It is important to think about the fact that we are mortal, and that we do not know when we are going to die. Contemplating this, we ask ourselves, “What’s the meaning of my life? What are the priorities in my life?”

If we do not contemplate uncertainties, like the fact that we are going to die, we will not grow a virtuous mind. Why not? Because we are going to be totally distracted from seeking happiness in this life.

Every person has an individualised version of the happiness he or she wants in this life. For some people, it is drinking and drugging. For some, it is camping in nature. For others, it is music, or bonsai trees. You name it, we all have different version of the sort of happiness we want in this life. No matter what the version is, the motivation is the same. It is seeking our own personal happiness right now.

There is nothing wrong with that, just that it consumes a whole lot of our time. We consume the virtue that has led to us having our present good conditions. If our interest is just the happiness of this life, we are not creating any new virtue. And since all happiness depends on virtue, we are not creating causes for future happiness.

When we work only for the happiness of this life, our mind gets preoccupied with a lot of very disturbing attitudes and emotions. When our whole focus is “I want what I want when I want it, and I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it”, there is a lot of attachment to what we want to do and what we want to have. And if it does not happen, if something gets in the way, or if we get sick, we get angry. We have so much attachment and clinging that we will do whatever we need to obtain what we want, and this can involve trampling on other people. If we are motivated only by the wish for our own personal happiness in this life, we will end up creating a lot of negative karma, wasting our precious human life,and not creating any new virtuous karma. We end up making little use of the virtuous karma that we had from the past that is ripening in our present good circumstances.

If we reflect on our motivation of working only for the happiness of this life, it does not have any real advantages in the long term. If we are fortunate, we get the happiness we want in this life, or you can work very hard for it and may not get it. There is no guarantee. People can work hard for wealth, fame, and all the desirable, nice things they want, but it is not guaranteed they will get them. When we ponder about this, we see that just working for the happiness of this life does not really have any great purpose and meaning.

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