Better than coffee...

... and I really like coffee! But for the past few days I've also been starting out with this little practice, and I like it, so thought I'd share:

Imagine someone gives you the opportunity to trade lives with another of the seven billion humans on this planet, randomly. It's a roll of the dice. Now think about the circumstances many if not most people find themselves in. Would you do it? Assuming the answer is no... take a deep breath and get on with your day, but try to walk into your day with an appreciation for the incredible opportunity you have to practice: food in the cupboards, electricity in your laptop, presumably no bombs going off outside your window...

-Jake

Nice. I've read things from Tibetan practices in particular that say similar. To be grateful for a life in which one has the leisure time, education and opportunity to study the dharma, to practice, and so forth.

"This precious human existence is extremely rare. The following analogy illustrates just how rare it is: Imagine that upon the surface of a vast ocean floats a yoke tossed continuously by wind and waves. Within that ocean swims a blind tortoise that surfaces for air once every hundred years. Of course, it is possible for the tortoise to emerge with its head [passing] through the yoke that bobs on the surface, but the chances that this will occur are extremely rare. Obtaining this precious human birth is just as rare as the tortoise surfacing for air one time in a hundred years with its head [passing] through the bobbing yoke. Surely this [surfacing] is possible, but it is so difficult and unlikely that it is next to impossible. Obtaining the precious human birth is likewise difficult."

www.tibetanbuddhistaltar.org/2010/05/precious-human-rebirth/

We're a bunch of lucky turtles, guys!

For me, being around death in a couple of intense instances really knocked me over the head. It was a pile-up of deaths that kickstarted my meditation practice in the first place, and later crises that cemented it as The Most Important Thing.

"For me, being around death in a couple of intense instances really knocked me over the head. It was a pile-up of deaths that kickstarted my meditation practice in the first place, and later crises that cemented it as The Most Important Thing."

For me, it's aging--my freaking hair is falling out. When I look in the mirror now or see myself in pictures, I'm reminded, not of my dad, but of my grandfather! Yikes!
The jig will be up one of these days! Better practice...