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                      MAKING THE MOST OF EACH DAY
    
    
  Now the time has come to go home from this retreat. In order to take 
  as much benefit as possible with us, we need to be aware how to 
  organize our daily lives. If we go back and do exactly as we've always 
  done, within a week everything well be forgotten. Coming to another 
  meditation course in the future, we would have to start all over 
  again.
    
    Who knows whether there is much time in this life. This is the only 
  life the we can take responsibility for. Here we have some control 
  over how we spend our day. The future is non-existent. "I'm going to 
  meditate 'tomorrow'" is foolish. There is no tomorrow, there is only 
  now. When the next life comes, it's this life; actually this is our 
  next life. Finding lots of reasons not to practice today is always 
  possible: the children, the weather, the husband, the wife, the 
  business, the economy, the food, anything will do. What kind of 
  priorities we have is strictly of our own making.
    
    If the future does not exist and the past is completely gone, what 
  do we have left? A very fleeting moment indeed, namely this one. It 
  passes quicker than we can say it. But by using each moment 
  skillfully, we can eventually have moment-to-moment awareness, which 
  results in deep insight.
    
    When getting up in the morning, the first thing would be a 
  determination to be mindful. Becoming aware of opening our eyes, is 
  the beginning of the day, and the beginning of mindfulness. If we have 
  opened our eyes before becoming aware of that, we can close them and 
  start all over again. And from that small incident we will gain an 
  understanding of mindfulness and what it means, then we can let the 
  mind be flooded with gratitude that we have another whole day at our 
  disposal, for one purpose only. Not to cook a better meal, not to buy 
  new things, but to draw nearer to Nibbana. One needs enough wisdom to 
  know how this can be accomplished. The Buddha told us again and again 
  but we are hard of hearing and not totally open to all the 
  instructions. So we need to hear it many times.
    
    Being grateful brings the mind to a state of receptivity and joyful 
  expectation of "what am I going to do with this day?" The first thing 
  would be to sit down to meditate, maybe having to get up a little 
  earlier. Most people die in bed, it's a perfect place for dying, and 
  not such a perfect place for spending an unnecessarily long time. If 
  one has passed the first flush of youth, one doesn't need so much 
  sleep any more.
    
    In most homes, starting at 6 o'clock, there is noise. If that is so, 
  we need to get up early enough to avoid that. That alone gives a 
  feeling of satisfaction, of doing something special to get nearer to 
  Nibbana. If we have a whole hour available for meditation, that's 
  fine; at least let us not practice under half an hour, because the 
  mind needs time to become calm and collected. The morning hour is 
  often the best for many people, because during the night the mind is 
  not bombarded with as many conscious impressions as it is during the 
  day, and is therefore comparatively calm. If we start meditating for 
  half an hour and slowly increase it until we reach a whole hour, 
  that's a good program. Each week we could add ten minutes to the daily 
  practice.
    
    After the meditation we can contemplate the five daily 
  recollections. Now the mind is calm and collected and has more ability 
  to reach an inner depth.
    
         I am of the nature to decay
         I have not gone beyond decay
         
         I am of the nature to be diseased
         I have not gone beyond disease
         
         I am of the nature to die
         I have not gone beyond death
         
         All that is mine, dear, and delightful, will change and vanish
         
         I am the owner of my kamma
         I am born of my kamma
         I am related to my kamma
         I live supported by my kamma Any kamma
         I will do, good or evil, that I will inherit.
    
    The exact words do not matter that much. Words are concepts, only 
  the meaning counts; the impermanence of our bodies, of what we think 
  we own, such as people and belongings, and being responsible for our 
  own kamma. Another recollection is about having a loving and kind 
  attitude towards oneself and others and to protect one's own 
  happiness, and wishing to same for all beings:
    
         May I be free from enmity
         May I be free from hurtfulness
         May I be free from troubles of mind and body
         May I be able to protect my own happiness.
         
         Whatever beings there are,
         May they be free from enmity
         
         Whatever beings there are,
         May they be free from hurtfulness
         
         Whatever beings there are,
         May they be free from troubles of mind and body
         
         Whatever beings there are,
         May they be able to protect their own happiness.
    
    
    Having reflected on these two aspects in a meaningful way, we can 
  keep three things in mind. First comes mindfulness, bare attention to 
  the prevailing mode of being. That can be a physical activity without 
  the mind going astray, or it may be a feeling or a thought which has 
  arisen. Paying full attention, not trying to bury it under discursive 
  debris, but knowing exactly what is happening in one's life.
    
    When physical activity does not demand our attention, we can again 
  direct thoughts to the fleeting aspects of our own lives and everyone 
  else's, and reflect what to do in the short time available. When we 
  consider this correctly, kindness, lovingness, and helpfulness arise 
  as priorities. We need not help a lot of people all at once. Even 
  helping one person, maybe someone who lives in the same house, is 
  beneficial. It is the attitude and motivation that count, not the 
  results.
    
    Many people want to do some good, but expect gratitude. That's 
  spiritual materialism, because they are aiming for a form of repayment 
  for their goodness, at least a very nice future life. That too, is 
  equivalent to getting pain, not in the coin of the realm, but through 
  results. Both attitudes could be dropped and the realization 
  re-established that "this is the only day I have, let me use it to 
  best advantage." "What is most important, if I only have such a short 
  time in this life?" Then we can act out of the understanding that in 
  order to drew nearer to Nibbana, we have to let go of self-concern, 
  egocentricity, self affirmation, personal likes and dislikes, because 
  otherwise the ego will grow instead of diminish. As we affirm and 
  confirm it more and more throughout this life, it gets bigger and 
  fatter, instead of reducing itself. The more we think about our own 
  importance, our own cares and concerns, the further away we get from 
  Nibbana, and the less chance for peace and happiness arises in our 
  lives.
    
    If someone has a very fat body, and tries to go through a narrow 
  gate, he might knock his/her body against either side and get hurt. If 
  someone has an extremely fat ego, s/he might knock against other 
  people constantly and feel hurt, other people's egos being the gate 
  posts against which one knocks. If we have this kind of experience 
  repeatedly, we get to realize that it has nothing to do with other 
  people, but only concerns ourselves.
    
    If we start each day with these considerations and contemplations, 
  we will tend towards not being overly concerned with ourselves, but 
  trying to think of others. Naturally, there is always the possibility 
  of accidents. Accidents of non-mindfulness, of not being attentive to 
  what we are doing, accidents of impetuous, instinctive replies, or in 
  feeling sorry for ourselves. These occasions have to be seen for what 
  they are, namely accidents, a lack of awareness. There's no blame to 
  be attached to other people or to oneself. We can just see that at 
  that particular moment we were not mindful, and try to remedy it in 
  the next moment. There's only the Arahant, who is fully enlightened, 
  who does not have accidents of that sort.
    
    The Buddha did not teach expression or suppression. But instead he 
  taught that the only emotions which are worthwhile are the four 
  supreme emotions (//brahma viharas//) and that everything else needs 
  to be noticed and allowed to subside again. If anger arises, it 
  doesn't help to suppress or to express it. We have to know that the 
  anger has arisen, otherwise we'll never be able to change our 
  reactions. We can watch it arising and ceasing. However this is 
  difficult for most people; anger doesn't subside fast enough. Instead 
  we can immediately remember that to express anger means that 
  particular day, which really constitutes our whole life, contains a 
  very unfortunate occurrence, and therefore we can try to substitute. 
  It is much easier to substitute one emotion for another than to drop 
  one altogether. Dropping means a deliberate action of letting go. As 
  we have learned in meditation, we can substitute discursive thinking 
  with attention on the breath; in daily living we substitute the 
  unwholesome with the wholesome.
    
    Usually our anger arises towards other people. It's not so important 
  to us what animals do, nor what people do whom we don't know. usually 
  we are concerned with those whom we know and who are near to us. But 
  since that is so we must also be familiar with some very good 
  qualities of these people. Instead of dwelling upon any negative 
  action of that person, we can put our attention on something pleasant 
  about them. Even though they may have just used words which we didn't 
  like, at other times they have said things which were fine. They have 
  done good deeds, and have shown love and compassion. It is a matter of 
  changing one's focus of attention, just as we learn to do in 
  meditation. Until this becomes very habitual in meditation, it will be 
  difficult in daily life, but diligent practice makes it happen. We 
  practice in spite of any difficulty. If we remove our attention from 
  one thing and put it somewhere else, that's all we need to work with. 
  We will be protecting ourselves from making bad kamma and spoiling our 
  whole day. We may not have another day.
    
    The immediate resultants of all our thoughts, speech and action are 
  quite apparent. If we keep our attention focused, we will know that 
  wholesome emotions and thoughts bring peace and happiness, whereas 
  unwholesome ones bring the opposite. Only a fool makes him/herself 
  deliberately unhappy. Since we're not fools, we'll try to eliminate 
  all unwholesomeness in our thinking and emotions and try to substitute 
  with the wholesome. All of us are looking for just one thing, and that 
  is happiness. Unhappiness can arise only through our own ideas and 
  reactions.
    
    We are the makers of our own happiness and unhappiness and we can 
  learn to have control over that. The better the meditation becomes, 
  the easier it will be, because the mind needs muscle power to do this. 
  A distracted mind has no strength, no power. We cannot expect perfect 
  results overnight, but we can keep practicing. If we look back after 
  having practiced for some time we will see a change. If we look back 
  after only one or two days, we may not find anything new within. It is 
  like growing vegetables. If we put seeds in the ground and dig them up 
  the next day, all we will find is a seed. But if we tend the seeds and 
  wait some time we will find a sprout or a plant. It's no use checking 
  from moment to moment, but it is helpful to check the past and see the 
  changes taking place.
    
    At the end of each day it can be a good practice to make a 
  balance-sheet, possibly even in writing. Any good shop-keeper will 
  check out his merchandise at the end of the day and see which one was 
  well accepted by the customers and which stayed on the shelves. He 
  will not re-order the shelf items but only the merchandise that sold 
  well. We can check our actions and reactions during the day, and can 
  see which ones were conductive to happiness for ourselves and others 
  and which ones were rejected. We do not re-order the latter for the 
  next day, but just let them perish on the shelf. If we do that night 
  after night, we will always find the same actions accepted or 
  rejected. Kindness, warmth, interest in others, helpfulness, concern 
  and care are always accepted. Self-interest, dislike, rejection, 
  arguments, jealousy are always rejected. Just for one single day, we 
  can write down all our actions on the credit or debit side, whether 
  happiness-producing or not. As we do that, we will find the same 
  reactions to the same stimuli over and over again. This balance sheet 
  will give a strong impetus to stop the pre-programmed unwholesome 
  reactions. We have used them for years and lifetimes on end, and they 
  have always produced unhappiness. If we can check them out in writing 
  or see them clearly in our minds, we will surely try to change.
    
    Starting the day with the determination to be mindful, contemplating 
  the daily recollections, realizing that this is the only day we have 
  and using it most skillfully, and then checking it out in the evening 
  on the balance sheet, will give us a whole lifetime in one day. If 
  this is done carefully and habitually, the next day, which is our next 
  life, has the advantageous results. If we've had a day of arguments, 
  dislikes, worries, fears and anxiety, the next day will be similar. 
  But if we have had a day of loving-kindness, helpfulness and concern 
  for others, we'll wake up with those same modes of being. Our last 
  thought at night will become the first one in the morning. The kamma 
  we inherit shows up the next day, we don't need to wait for another 
  lifetime. That's too nebulous. We do it now, and see results the next 
  day.
    
    Before going to sleep it's useful to practice loving-kindness 
  meditation. Having done that as the very last thing at night, it will 
  be in one's mind first thing in the morning. The Buddha's words about 
  loving-kindness were: "One goes to sleep happily, one dreams no evil 
  dreams, and one wakes happily." What more can one ask? Applying the 
  same principles day after day, there is no reason why our lives should 
  not be harmonious. That way we're making the most of each day of our 
  lives. If we don't do it, nobody else will. No other person is 
  interested in making the most of each day of our lives. Everyone is 
  interested in making the most of their own lives. We cannot rely on 
  anyone else for our own happiness.
    
    As far as our meditation practice is concerned, we must not allow it 
  to slide. Whenever that happens one has to start all over again. If 
  one keeps doing it every day, one can at least keep the standard 
  attained in the retreat, possibly improve on it. Just like an athlete, 
  who stops training has to start all over again, in the same way the 
  mind needs discipline and attention, because it is the master of the 
  inner household.
    
    There is nothing that can give us any direction except our own mind. 
  We need to give it the possibility to relax, to stop thinking for a 
  little while, to have a moment of peace and quiet, so that it can 
  renew itself. Without that renewal of energy, it decays just the same 
  as everything else does. If the mind is taken care of, it will take 
  care of us.
    
    This is a sketch of how to use one's day to day activity and 
  practice. We must never think that Dhamma is for meditation courses or 
  special days: it is rather a way of life, where we do not forget the 
  impermanence and unsatisfactoriness of the world. We realize these 
  truths within our own heart, just thinking about them is useless. If 
  we practice every day in this way, we will find relief and release 
  from our cares and worries because these are always connected with the 
  world. The Dhamma transcends the world.

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