Life

Because life is important, our own life is important. But at the same time, because life is important, our own life is not important.

If we see only one side of this paradox, that is, if we think only our own, personal life is important, we will feel as if we are the center of the universe, expecting the world to revolve around us. Then we will be as if we are standing alone on a mountain top, looking at things and people from a distance, separate from them. Our mind will be standing in a remote place, limited to a small space.

But when we understand that our personal life is not something special, we will know deeply the importance of life

With this understanding, we can let go of self centeredness and practice selflessness with our life so that we can be awake and help others.

So when we come down from the mountain of self-importance, down to reality of life’s true importance, we can go anywhere. Life will have no limitations and mind no limits. To know the real meaning of life’s importance is to know how to extend practice into daily life. In other words, we will know what to do and how to do it and will not wait for somebody else to do it for us. And we will not delude our self into believing that there is no need to do it. Knowing the importance of life in the universal sense, we will not waste time but instead find humility, patience, courtesy, energy, and clarity. When these attributes become indelible in our character, we appreciate our inherent enlightenment.

On the other hand, when our own personal life feels important, we will become careless, arrogant, foolish, and lazy, and act and speak without reflection. We risk becoming separate from people, and from life itself.

We are very old, older than can be imagined. If we cut down a tree and count its growth rings, we can determine the age of the tree. But that is its relative age; our true age cannot be fathomed in that way. True age is beyond time, beyond the limits of mind. At same time, we are very young, born fresh each moment. And our ageless world is also born in that same moment. What is ageless and timeless shows its other side in each moment: its active, creative, transient side, as “lightning flashes in the dark sky.”