Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 22-minute talk, Ven Jampa Ignyen establishes why a human rebirth in this era is more precious than a wish-granting jewel — and why we must act now. He begins with causation, then explains what makes our life valuable: we possess all eighteen factors (eight leisures and ten endowments) that enable genuine practice. Unlike gods, who sink into bliss and abandon practice, we inhabit a middle way — enough hardship to stay alert, enough freedom to cultivate compassion. Through vivid stories (a worm that prostrates, a legless man seized by joy on a wild ass) and quotes from Ashvaghosa and Śāntideva, he argues that wasting this opportunity is supreme folly. His conclusion: the Buddha’s teachings last five thousand years, and we are already halfway through. Aimed at practitioners with some grounding in Buddhist doctrine.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 Rays 2001 10 31.mp3
UUID: 5ff0522c-94c4-4751-95e5-2101ebf02205
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Like Rays of the Sun (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-10-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 22.4 minutes
Words: ~2,562
Every element of our mental awareness, our sensory awareness, our internal experience has cause. Nothing, nothing impermanent in the universe can can ever manifest without a cause. So here we need to really rejoice in the fact that we have these eighteen things, these eight leisures and ten endowments. And then we should reflect that the general basis for attaining ultimate, ultimate happiness, the general basis for attaining ultimate happiness is birth as a human being. And human rebirth is the best basis.
What we have at present is the best basis possible. Not only that, we’re reborn as a human being in the in what’s called the southern planet of the galaxy. There are humans within Buddhism, it’s asserted there are humans in other regions of the galaxy. But it’s humans being reborn in this on this particular planet is a great benefit because in the other other regions, humans are very long lived or they don’t experience the afflictions and the the problems that we do here. But here, we’ve got a healthy dose of problems that confront us.
So we don’t become too lax. It it sobers us up a little bit, a bit of suffering. It’s a good teacher. But on the other hand, we have still sufficient leisure so that we have a a little bit of time to go into these issues, to practice, to cultivate positive states of love and compassion and so on. When we have enough suffering to remind us that we need to keep practicing.
There’s a story about the physician of the Buddha. At the time when the Buddha lived, he had a doctor. And although the Buddha didn’t really, need a doctor, he would manifest the appearance of this illness or that illness for the benefit of his student. And the doctor, he would sometimes call on a doctor, doctor would come and prescribe the medicine, he takes the medicine. And this doctor apparently lived near Vulture’s Peak.
In fact if one goes there, there is a monastery, remains of a monastery where I think this doctor resided at one time. That’s in India, in the central part of Northern India. Anyway, this doctor passed away and was reborn in the realm of the thirty three gods, which is a a divine realm within a divine it’s like a heaven in a desire realm. And the Buddha then thought to go and visit him because he’d been reborn there as a celestial being. But when he got there, the doctor was, was now reborn as a divine being, reclining, with these heavenly maidens.
And the Buddha approached and because divine beings often are reborn with clairvoyance, they remember how they what causes they established in order to be reborn there. So the Buddha come, but he was so overwhelmed with bliss and happiness in that state that all he could do is raise one arm. And the Buddha acknowledged him and realized that it would not be of much use to remain there, so he then came back back to the earth again. And in that sense, being reborn as a god is listed as the eighth state of non leisure. Because if one’s reborn there, there’s little suffering and therefore there’s little motivation to practice.
One’s blissed out all the time, one’s happy, But the type of happiness is a mundane type of happiness that will be exhausted at some point. So it’s a short term measure being reborn as a long life god. I mean, one may be there for eons. One can be reborn there for many a very long time. But eventually, because it’s a mundane existence, because it’s impermanent, certainly when the causes maintaining that existence are exhausted, then one takes rebirth elsewhere.
And also the intensity of the happiness that one experiences, the more intense the happiness, the more quickly one’s burning up one’s good karma. Even in the human realm, it’s the same. In a way, the more pleasurable one’s experiences, the more quickly one burns up one’s good karma. So, anyway, to be reborn as a human is the best basis here in this particular place on this earth. On Jambudvipa, the southern planet, our current home is the best place.
Our current home also is impermanent. So this being reborn here is praised in many discourses by the Buddha as an excellent place for practice to be reborn with a human basis this particular planet. Also, Ashvaghosa stated: When you have attained a human life with the potential to go beyond cyclic existence, the most excellent potential of the awakening mind, more precious than a wish granting jewel, what wise man or woman would not make it fruitful? So when we have obtained this human rebirth with this most excellent potential to develop the awakening mind, to develop great compassion, this human rebirth is valuable than a wish granting jewel if we stumbled across one one day. We had a wish granting jewel for anything we wanted.
A little bit like having a genie in a bottle or whatever. And we could just say anything and that would be produced. This precious human rebirth is regarded as more valuable. It’s funny. We tend to take it the other way around.
Precious human rebirth. We got a human rebirth. Not much meaning.. Not much meaning. But here, Ashvaghosa, this great sage in the past has said that this current human body is more precious than a wish granting jewel. What wise person would not make it fruitful?
We see that it’s like it’s even better than a wish granting jewel. Then who wouldn’t make use of it? Certainly, we’d make use of a wish granting gem if we came across one. It’d be silly, you know, if we had it and we just left it on the table. We knew that anything we said we’d get we’d be granted.
Of course we’d use it. We’d get that nice little house up in the hills. We had a couple of houses in town. We’d have an aircraft waiting for us and we had a cruiser moored down at Grunelt, holiday house in every capital. The sky is the limit, but our precious human rebirth is even more valuable.
So we should make use of it. Then also the guide to the bodhisattva’s way of life also says, so if when I have found such leisure as this, I do not attune myself to what is wholesome, there could be no greater deception and no greater folly. And if having understood this, I still continue to be slothful, when the hour of death arrives, tremendous grief will rear its head. Then if my body blazes for a long time in the unbearable flames of hell, inevitably, my mind will be tormented by fires of unendurable remorse. Having found by chance this beneficial state so hard to find, if now while able to discriminate, I am once again led to the hells, then it is though I were mindless, like one hypnotized by a spell, not even knowing what causes my confusion or what is dwelling inside me.
But here, Śāntideva is making a point quite clearly. We have a great opportunity. And if later we’re reborn in hell, certainly, we would generate great remorse for the opportunity we had and yet we simply practiced non virtue. And then the great Ashvaghosa also says, whoever is rich in virtue has accumulated it over countless eons. But he who has become but he who, because of delusion, does not gather such treasure in this life, will in his or her lives to come be imprisoned in a house of woe, like a merchant returning empty handed from an island of jewels.
Without the path of ten virtues, there is no way to obtain a human rebirth, without which there is no happiness and only suffering remains. Not to follow such a path is an act of supreme stupidity. So again, we have this opportunity to practice virtue, and that virtue would generate positive rebirths and positive experience for us in future. If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity, it would be what could be more stupid? What could be greater folly than that?
Therefore, thinking about this will give rise to wish to take the essence of this teaching to heart. As again, Śāntideva has said, now having paid my body its wages, I shall turn my life into something meaningful. So here meaning, we have this precious human rebirth. We give it this body of ours just what it needs to continue on. Give it a bit of food, wash it, and so on.
Then I’m gonna use it as a vehicle for establishing what’s meaningful. And again, he said, relying on the boat of the human body, free yourself from the great river of pain. It is hard to find this boat again. This is no time to sleep, you fool. So it’s almost as if we’re asleep at present.
And our time slowly passes. Also, Potawa, Potowa, who was one of the inspirations for this text. Potowa was a Kadampa Lama who lived at the time of Dromtönpa, who was the main student of Atisha. And then gives the following stories in a teaching of his called the teachings by example. He says, once a man was ploughing his field when he turned up an earthworm, to his amazement, the red worm stood up on end and prostrated to a nearby image of the Buddha.
It is equal equally rare for someone like us, just coming up from a bad state of rebirth, to turn up as human being and do something positive and spiritually beneficial. It’s true, actually. On the earth, there’s many humans, but not many that are actually practicing, like seeing a worm come out of the earth and do a prostration. On another occasion, a man with no legs was resting on the edge of a short drop. He lost his balance and, falling off, landed on the back of a wild ass beneath.
The startled beast ran off at a gallop, and the man hung on for dear life, shouting with glee, if I don’t enjoy it now, what else will a cripple like me when else will a cripple like me get the chance to ride on an ass? Likewise, we should see how rare our lives are and take joyful advantage of them. So we’re a little bit like that. Someone without legs who suddenly lands on a lands on a a vehicle. So we should take advantage of it.
Also, says, once a man from Tsang, Tsang is the central region of Tibet, came to Lhasa. He had never eaten fish before. So when he got the chance, he gorged himself on this rare treat. Naturally, it made him sick, but as he was about but as he was about to vomit, he tied a rope around his neck so as not to waste any of what he had eaten. We should be as unwilling to waste even a moment of our precious human lives.
On an occasion when his family were able to enjoy a rare delicacy, sweet buttered barley flour, a small boy, these are made of a bit of barley flour with a bit of sugar or gur, this brown sugar, and a bit of butter all wrapped up together. So a small boy was given one and hoping to get an extra one. He held his hands out in front of him while hiding his share behind his back. Here, he got one. Put the other behind his back.
Where a dog ate it. Leaving him none. So so therefore, we should take whatever opportunity we have to put the teachings into practice rather than simply trying to collect more. So this is good advice from Geshe Potawa. So from the above examples, can understand the importance of seeking a birth with high status.
Here, a human rebirth, a precious human rebirth. The cause of birth with the high status of a human being or god is familiarity with the three types of ethics, and life as a human being of this world is an excellent basis for this. So practicing the three types of ethics can be achieved on our current human body. And then also as it is said, when you obtain birth as a human of this world, which is so difficult to obtain, you should practice virtue with the utmost effort. So there’s some examples of initially contemplating the rarity and the value of this current rebirth that we have.
And absolutely thinking about this is of great importance. It might seem trivial, but a lot of our unhappiness day to day comes from various causes and conditions. But we can oppose that. We can create an adjective to that by simply reflecting on having a precious human rebirth that we’re so fortunate to have this current potential to develop. And if we rejoice in that, it really is a condition for our happiness.
Through the actions of beings in the past, And through those actions, the our existence here goes through cycles. So at present, we’re in a downward, part of the cycle. Yep. There also there is a human rebirth and a precious human rebirth as well.
And at present we have a precious human rebirth. So among human rebirths, there are many many, but not all of precious human rebirth. Precious human rebirth is one having all of those, eighteen factors. So that one is actually in a position to develop spiritually. Many beings, many human beings, don’t have that opportunity.
They’re born in a place where there’s great deprivation or there’s famine or war or, they’re not complete in sense organs or they don’t have an interest in don’t have any faith, in a spiritual path and so on. There is. And here on this planet, the Buddha Dharma only lasts five thousand years. So the Dharma here is the fourth Buddha of this eon, will only last five thousand years, and then it will disappear. And then it will be many thousands of years before a future Buddha will reappear.
Reappear. So during that period, it’s not the conditions for a precious human rebirth. They’re not exist. Not all the conditions are complete. That’s right.
Once the teachings of a Buddha disappear, then also the all the the characteristics of a precious human rebirth are incomplete after that. Well, then then you don’t have a precious human rebirth. There’s human rebirth, but not a precious human rebirth. It will disappear. Yeah.
It’s somewhat gradual. There’s ten periods of five hundred years over which it will survive. Now we’re starting to move into the the sixth period of five hundred years, And it will last for now, it will last two and a half thousand years. Already two and a half thousand years is gone. We’re right at the midpoint.
Then it’s it’s impermanent. It will pass. That’s why it’s important to practice because the opportunity exists at present. And the opportunity to practice again in future will depend on our practice in this life. Anyway, we might just stop there.
We’ll just do a quick dedication.