Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided meditation, Venerable Thubten Chodron helps practitioners develop appreciation for the rarity and difficulty of human birth by examining the causes that produce it. She walks through the three main causes: maintaining pure ethical discipline by abandoning the ten destructive actions; practicing the six far-reaching attitudes of generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom; and making pure prayers and dedications toward enlightenment. Rather than treating these as abstract concepts, she asks listeners to look honestly at their own lives and those around them to see how difficult these causes are to create. She reinforces the point through two powerful analogies: a blind turtle surfacing once every hundred years in a vast ocean trying to pass through a floating golden yoke, and statistical reflection on the tiny proportion of humans who have all the conditions needed to practice Dharma. The session ends with an encouragement to use this precious opportunity wisely and to create the causes for future human lives.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 GM.mp3
UUID: 40f648b5-ecfc-427b-b4ee-d0d2016638ec
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~1,127
So we have a precious human life that has great meaning and purpose, and it’s very difficult and rare to attain such a precious human life. We have it this one time, but we have no guarantee when we’ll have another precious human life in the future. Precious human life, like the one we have now, is very rare, very difficult to receive because it’s hard to create the causes for it. One cause for precious human life is keeping pure ethics, abandoning the ten destructive actions. And if we look in the world, how many people have never committed any of the ten destructive actions?
How many people have never killed, stolen, had unwise sexual behavior, lied, caused disharmony with their speech, used harsh speech, talked idly, coveted or had malicious thoughts or wrong views. How many people do we know in the world who have not done those? And if we think about it, our society even encourages some of those things, and we do them quite readily. So even if we look at our own lives, we can see that we’ve committed a lot of negative actions. And we can get a sense that it’s hard to have a precious human life because it’s hard to create that first cause of keeping pure ethical discipline.
And yet somehow this lifetime, we have this precious human life. So think about how difficult it is to create that cause and appreciate that in past lives you did create it because you have that result now. A second cause that we have to create to attain a precious human life is to practice the six far reaching attitudes or the six paramita, generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom. How often do we practice those in our life? How often do the people around us practice those?
When we have the opportunity to give, do we give or are we miserly and fearful about losing things ourself? When somebody harms us, are we patient, or do we lash back? Do we approach our Dharma practice in the creation of virtue with joy and enthusiasm, or do we have to drag ourselves? So think about your own life. Think about the people you know, and see if it’s easy or difficult to create this cause for our precious human life, the cause of practicing the six far reaching attitudes.
Another cause for precious human life is to make pure prayers, to have one, and to dedicate our positive potential for the achievement of enlightenment and for having the conducive conditions to be able to practice. But how careful are we when we create positive potential and merit? Do we motivate before we do something positive? Are we mindful and completely present while we do it? Do we dedicate it afterwards?
And when we dedicate, do we really dedicate for the attainment of enlightenment, or do we dedicate for more worldly things so that our life right now will be happy, so that we’ll have money or a good relationship or good health? So check up if it’s easy or hard to make pure dedication prayers for a precious human life. So we can see that having a precious human life is not something to take for granted. It is rare and difficult because it’s hard to create the causes for it. So that makes it all the more important that we use our precious life wisely now and that we try as much as possible to create causes to have another one in the future.
We can also see by analogy that it’s hard to have a precious human life. So think of a blind turtle who’s swimming in a very vast ocean. He’s usually at the bottom of the ocean, but once every hundred years, he comes to the top for a gulp of air. There’s a golden yoke that’s floating on the surface of the ocean. What are the chances that when the turtle surfaces once every hundred years and being blind to boot, what are the chances that he actually puts his head through this golden yoke?
Sometimes he’s one place and the yoke is another. Sometimes the yoke is right above him, but he’s blind and he can’t see it. So we’re like the blind turtle. We’re blinded by our ignorance, swimming in the vast ocean of cyclic existence, mostly staying at the bottom of the ocean in an unfortunate rebirth. But every once in a while, like every hundred years as an analogy, we come to the surface and have a good rebirth just for a moment.
But even though we may come to the surface and have a good rebirth, we don’t necessarily have a precious human life with all the conditions to be able to practice. That precious human life is like that golden yoke that’s floating here and there on the surface of the ocean. Think about the analogy and think about the meaning for your own life and really appreciate your present opportunity. We can also see by numbers that it’s very hard to have a precious human life. First of all, just think on our planet, the proportion of human beings, not even human beings with precious human lives, but just regular human beings.
Think of the proportion of human beings to all the animals and insects. The ocean, there’s so many different animals. Tops of mountains, so many animals. The ocean, we don’t find any human beings. And even on land in one square kilometer, what’s the proportion of human beings to animals and insects?
So easy to get born in an unfortunate state as an animal, so difficult to have a regular human life. We can see that very clearly by the numbers. And even among the human beings, how many actually have precious human lives? There’s five billion human beings on this planet, but how many of them have all the outer and inner conditions to be able to practice? So many people live without religious freedom.
So many people have mental and physical impairments. So many people have no interest in spiritual matters. So many people have a hard time meeting qualified teachers, meeting a community that they can practice with that supports them. So many people have difficulties with their health or having enough food or enough money. So even out of all the human beings, such a small, small number actually have a precious human life with all the conditions to practice.
So if we have these, we should really use them and try and create the cause to have them again in the future. So, again, feel amazed at your present fortune and make a determination to use it wisely.