advantage of all these good conditions that you have.