Every moment of our lives is precious. Our human lives arise as a result of enormous good karma, accumulated by us over eons of practice and kindness and insight and suffering. Now we have the result of all that effort – a body healthy enough to practice, a mind clear and stable enough to practice, the good fortune to encounter dharma teaching, people with whom we can share our lives and who value practice.

We expend our lives quickly. All the good karma we have accumulated is easy to exhaust. Life runs down.  Our time gets short. Our mind becomes cloudy. Our body does not remain ours. If we lose this chance to practice, we cannot hope to find another one very soon.

If we treasure what we have, if we study well, practice sincerely and behave with dignity and kindness, we will create conditions in our lives and in the lives of the people we touch which will produce future good results. If we dissipate the good fortune we have – pursuing things which, sought for their own sake, will not support us, things such as wealth, leisure, status, sexual activity, food – we become disturbed and dissatisfied, losing the chance to free ourselves from suffering, losing the chance to help the people who depend on us.

As human beings who have encountered the dharma – whether in Buddhist form, Christian form or some other form – we have a choice: to accumulate the causes and conditions for our future enlightenment, or to dissipate the good results of our own past actions that we now enjoy, and so cast our selves down into suffering.

By practicing with a calm clear mind, studying and contemplating with deep clarity, behaving in a kind and dignified manner – even if it is inconvenient, unconventional, difficult or lonesome – we can have the life we want: free from suffering, with the skill and energy to take care of whoever needs us.

As modern people we are taught to frame most questions of behavior as matters of personal freedom.  As if yielding to every impulse, desire, attraction and fear were freedom. In fact, such an impulse-driven life, devoid of purpose, is slavery.

If we are thirsty, in the desert, and have a last cup of water, we could chose to liberate the water into the sand, freeing it from the arbitrarily imposed boundaries of the cup. Or we could contain it, protect it, and use it in a way that will benefit our selves and others.

Oil can be used, if handled with care and skill by many well-trained people, to power the Dalai Lama’s jet and the dharma center’s heating system, or to help you get your kids to school and yourself to work.  Or it can be liberated from its undersea prison, killing many fish and polluting the oceans.  All “freedom” is not created equal.

Our life energy can be squandered on pleasure seeking, intoxication, manipulation, accumulation, lying and destroying. This way of living is advocated, vigorously, as good, around the world.