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I would like to talk a little bit about how to conclude a day.
So, if we’re living a life and we go to work and we come home, what do we do in the morning;
what do we do in the evening? I talked a little bit about motivation in the morning
and if you think of a day as a precious opportunity, if you think of a day as a complete lifetime,
full of appreciation. Within that we’re working with many things that are happening.
I think as a meditator or as a spiritual practitioner or as a warrior,
we’re realizing that every day is a journey; we can learn from it.
So when we feel like every day is a path then there’s a sense of appreciation of all the exchanges,
interchanges that occur. So even if we’re left slightly confused or embarrassed
or there’s pain or there’s joy, I think all of those experiences we learn from.
If we can approach it in the right way in a sense, or if we can put it in context
in terms of a path or that we’re on a journey and through the journey we are learning and growing.
So in the morning it's re-invigoration and motivation, re-clarifying our orientation;
that's a very important point.
And at the conclusion of the day is a very important time. Within the Tibetan tradition,
especially the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, you know a lot of times in the evening there’s particular rituals,
or there’s certain chanting that is done to remind ourselves of how the day went,
what our motivation is, how we call it aspirational, or monlam in Tibetan.
And monlam it's just aspirational or wishing or reminding ourselves of important themes in our life.
We also feel like the end of the day is a time where it's going from day to night.
So there's an element of transition of light; going from a lighter to darker energy,
so we are more susceptible. I think often people say when you are driving dusk is a time of
a lot of people have accidents, whether it's just a light change. But there is considered to be a level of...;
not the whole day's energy is the same. There’s a moment of susceptibility.
So we could be less mindful, less aware during those times. We might get more irritated. I think just on a
practical level we’re probably physically more tired, because we spent the whole day
and likewise our mind will tend to be more tired. So we may come home and take a shower
and try to spruce up and, I don’t know, some people just may veg out on the TV
or they don't want to deal with anyone; put the newspaper up.
So I think everyone has different ways of dealing with it
and I think it is important that somehow if we take even 15 minutes to just self reflect
at the end of the day, to realize it is a very important time where we’re concluding. And in the
in the Buddhist tradition we say at the end of your life is actually a very rich and poignant period.
We say actually your karma increases or your karma becomes more manifest or stronger.
So what to do toward the end of your life is considered to be very important,
in terms of what your next life is: from a Buddhist point of view
because we believe in succession of lifetimes. So if you look at a day as a succession of lifetimes
like today is today and there's tomorrow, at the end of the day it's important what you do.
So you’re in a sense, you're taking what you learned and now you want to
absorb it and utilize it. You also want to reestablish and reconfirm what happened in your life.
So for example, if you put it in the lifetime context, people often at the end of life reflect on
what happened. They think, “I wish I wasn't so mean; I wish I had told somebody I loved them”.
And I have recently you know the last, for example, the last two or three days I have been
talking with a few students who are in the… some are in the process of dying. So you know,
we’ve been talking about what happens and the level of fear that comes up. But a lot of it is also,
just I think, they reflect on what kind of person they were and what kind of life they led.
And it's a very important time.
And so there’s regret; there’s a sense of confession: like I did this, I didn't do that.
There is also a sense of regret, “I wish I had the opportunity to do this better”.
So it is a very, very important time.
I think for most of us instead of unfortunately waiting 'til the end of our life, you know
we should be doing it before. You know you're supposed to do it at least monthly, annually,
and ideally daily, where you kind of self reflect, reflect and think, “What … I wish I hadn't done that”.
There’s a little bit of regret, but in a positive way. We always say there’s two kinds of regret:
there’s positive regret and negative regret. If you regret that you did something that was good,
like you helped you know a charity and you gave them some money, and later you regret
“Oh, I wish I hadn’t given it”. That’s kind of like a negative, you know like a bad regret
because you did something good. But if you yelled at somebody and you think you know,
“I didn't mean to do that. I yelled at… the person cried and poor thing”. You know.
Then that's kind of a positive.
So we learn from that and we go ahead. So we look at our life and we self reflect.
And I think you know we can do that for a few minutes at the end of the day.
And it doesn't have too much soul-searching; it doesn't have to be too heavy duty, but that we reflect.
Otherwise, I think what happens is we just sort of pass out; we veg out.
We don't want to think about it and we kind of hope tomorrow is better.
Here we’re kind of building slowly, day by day, the potential that tomorrow is better
or tomorrow is more fulfilled. We are taking what we learned. “So I know what I did yesterday;
this is what I want to do today”. So that again, just like motivation, the process of review,
looking at. Aspirational, like what do you want to happen? “I wish, I hope this happens, and this
gets better”. We make aspirational chanting, prayer. And I don't think to get too strange about it
it, but you know, when you do those chants and when you do those kind of thoughts, it puts your
mind in direction of something going in a certain way. So it is a very important time.
Instead of just worrying or just fading out and given some days we’re little more tired,
some days we are more energetic. But it is also an important day… an important period of the day
when we are practicing, self reflecting. So we meditate; it clears our mind,
we reflect on the day. We just kind of make a note, “Oh, I did this and this,
now if I live an important life and wish I have to use it better tomorrow".
So maybe that's something that you can try.