(Transcribe by Bro. Michael Leong)

Okay so this evening we are going to talk about Precious Human Life. And I think the more we understand the Dharma the more we understand the Four Noble Truth, the more we appreciate our life and its potential and the rarity of getting the kind of rebirth that we have-because not every human life is a precious human life according to Buddha's standards. A precious human life is a life in which we have the opportunity to practice the Buddha's teachings, in which we have the opportunity to progress on the path towards liberation and enlightenment. So as we can see there's many human beings on this planet, there's many sentient beings on this planet but those that have the opportunity to deeply investigate the Buddha's teachings and practice them are very few in number.So we are extraordinarily fortunate to have this opportunity.

So first of all what are the good qualities of our life. We have a human body and we have a human mind, which means we have the human intelligence whcih can used to develop the path towards liberation. Now clearly human intelligence can also be abused and sometimes human beings act worse than animals. Sometimes people always wonder, they always ask the question “ How can you Buddhists believe that human beings can be born as animals? “ and I reply “ Well, look at the way some human beings live when they are in human bodies. They act worse that animals because animals kill only when they are hungry or when they are threatened, but human beings kill for sport, they kill for politics, they kill for all sorts of … stupid reasons, as far as I am concerned, for honor, okay ? So as you can see as a human being act worse than animals while in this body, in future life it makes sense that they might have a lower rebirth that matches their mental state. So the fact that we now have a human body and not a human body, not a hungry ghost body or a god body, but a body that supports human intelligence and human intelligence that can be used to learn, to contemplate and meditate on the Buddha's teachings. Not only do we have the human intelligence but all of us are intact. We are not blind or deaf or mentally disabled. I remember at one time I was sent to teach in Denmark and one of the people at the Dharma Centre worked in a Home for mentally and physically disabled children and I wanted to go there and visit the children, so she took me and we walked into this very beautiful room, because Denmark is a very wealthy country, beautiful room covered with toys, colorful toys from one end to the other and all I saw was toys. And then I began to hear these very strange sounds, and these groans and these moans and I started to look more closely and I noticed that there are children among all these toys. But these children were disabled and they couldn't think properly or they couldn't move properly. So they are human beings. They were born in a very wealthy country with far greater pleasure and wealth than so many other children have and in spite of that they couldn't use their human body because of that karma that had ripened in their lifetime that made them disabled. So it's important for us to appreciate that we don't have that hindrance right now. We so often take our life for granted and fail to realize that we are really free of so many obstacles like that one. Not only that but we are born in a country and in a time when the Buddha's teachings exists and when the pure lineage of the Buddha's teachings exists from the time of the Buddha down to our own teachers. We live in a place where there is a sangha community, where there is support for religious practice. It would be so easy that we are born in a Communist country or in a country where there is totalitarian government where you might have spiritual longing but you absolutely don't have the opportunity to meet the Buddha's teachings, or you could have been thrown in jail if you even try to practice them. One of my good friends went to teach in a communist country before the fall of the Soviet Union and he told me a story one time how he had to give the teachings. It would be at somebody's house, because there was no way you could rent a public place and of course there were no temples. The people would have to arrive one by one at different times because they weren't allowed to have a gathering of many people together. When everybody arrived they went into the bedroom at the back but in the living room, the first room that you enter from the front door they had a big table and they put out playing cards and drinks, you know, so that they would have the dharma teaching in the back room but in case the police came they could quickly run out in the front room, sit at the table playing cards and pretend that they were having a good time. So imagine that, you know, I mean so difficult to hear the Buddha's teachings, you have to do that. And in China and in Tibet after the communist take over people are thrown into prison, they were beaten and tortured, just for saying Ami To Fo or Om Mani Padme Hom. So how fortunate we are that we are not born in that kind of situation. We are here in a free country, we have religious freedom, there's temples, there's dharma books, there's talks, I mean it's incredible to think of the opportunity that we have. In addition, for our side we have interests in the dharma and this too is very very precious because there are many people who have access to the dharma, they have a body and a healthy human body but they have absolutely no interest in it. Some of you may have been to Bodh Gaya, for example, the place of the Buddha's enlightenment or Srivasthi which our abbey is named after where the Buddha spent twenty five rainy seasons and where he taught a number of sutras. But you go to these holy places and there are people who live there, who are born there, you know, one of the holiest places on earth, with teachers, monastries, and books and everything around but all they want to do is make money by selling souvenirs to tourists, yeah? Or all they want to do is make money by running a tea-stall. And here they have access to the teachings of the Buddha but from their side absolutely no karma to be interested in it. So the fact that we have this interest and appreciation for the Buddha's teachings is really something very very precious. We should respect the spiritual part of ourselves, we shouldn't take that for granted. We shouldn't just say “ Oh yeah of course we believe like this but it's no big deal “ But respect that part of ourselves and really nourish it and take care of it Because it's hard to have this opportunity. Why is it hard? Well, it's hard to create the cause for a precious human life because first of all just to get a good upper rebirth we have to keep good ethical discipline. Now how many people on this planet keep good ethical discipline. How many people abandon the ten destructive action such as killing, stealing, unwise sexual behavior, lying, creating disharmony with our speech, harsh talk, gossip, coveting, ill-ill, wrong views – how many people abandon these? I mean you look at people in our world who are very famous. I mean, I am an American. Look at the President of my country George Bush. Does he abandon these ten? No way! He's dropping bombs here, he's shooting people there…. you know? Very difficult to get a precious human life when you think that killing other people is the way to happiness. So you might be rich and famous and powerful but if you don't keep good ethical discipline after you die the rebirth is really unfortunate. And when we look around it's actually quite hard to abandon negative actions. For example how many of us can truthfully say that we have never lied in our whole life. How about using speech, our speech to create disharmony. Anybody who has never done that, never talk behind somebody else's back? How about harsh speech, anybody here who has never lost their temper? And blamed other people? Or gossiped? Who here has never gossiped? Bla bla bla bla bla. Yeah? Well look! It's not easy to keep good ethical discipline isn't it? It's not easy. We don't find it easy and if we look at the number of people on this planet, they don't find it easy either. So the fact that we have this life right now, which indicates that in the past we had good ethical discipline it's kind of a miracle that we are born as a human being now, seeing how difficult it is to create good karma. Cos if we look it's hard to create good karma but negative karma , boy, we just sit down and relax and we create it right away. Okay? We sit down and immediately we covet somebody's stuff or we lied and we talked badly about this person, flirt with somebody who is not your husband or wife, very easy for people to create negative karma. Positive karma is difficult. So the fact that we have a human life right now as a result of the right karma that we created in the past, this is a real opportunity, very rare and precious.

Another cause of a precious human rebirth is practicing the six perfections or the six far- reaching attitudes. So for example being generous . That's one of the six. We might think that we are very generous people but I don't know about you. Often I give away what I don't need or I keep for myself what I want. Or if I get many things I give away the things of poor quality and I keep the good quality for myself, okay? Or I get an impulse to be generous and my mind says “ If you give away these things then you won't have it. You better keep it for yourself.” So it's actually hard to be generous. I don't know about you but for me it can be difficult and yet for the fact that we live in a country where we have enough to eat, we have shelter,we have medicine, we have clothing, we have computer, we have an air-cond hall, you know all these are a result of being generous in a previous life. So again we have a lot of good karma ripening to have the opportunity that we have. Another one of the six perfections that we need to practice in this precious human life is being patient – in other words not to get angry when we are suffering or when people harm us. Is that easy or difficult? What do you think? Somebody blames you for something that you didn't do. Are you patient or calm or do you get angry? C'mon be honest. Angry! Right away. We don't waste one second. We don't even think “ Should I become angry or shouldn't I?” You know, right away BOOM we get angry and we tell that person off because they criticized us. Being calm and not retaliating when we are harmed is difficult. Working with our anger isn't easy. So again our precious human life, we have a human body that work well, we are attractive people so that other people don't shun us – this is because we practiced patience. We can get along well with other people, we can function in society, we haven't been thrown in prison because we are disagreeable, you know this is a result of having practiced patience. So again we need all these differing conditions to have a precious human life and this come through having practiced diligently in the previous lifetimes. Or another of the six perfections is joyous effort and this is what gives us the ability in this life to complete the things that we set out to do. So then we have to see, is joyous effort easy or difficult to do. Is it easy to complete the things you want to do? Is it easy to take the light and being virtuous? Is it easy to sit and watch TV or to read a dharma book? What do you choose. Where does your joyous effort go. Does it go to watching TV or to reading a dharma book? If you have a choice between going on vacation to Australia or going on meditation retreat, what do you choose? So we see having taken enlightened virtue of joyous effort in the dharma is not easy. But somehow in previous lives we did it and as a result in this life we have the opportunity that we have to meet the dharma. We should really appreciate how rare and difficult it is to attain the conditions that we have right now, it's really precious. And I say this because so often in our lives we look at what's wrong in our lives, don't we? It's like this whole beautiful wall and there's one speck over there, and we concentrate on that and say what's wrong, that's bad and we miss the whole beautiful wall because we are looking at one thing. Well it's the same in our life. We have so many good things going for us and what do we do? We feel sorry for ourselves because of some small problem that we have. Oh… my friend didn't call me today, I'm depressed. Oh… my boss doesn't appreciate my work, poor me. Oh… my husband/my wife, they didn't smile at me today. We so easily get angry and feel sorry for ourselves, don't we? I call it the “Poor Me” syndrome because our favourite mantra is Poor Me Poor Me We don't do Namo Ami To Fo. We do Poor Me, Poor Me, Poor Me. Poor Me and we feel sorry for ourselves. How many of you people say the Poor Me mantra? (looking at the audience for a response but no hands went up ) Oh c'mon be honest, oh there's one person who is honest, ah there's more of you. How many people get to feeling sorry for themselves. (Looking around the hall) Ah..one more honest person. Okay so there's two honest persons in this room. The rest of you, you don't feel sorry for yourself? Really? Oh very good we'll give you lots of work to do. For the three persons in this room, you feel sorry for yourself. What happens is, you know there's so many good things going for us in our lives, and we just feel sorry for ourselves for these few problems. We don't appreciate that we have enough food to eat, yeah? I mean you think everyday how fortunate I am that I'm not hungry. We could have easily been born in Afghanistan or Somalia and be very hungry. We could have been born in Iran and be at the place of the earthquake. We haven't been born there. We have enough to eat. We have shelter. How fortunate we are. Or we could have been born in a country where there's absolutely no access to the Buddha's teachings. But do we appreciate that we are born in a place where we can contact Buddha's teachings and Buddhist teachers? Do we wake up in the morning and say “Wow! I'm so fortunate I'm alive and I can meditate this morning. I can read some prayers and I can read some dharma books and I can develop my inner potential, my inner human beauty. Do we wake up in the morning and feel excited about the day and think about how fortunate we are to practice the dharma. Or do we wake up in the morning, the alarm goes off and we go (pulling a sad face)“ Uhh..I don't want to get up, turn off the alarm. Okay I'll get up. I gotta go to work. I hate my job. Poor me I gotta go to this job that I don't like. The only thing is that I get paid a lot of money. Hmm. Money Money Money, I'll get up , I'm up, I'm going to work, this is fun, Money Money Money Okay?But then we get to work and again there's this Poor Me I work so hard, my boss doesn't praise me, he praises my colleague. Poor me, I work overtime and my colleague gets the promotion and I don't. Poor me, I get blamed for everything that goes wrong. My parents don't appreciate me, they want me to make more money and be more famous. My children don't appreciate me. They all want to go out with their friends. Even my dog doesn't like me enough. And then my little toe hurts. Poor me, my little toe hurts. You know? I mean, oh boy we really get into feeling sorry for ourselves. And meanwhile we have this incredible opportunity to practice the Buddha's teachings and to attain liberation and enlightenment, it just goes right by and we don't appreciate our lives. And we don't appreciate the value of each moment of living this life, yeah? So as a result we always feel dissatisfied. But I think if we were really to appreciate our human life we would greet each day with so much enthusiasm and so much joy, you know ‘cos we would really see the value of the opportunity that we have. And when we greet the day with joy, we live the day with joy. When we wake up always focused on ourself then the day becomes a disaster. When we wake up in the morning and we feel glad to be alive and we realize our potential to develop love and compassion for others and we start to do that then the day becomes very enjoyable, very pleasant, very happy. Some little problem occurs, it's okay, we can handle it. So what I'm getting at, the point here is that we create our experience our live. We are not living a life where we are innocent little victims and there's subjective reality out there impinging on us. But our mood creates what we experience and how we experience things. So if we appreciate our possibility to practice the dharma, our mind is joyful and everything we encounter in the day becomes an opportunity for practice. So our life becomes very rich and very meaningful. When we don't appreciate our opportunity and we're just very sensitive about Me and all my problems, then everything we see in our life becomes a problem and becomes a difficulty and you know, life doesn't have to be like that. Are you getting what I'm saying? So if we want to be happy and if we want to create a good karma for a good future rebirth and liberation and enlightenment we have to keep a happy mind right now, okay? I remember when I was a beginner, my teacher, he used to say “Make your mind happy” and I'll say “ What's he talking about, make my mind happy. I want to be happy. I can't make myself be happy.” But then as I practiced the dharma longer I realized we can make our mind be happy. All we have to do is to switch what we think about. All we have to do is change what we think about. So what I was just saying right now about appreciating our precious human life, if we think about that our mind automatically becomes joyful.

Another quality of a precious human life is that we learn many techniques for how to change how we think so that our mind remains joyful, So in the Tibetan tradition there's something called Thought Transformation. And I think in Ch'an, in Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhism, you have this as well where you say little garters , little slogans or little phrases when you are doing things to transform our thoughts, to transform our mind. So for example when we walk upstairs, instead of walking up the stairs and going “ Oh God this is so wearisome, I'm so tired walking up the stairs “, we think of walking towards liberation and enlightenment and leading all sentient beings up towards those noble goals okay? So when you think like that when walking up the stairs you don't get tired because you're thinking “ Wow, I'm leading sentient beings up towards enlightenment “. Or when you walk downstairs then you think I'm going to the unfortunate realms to help the beings there to be happy and to help them learn the dharma. Then walking downstairs has a lot of meaning. When you do the dishes it's not just “ Oh I gotta do the dishes, Why can't somebody else do my dishes. You look at the soap and the water and think it's the dharma and the dirt on the dishes, you know, the extra food that's the defilements on sentient beings' minds and you use the cloth, the cloth represents concentration and wisdom and the soap represents the dharma, and the dirt are the defilements on sentient beings' mind, and so when you clean, you think with concentration and wisdom “ I'm using the dharma to help purify sentient beings' mind”. Then washing the dishes become fun. Then you can think “ Okay now I'm purifying Osama bin Laden's mind. Great. I'm purifying George Bush's mind, that's even better, yeah? (laughter) Or this person who harms me, who I don't like, I'm purifying their minds of their misery and their anger. So when you think like this then washing dishes is fun. Or when you have to mop the floor, when you have to cleanse the floor, you do the same thing. Washing the dirt, removing the dirt from sentient beings'mind, leaving their Buddha potential there. So when you think like this when washing the floor, or waxing furniture or whatever, then those chores become very delightful because our way of thinking has been transformed and our mind, instead of being negative or being neutral, our mind now become very joyful and very happy and we create a lot of good karma through the way that we are thinking. So there's all sorts of things like these that we can do during the day. For example when we get dressed in the morning, instead of you know, looking into the mirror and thinking how do I look, how does this look on me? When you put your clothes on think about your offering garments to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Think of your clothes as celestial silk and you're offering all these beautiful silks to Kuan Yin, yeah? Then when you get dressed, getting dressed it's very nice then. Or when you're bathing you're cleansing all the anger from sentient beings' mind. You stand under the shower and think that the water is all the nectar coming from Kuan Yin's vase, you know all the purifying nectar coming all over you, purifying you, cleansing all the negative karma, washing all that away, filling you with Kuan Yin's loving compassion. So you think like that when taking a bath, then taking a bath is very nice. Then taking a bath becomes part of your dharma practice, part of your path towards enlightenment because of the way that you are thinking, okay? There's many thing like this that we can do in the course of a day, just transform our mind and make our mind go into the dharma.

One thing that I strongly recommend you to do is when you first get up in the morning - to set your motivation and you can do this and you don't even have to get out of bed. So there's no excuse for not doing the practice that I'm going to teach you right now. Because you can't say “ Sorry I couldn't get out of bed” ‘cos you can do this one in bed, okay? So you might want to write this down and put it on a post-it by your bed so you remember it. So when you wake up in the morning, first of all think “ I'm alive, I have this precious human life to practice the dharma, the day has started off marvelous already.” Then think – what's the most important thing I have to do today. Now our worldly mind will think “ I have to drive my children to school, I have this important project at work or I have to do this errand. No that's not the most important thing you have to do today. Actually the most important thing we have to do today is not harm anybody . Wouldn't you agree? Whether you get your errands done, whether you eat or go to work, whatever. Most important thing is as much as possible today I'm not going to harm anybody. I'm not going to harm them physically, I'm not going to harm them by saying nasty things about them and I'm not going to harm them by dwelling on negative thoughts about them either. So first thing in the morning you make that resolution.

Then another most important thing to do, there can be more than one most important thing. Second important thing is that as much as possible today I'm going to benefit others . So in whatever big or small way I can I'm going to help. Now,sometimes we feel “ Oh but I'm not Mother Teresa and I'm not the Dalai Lama and I'm not these great sages and saints who can , you know, help so many sentient beings, so how can I help anybody?” We can help a lot of people because let's face it, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa don't live in our family. They can't help our family the way we can. They don't go to our workplace or to our school. They can't help our classmates or colleagues the way we can, okay? So just by small things we do we can really contribute to the benefit of others. For example when you go in to work, smile. Smile at your colleagues, greet them, say ‘good morning' , see if that doesn't improve the way you relate to people in the work place. Try giving some of your colleagues some good feedback, compliment them on the work they do well, instead of competing against them, notice what they do well and say that, praise them, we don't lose anything by praising others. It's really funny along this line. I was teaching this one time in America and I gave the people in the class a homework assignment. Their homework was for the whole of next week everyday they have to say something nice to somebody, preferably somebody they have a hard time getting along with. That was their homework. Everyday they have to say something nice, and praise somebody, point out something they had done well. One man came after me and he said “Oh..I have this colleague at work that I really can't stand. And I said “Do you homework with this colleague. Find something nice to commend about him everyday.” So a week went by, I came for the next class and that man came up to me and he said “ You know, I tried it and the first day it was really hard. I couldn't think of anything nice to say to the guy, anything nice to complement him on. So I made something up!” and he said “ But then my colleague started acting different towards me. On the second day it was easier to say something nice to him and on the third day I began to actually notice that there are some good qualities in him so then I can complement him in an earnest way. So it's quite interesting. Just through this practice of trying of be of benefit and trying to be pleasant this whole relationship got transformed. You might want to try something like that. See if it changes things. I think we can also benefit the members in our family and this is very important because so often we take our family for granted. We think they're so much a part of us that we don't need to be careful about how we treat them, okay? How many of you are grumpy in the morning? (signaling for a show of hands) No response. C'mon, oh one honest person. The same one who was honest before. C'mon , who else is grumpy in the morning? Okay another honest person. So when we are grumpy in the morning who's the victim of our grumpiness? Our family. When we go down to the breakfast table, your kids are there. Your kids will say “ Hi Mom, Hi Dad, you know your kids are so loving, and you're just sitting there “uh…shut up just eat your breakfast, you know, you're grumpy when you talk to your kids. Or you're grumpy and you become a drill sergeant with your kids. Have you noticed that some parents actually act like drill sergeants? They don't know how to talk to their kids. All they know is how to give orders. “Get up! Brush your teeth! Go to the bathroom. You're late for school, hurry up, get into the car. You didn't comb your hair. What's wrong with you anyway. I told you five times to comb your hair. Do your homework! Turn off the TV. Turn off the computer! Take a bath! Go to bed! Some parents really, they sound like an army sergeant, don't they, yeah? So how can you benefit your kids if you treat them, you know, like that? So when we are talking about benefiting sentient beings, well, go down try looking in your children's eyes, look at them and see that there is a beautiful sentient being here. Here's this little sentient being who is so excited about life and she's growing up and look at your child and smile at them. And look at your husband and wife and smile at them. Really this is very profound dharma practice because who do we take for granted most? Husband and wife, don't we? “Oh take out the garbage, do the laundry, why don't you make more money, why don't you do this, why don't you do this, nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh you know? I have so many people come and they tell me “ My parents, all they do is bicker.” And when all these people get married, all of a sudden they find themselves acting just like their parents. They are horrified because they say they will never talk to their spouse the way their parents talk to each other and then there they are, talking to their spouse, nyeh, nyeh , nyeh, nyeh , nyeh…you know? So when I talk about benefiting sentient beings, try being nice to your husband and wife, Really, try respecting them, try treating them kindly, try helping them out. If you don't take out the garbage, try taking out the garbage. It may improve your whole marriage, believe me! Or try cleaning up after yourself. Can you imagine, you're a slob and you leave everything all over and expect your husband or wife to pick up for you and you wonder why they are not friendly towards you. Try picking up after yourself and see if your spouse doesn't act more nicely towards you. (A response from the audience ) What? A pampered husband! A henpecked husband? Well the way to get out of being a henpecked husband is to do what your wife says, then she won't bug you anymore! Aren't you glad it's a woman giving the dharma talk? A man would never say that. (joyous laughter all round) But really, try thinking. You know what your spouse like and what they don't like. Try being kind. Try doing some of those things. They will stop pestering you if you do it. So you see there are so many ways to benefit people in our family that we see everyday. When you get off of work and you're going home, before you go in the door of your home, just stop for a minute and breathe…. and stop and think “I'm going into my home and going to meet they people whom I care about the most and I'm really going to connect and be loving to the people and then open the door and go into your home. So if you set your intention to be kind and loving and to connect with your family there's a much better chance that you got that you are going to do that. If you just get off of work, and you go home and you just open the door, and you're going “ I'm exhausted! Bring me some water” and you bring out what's that thing for the television, the remote control, you turn it on and you sit in front of the TV like this ( portraying like a zombie in front of a TV), you know and you call that relaxing. And you wonder why your family is a mess, it's because you don't talk to the people in your family. Try coming home and breathe in, try to do a little breathing meditation, try to let the stress from the day go and then look at your family members and say “How was your day, dear?” Talk to your children “ How happened in your school today? How were your friends? What did you learn? Take an interest in them. You know..life is made of so many small events and all these small events are opportunities to practice the dharma by bringing love and kindness and compassion to them. Life is not a big event. It's just all these small daily things. So like I said, Dalai Lama can't come into your family and do that. YOU can! And before you go to work, set your motivation and think “ I'm going to work not just to make money but to be kind to my colleagues, give a good working environment and I'm going to work so that whatever product comes out or whatever service comes out, let other people benefit. So even if you're making cups “May all the people get the cups that my factory make, may they all be well and happy” “May everybody who drinks out of these cups may they always happy” Put your love into your work. Or if you're on the telephone all day, different clients “ May I benefit the people that I speak with all day” So it really transforms things. So that's the second thing that I was talking about, motivation in the morning. First important thing is to say to ourselves “ I'm not going to harm others as much as possible. Second, I'm going to be of benefit and service as much as possible.

Third thing to set our motivation in the morning is I'm going to generate the bodhicitta . The bodhicitta is the enlightened attitude or the awakening mind or altruistic intention. It's the aspiration to become a fully enlightened Buddha so that we'll have the wisdom compassion and skill to be of greatest service to everybody. So before you even get out of bed in the morning you generate that motivation. The real meaning and important purpose in my life, the real important thing in my life is “ I'm going towards full enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. And if you generate that motivation every morning and remember it during the day it becomes so much easier to handle the ups and downs of life because with the bodhicitta, with that altruistic contention, our mind is focused long-term on this noble goal of enlightenment. So if we have this small little problem during the day, it's not a big deal because we know our life is meaningful and we know we are going towards enlightenment. Somebody else hurt us, it's just a problem of today, it's not a big problem. I have a little thing that I say to myself sometimes when unpleasant things happen during the day. I just told myself “ Oh that's just a problem of this life. It's not so important. Well that's just a problem of today, it's not so important. I don't need to get so upset about it because I know where I'm going, my life is directed towards enlightenment. So little problems, I don't get the thing I want, people don't treat me the way that I think I should be treated, let it go, it's not a big deal. So you see, setting our motivation like this in the morning can be a very strong influence for how we live the rest of the day. Then during the day we try to remember this motivation as much as possible. And in the evening we sit down and do a little reflection and we evaluate how well we did. So did I harm anybody today? Well we might say, I started to get mad at my neighbor and previously I would have said something really mean to them, but today I kept my mouth close, I didn't say anything mean That's progress. Good Me. Pat yourself on the back and rejoice in the merit. But I was still angry at them. That's not so positive. So then you do a little bit of meditation on patience to clear out the anger, and then when you go to bed your mind is calm and you're not taking that anger with you when you sleep. So at the end of the day you just review and evaluate how well you did. Purify what needs to be purified and dedicate all the merits that you have created. Okay so that's a little bit about Precious Human Life, okay? How difficult it is to attain it. How to make it meaningful. And how to construct a good daily practice generating our motivation not to harm, to benefit and to aim for enlightenment. At the end of the day remembering it, and in the evening reviewing it and evaluating.

So there's a little bit of time for questions and comment so please ask whatever you like.

I should tell you that this is your chance to ask questions ‘cos lots of time people think “Oh I won't ask my question now. I'll go up and ask her after the talk. So what happens is nobody ask questions, then everybody lines up after the talk and of all things there's probably about five questions because everybody has the same question So please ask your questions now and be assured that probably other people in the audience also have the same doubts. ( no questions after some time ) Okay if there's no question we will do a short meditation and then we will close.

Okay, in this meditation review what you heard tonight. Take some points, something that was discussed and think about it in terms of your own life. Think about how you can put what you heard tonight and put it into use in your life and make some sort of a resolution. So let's just spend two three minutes doing this.

Silent meditation for a few minutes…

And then let us dedicate all the positive potential we have accumulated through sharing the dharma this evening.

And let's dedicate so that as much as possible in our lives we don't harm others or ourselves.

Let's dedicate so that as much as possible in our lives we can be beneficial to the people around us.

Let's dedicate so that this bodhicitta, this altruistic contention always grow in our heart and that we are never separated from this aspiration for enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

Let's dedicate so that this dharma exists purely in our mind and in our world forever. Let's dedicate so that we'll always have a precious human rebirth with all the conditions to practice the dharma and that we and everybody else can make use of this precious human life so that we can attain liberation and enlightenment.

Let's dedicate so that people can live peacefully among each other and also that each being can be peaceful within his or her own heart

And finally let's dedicate so that all sentient beings may quickly attain full enlightenment and be forever free from all problems and sufferings and abide in a state of bliss and wisdom and compassion

Okay? Thank you.

There are in the brochures for the abbey, there are two websites. One is for the abbey, you can see more photos and get the updates. The other is my personal website that's managed by my dharma friends in Singapore and there you will find lots of audio material, dharma talks, and also articles and things that you can read about. So there's resource for you tohave. If you don't have the brochures there's some up here. There's also some big books with pictures of the abbey so you can look at them again. So please do come and visit. And it's been very very nice being here. The temple is wonderful and I really rejoice at all the social service work that the monks and nuns here are doing, the education program and the opportunity they give you to hear teachings, practice and to meditate. So it's really good what you are doing here. I really rejoice. When I was in Kuala Lumpur I heard so many good things about Than Hsiang Temple and I come here and they are true. So thank you all.