“So hard to find such ease and wealth Whereby to render meaningful this human birth! If now I fail to to turn it to my profit, how could such a chance be mine again? ”
I’ve been very looking into Buddhism for a couple of years now, and I’ll write about how that got started and why I’m so interested some other time. For now, the point is that I feel a new sense of urgency in this pursuit, and it’s most recent and obvious catalyst is the quote above by Shantideva, and especially the explanation of it I listened to and read in Pema Chodron’s No Time to Lose, a Timely Guide to the Way of the Boddhisatva, which is by Shantideva.
I’m not young anymore, and I’m increasingly conscious of not having an infinite amount of time left anymore. But the starkness of Chodron’s commentary on the verse above, which I listened to on a crowded train into another day of work destined to be the same as the last—that is, fine, but not particularly transcendent or transformative—I was struck by a feeling of near panic about the way I’ve been spending far, far too much of my time. I’m not talking only about my study of Buddhism, of course, but of my life in general. But there is definitely this sense that there’s something there for me, in Buddhism, apart from just a confirmation of some ideas that I brought to it in the first place.
The passage that really got me:
“This life...is a brief and fading window of opportunity. None of us knows what’s going to happen next. As I’ve grown older with my sangha brothers and sisters, I’ve seen many friends die or experience dramatic changes in their health or mental stability. Right now, even though our lives may seem far from perfect, we have excellent circumstances. We have intelligence, the availability of teachers and teachings, and least some inclination to study and meditate. But some of us will die before the year is up; and in the next five years some of us will be too ill or in too much pain to concentrate on a Buddhist text, let alone live by it. Moreover, many of us will become more distracted by worldly pursuits—for two, ten, twenty years or the rest of our lives—and no longer have the luxury to free ourselves from the rigidity of self-absorption.
In the future, outer circumstances, such as war or violence might become so pervasive that we won’t have time for honest self-reflection. This could easily happen. Or, we might fall into the trap of too much comfort. When life feels so pleasurable, so luxurious and cozy, there is not enough pain to turn us away from worldly seductions. Lulled into complacency, we become indifferent to the suffering of our fellow beings. The Buddha assures us that our human birth is ideal, with just the right balance of pleasure and pain. The point is not to squander this good fortune.”
I actually broke out in a sweat listening to this and thinking about how I had spent the past three-day weekend. Basically, I hadn’t done anything that I had planned to do, almost nothing that would contribute to my physical or mental health, and not even anything that I might guilty enjoy regretting. Apart from sitting out in the courtyard listening to an Andrea Fella on the Conditioned Nature of Reality, and sorting out the problems of people who weren’t me, I hadn’t done anything in three days that I would consider remotely useful in my life.
And so I set up this blog, and started making some other changes to my life. Meditation, studying, writing, and exercise are my goals, now, and this blog should hopefully help me make some progress and hold me accountable in at least three of the four areas. There really isn’t that much time left in my left at best, and it might be much shorter than I’d hope.
Although I’m going back to studying the sutras again, I’m also definitely looking forward to hearing more of this book by Pema Chodron. I’m more interested in Theravada than Shantideva’s Mahayana Buddhism, and certainly more than the Shamballa version that I had been afraid Pema Chodron represented. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for my interest in the Bodhicaryavatara, I probably wouldn’t have picked up one of her books. Shamballa has always struck me as pretty troubling (I’ll maybe explain why a bit later), and recent news has only reinforced that feeling.
But, if I hadn’t gotten past those ideas, I might never have experienced that moment of sweaty dread on the PATH train, never have rededicated myself to this pursuit, and never started this blog. It’s a good reminder to me to be more open to new kinds and ways of thought, and new thinkers.