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And spiritual life isn't, we can also learn that spiritual life is not always easy.
Fortunately for us and hopefully it's not as difficult as it is for Millerepa.
But we do need the gifts of challenge and hardship at times to actually drive us forward.
We need to have some kind of clarity so that we need to be, sometimes I need to be up against
something to change. I need to know that it's difficult and know and put myself behind it
for it to make a difference. And also it's very useful to be aware of the benefit and
outcome of skillful choices. So creating positive, calm circumstances for yourself.
So notice when you're happy and contented. They take it for granted.
Just notice those mental states as well. They're just as important as anything that's difficult.
And if there's no obvious reason for being happy or contented or relaxed or joyful,
delighted, you know, it could be where that you have acted very well and skillfully
and you are reaping the benefits. All our actions have consequences and we need to appreciate
that in its totality. So it might be that you have just acquired merit. You are a being of
punya. And it's very easy to write things these things off. So we might just go, oh it's just
good luck or it's, you know, random. Something good happens to it and it's random. The law of
fatigue is not a part of conditionality says that nothing is random. Randomness does not exist.
If we don't understand what's going on, it's just because we don't understand what's going on.
And I don't think good luck exists for Buddhists because luck in that sense appears to be random.
So we might not understand what's happened, but fortunate circumstances can be the hard one of
fruit of skillful action of our practice. So be aware of those good things in our lives. Those
mental states where we're relaxed at peace, experience happiness and joy and delight and just
notice and dwell in these lovely states of mind because even inexplicable happiness can be explained
and we can just take seriously the lessons of Milarepa. And as he said, life is short and the time
of death is uncertain. So apply yourself to meditation, avoid doing evil, acquire merit to the
best of your ability, even at the cost of life itself because it nearly brought him to death.
In short, act so that you have no cause to be ashamed of yourselves and hold fast to this rule.
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