“Within the body of flesh and blood lies something infinitely greater than the body itself, something that has nothing to do with body and blood. In this very body, which is born today and will die tomorrow, returning to the same dust from which it came, there lives something immortal, something that was never born and will never die. In form lives the formless, in the visible lies the invisible. In the fog of death burns the flame of immortality. In the smoke of transience lives eternity, a light that never fades.”
Dear friends, devote yourselves to the essential!
Life is short, and energy is limited, very limited. With this limited energy, we need to find the Boundless, and with this short life, we need to discover the Eternal. This is a great task, a great challenge!
Therefore, please do not allow yourselves to become completely absorbed by the non-essential.
What is essential and what is non-essential? According to Atisha’s definition, or, one might say, according to the understanding of all Buddhas, everything that death can take away is non-essential, while that which death cannot take away is essential.
Remember this definition and make it your criterion. With this criterion, you will be able to immediately evaluate everything that happens in your life.
Money, then, is not essential. It is useful, but it has no ultimate significance. Power, prestige, status, recognition and respect, death will come and take all of them away. So is it worth creating so much fuss around them during the few days we spend here?
This is only a caravanserai, a temporary stop along the way, and in the morning we must continue our journey.
Remember!
Only what we are able to take with us when we leave the body truly matters.
Apart from meditation, nothing truly matters.
Apart from awareness, nothing matters, because only awareness cannot be taken away from us by death.
Everything else comes from outside and will therefore one day be taken away. Only awareness is born and grows from within, and that is why it cannot be taken away.
Along with it grow love and compassion, the inseparable qualities of an awakened consciousness.
We will be able to take with us only the awareness we have attained. This is the only true wealth that truly belongs to us.
Therefore, devote yourselves to the essential. Do not waste your life on what will inevitably disappear. Direct your energy towards that from which something will be born that will remain with us forever.