People had so much merit to be born at a time when Buddha’s teachings exist. Although we did not have the fortune to be born during Buddha’s time, we have the fortune to receive his teachings from a pure lineage that goes back to him. We should be thinking with gratitude of the kindness of the Buddha, for being on this planet and teaching us the Dharma.

What would happen to us if the Buddha did not manifest and teach? It is not as if the Dharma is automatically going to exist in our world. There are so many places in this universe where the Dharma does not exist, where the teachings are not present. If you are born in that place, you might have an incredible spiritual longing, incredible desire, and absolutely no opportunity to meet the Dharma. It is interesting to reflect, “If we had not met the Dharma, what would have happened to us? What would our lives be like?” I do not know about you, but my life would have been a total mess. I would have harmed many people in the course of living out my self-centred impulses, creating much negative karma, and headed surely towards the hell realm in my future life.

The fact that the Buddha appeared and gave us a chance to meet the teachings has completely reversed the course I was headed for, and I assume yours as well. Realising this, you would really feel a lot of gratitude to the Buddha for what he did and to the whole lineage of teachers, including our teachers who preserved these teachings for us so that we could come in contact with them.

“365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!