Eat, Die, Repeat

When you get the mind quiet with the breath, it’s a good state of mind for asking yourself some important questions. You can ask yourself: What are you born for? What do you hope to accomplish? When the Buddha recollected his past lifetimes, it was a pretty dreary affair. He saw he was born in this way; he ate this kind of food; he had this kind of pleasure, this kind of pain. Then he died. Born again. Food. Pleasure. Pain. Death. Over and over and over again. He began to wonder what he had learned from all that, what he’d gained from all that. He realized the only thing you gain is when you develop good qualities in the mind, qualities that can take you out of the cycle entirely.

So when you ask yourself what are you born for, you can tell yourself, “I’m born to develop the perfections: generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity.” These are the qualities the Buddha had to develop in order to become Buddha. And these are qualities we should all develop in our lives, because these are the things that really stick with you.

You can gain all kinds of wealth, have it piled up all around you, but when you go, you can’t take any of it with you. You do, however, take with you the qualities in your mind, the qualities in your heart. So look at what kind of qualities you develop in the course of the day. Even in a situation where you don’t like it, such as days when it’s hot like this, you’re developing the quality of endurance. You’re developing the quality of determination, equanimity—not letting the mind get disturbed by events.

Look for the good qualities you can develop in the mind no matter what your situation. That way, you can take advantage of whatever the situation is. You don’t sit around waiting, “Someday I hope to have things like this and things like that.” You take what you’ve got and you make the best of it, so that when the time does come to go, you can look back on your life and say, “This was a life well lived. I came in here without much, but I’m going with lots more now,” in terms of good qualities in the mind, qualities of the perfections. That’s a life well lived. You leave the cycle, but you leave good things behind. You take good things in the mind with you, but you also leave good things behind. It’s not the case that you’re just running away. You’re improving the world by getting out of it.