Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning? Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder?
Interpretation
People often take their health and life for granted until faced with illness or death.
This quote by Milarepa reflects on human nature's tendency to overlook the concepts of sickness and death while engaged in daily life. It highlights the suddenness with which illness and mortality can arrive, often taking individuals by surprise, just as lightning and thunder do. The metaphor emphasizes the importance of being mindful and recognizing the fragility of health and life rather than being preoccupied with worldly concerns.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of health awareness, one might quote: 'Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning?'
Life is short and the time of death is uncertain; so apply yourself to meditation. Avoid doing evil, and acquire merit, to the best of your ability, even at the cost of life itself. In short: Act so that you have no cause to be ashamed of yourselves and hold fast to this rule.
All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisitions and storing-up, and building, and meeting; and, faithful to the commands of an eminent Guru, set about realizing the Truth. That alone is the best of religious observances.
He who knows that all things are his mind, That all with which he meets are friendly, Is ever joyful.
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick
I have no desire for wealth or possessions, and so I have nothing. I do not experience the initial suffering of having to accumulate possessions, the intermediate suffering of having to guard and keep up possessions, nor the final suffering of loosing the possessions.
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.
People learn to shop for churches; there is no loyalty to the church. They're consumers being attracted to one product or another. I think it's sacrilege, to tell you the truth, it really is.
If you haven't met Satan recently, you are probably going his way!
There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list.
I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.
If it be true that democracy is based upon the assumption that every man shall serve his fellow man, the organization of democracy should be gradually adapted to that assumption.
Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.
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