Making meditation practice a priority in our life isn’t easy. There are so many other things that compete for our time. There are professional responsibilities, family responsibilities, and then many of us volunteer various causes in our free time. So, finding time for meditation practice isn’t easy.

For many of us spiritual practice is not important until we have some drama in our life. Then suddenly spiritual practice is important - but that is like waiting to shut the barn door until after the horse has run a way. It’s too late.

We need to do spiritual practice now - to help us through the difficult times in life.

All of us assume we will live to a ripe old age. But the truth is none of us know when death may come. As human beings our lives can be snuffed out very easily. By accident, by disease, by natural diaster. If we were to really contemplated how close death may be - I am convinced that we would do more spiritual practice.

Three roots of death:

1. Certainty of Death.

2. Uncertainty of when death will occur.

3. What will be of benefit to us at the time of death?

There is a Buddhist parable about a layperson who asks for the Buddha’s advice……

Raj asked Buddha, “Reverend Sir, how come my mind wanders around to forbidden places and yours does not?” “Sir, how come I do backbiting and you don’t?” “Sir, how come I don’t have compassion for others, while you have?” All the questions that Raj asked were of similar nature.

Buddha replied, “Raj, your questions are good, but it seems to me that in 24 hours from now you will die.”

Raj got up and started getting ready to go.

Buddha asked, “Raj, what happened? You came with such vitality now you are totally dismayed.”

Raj said, “Sir, my mother told me that your words are true and are to be held in high esteem. So please let me go so that I may meet my family members, friends and others before I die.”

Buddha said, “But there are still 24 hours, Sit, we will talk more.”

Raj said, “Reverend Sir, please let me go. I must meet my people before I die.”

So Raj left and went home. Met his mother and started crying. The word spread. His friends came; other family members came; neighbors came. Everyone was crying with Raj. Time flew.

Raj was busy either crying or counting the hours. When only 3 hours were left, he pulled up a cot and lay down. Although the Death had not yet arrived, poor Raj was kind of dead.

When only an hour was left, the Buddha walked in.

Buddha said to Raj, “Raj, why are you lying down on the cot with your closed eyes. Death is still an hour away. And an hour Is 60 minutes long. That’s a lot of time. Get up, let us talk.”

Raj: “Sir, what is it now that you want to talk? Just let me die peacefully,”

Buddha: “Raj, there is still time and our talk will get over before the ‘ordained’ time.”

Raj: “Okay, Sir … say what you have to say.”

Buddha: “In the past 24 hours, did you curse anyone?”

Raj: “How could I curse anyone? I was thinking all the time thinking about death.”

Buddha: “In the past 24 hours, did you think or wish ill for anyone?”

Raj: “How could I do that? I was all the time thinking about death.”

Buddha: “In the past 24 hours, did you steal?”

Raj: “Sir, how can you even ask that? I was all the time thinking about death.”

Finally the Buddha said, “Raj, I don’t know who has to die and who has to live. But understanding the ultimate truth - i.e. death - can be very enlightening. All the questions you posed to me have been answered by yourself because of the awareness of death that you experienced during the past 24 hours. The difference between me and you Is that you were aware of death for the past 24 hours, I have been aware for the past 24 years.”

I often asks the students in my Basics of Buddhism class how would their priorities change if they knew they only had a short time to live. I suspect for most of us our priorities would change - just as they did for poor old Raj in his encounter with the Buddha. But as the Buddha was trying to teach, we should live every day as if it were our last.

A Buddhist teacher some years ago came up with the phrase “Practice like your hair is on fire.” It is a funny phrase and conjures up a funny image. In the current issue of BuddhaDharma there is an article by that same name by Gelek Rinpoche with a funny image on the cover.

I was reading a story recently about a ham radio operator who overheard a conversation on his ham radio. The other ham radio operator said he had come up with something that help him keep his priorities in perspective. He said the average person lives to about the age of 75 - of course some longer and some shorter. So he multiplied 75 times 52 (weeks in a year) and came up with 3900 - which is the average number of Saturdays a person has in their entire life. Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part. It

took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail”, he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.”

“Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on

the really important things in life.”

“There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”

I hear so many Rime members with excuses about why they don’t have time to meditate. But I encourage you to think about how fleeting this time we have on earth. You can think about how death is imminent like Raj - or how many Saturdays you have left. If you do, hopefully, you will be motivated to practice - like your hair is on fire.