The Five Lessons of Life Part 3

THE FIVE LESSONS OF LIFE

BILL ADAMS

RIDER                 2000

PART 1II

 

Chapter 4: The Second Lesson of Life

• “Sangratan’s down in the pasture, I’ll just nip over and see him.” I approached the camp fire cautiously. He beckoned me to sit beside him. “These last few days I have begun to realize all that I value, and there is so much. Once I started looking, I found value everywhere.”
• “And where do you find the things you value most?” “I find value in so many things – in the flight of birds, in the scenery, in people, but most of all my family.”
• “The people of this valley know that men and women need to live in harmony with each other and a multitude of living things, helping and nurturing each other for their mutual benefit. They also know that all things of value are shaped by living things. The smallest and largest of living things contribute to this land’s shape and form and when we can see the value they give, we give them their true value. The closer we can live in harmony with a multitude of life-forms, the more we prosper, man, beast and plants. Where beasts and plants, insects and birds do not survive, neither does man.”
• I contemplated the smallness of the human settlements in this vast land as well as the millions of human actions, large and small, over tens of thousands of years, along with the actions of uncountable millions of other life forms, that have created, shaped, re-created and reshaped the physical world.
• “There is so much to value but I don’t know where to start pursuing what I value. What should I be doing?”
• “You must understand the need to appreciate the power and value of small things. By your small actions you shape your large actions, as all large creatures and objects are shaped and determined by smaller objects and creatures. I can see you are beginning to realise this, so I will tell you the Second Lesson of Life. But first you must tell me how you came here tonight.”
• I told him about seeing the fire and walking through the dark with great difficulty. “It was good that you could always see the fire, which marked where you wanted to get to, otherwise you could still be stumbling about in the dark. We always get to our destination the better when we can see where we want to be. The clearer we can see the path, the easier the journey. However, if we cannot see or do not know where our destination is, we are very likely to get lost. The Second Lesson of Life helps us along the difficult path to where we want to be.”
• This is what Sangratan told me about the Second Lesson of Life.
• Once we have learned to keep before us what we value most, we must learn how to walk the path to personal fulfilment. The Second Lesson of Life shows us how to plan our journey so that we can maximize the joys that life can bring.
• Whereas the First Lesson teaches that we must constantly meditate on what we value, the Second Lesson shows us how to pursue that which we value most so that we can nurture and develop it and strive to seek greater joy.
• It reminds us that in this ever-changing world we always need to think ahead so that we can sustain that which we value, and develop that which we long for. In spring we must work towards the crops of autumn. In summer we must make provision to see us through the snows of winter.
• All men and women know this, they know they will not prosper long if they do not. However, sometimes, even when concerned with what they value, they fail to understand that permanence is an illusion. The cycles of living things affect us all.
• The fields of summer provide us with an abundance, but by the time spring comes, almost all the harvest has disappeared. So it is with all that we value. We must constantly strengthen and renew that which we value highly and seek a path to that which we value and have not yet obtained.
• The Second Lesson of Life reminds us that we cannot have everything at once and that we must keep a balance between what we have that we value, and any new objects or relationships of value we wish to pursue. Wise people have always known this.
• Each year we harvest our crops. At the appropriate times we sow, cultivate and reap. We feast, preserve and store. Always our vision is fixed on the present and on the future at the same time. Always we are informed by the past.
• Each day we work towards preserving and using what is, and each day we work towards producing for the future. Each new day we change our environment and in the process we change our lives. We preserve and store and maintain last year’s crop while irrigating, planting and cultivating for the harvest which is to come.
• So it is with our children; we nurture and care for them today, so that they will become what we want them to become tomorrow. So it should be with all the things we value, with our wives or husbands, with our friends, and all living things. We preserve and maintain our relationships today, while working to strengthen and develop them for tomorrow.
• Whereas the First Lesson of Life teaches us to keep before us what we value most, the Second Lesson of Life teaches us that each day we are building tomorrow. It tells us to work towards tomorrow so that we nurture the changes that come to the things we value. To do this we must keep in front of us what we want the future to bring.
• Without care and cultivation and nurturing, the fields are over-run with inedible plants and our crops fail. Without care and cultivation and nurture, all the things we value fall into disarray. We plant our seeds so that we can thrive and prosper on the harvest. Each day we tend them so that they are as fine and healthy as we can make them.
• We fertilise and irrigate, weed and replant and do any number of tasks to ensure that the harvest is as good as it can be. So it should be with everything we value. We can turn our dreams into reality but we have to care and nurture them as we do our crops, and it reminds us that this is an everyday activity – not a once-in-a-while activity.
• The husband who, every day, attends to his wife’s needs, will see her and their relationship grow and prosper. The traveler who walks everyday towards his destination will get there much quicker than the one who wanders aimlessly, or the one who does not walk at all, or the one who does not concentrate on where he wants to go.
• The First Lesson of Life helps us to see our possible destinations and the Second reminds us that everything has its time. Wise men and women know when to give importance to what they value, when to plan, when to act and when to move on. As the wise farmer understands the seasons and what needs to be done and when, so does the wise man or woman.
• Only the ignorant expect the crops to grow without being planted and nurtured, or the flowers to bloom without watering. The nurturing of whatever we value requires effort and patience on our part but once we are sure of what we value we quickly see what has to be done.
• People who cannot live in harmony with those they value should look to the efforts they are making. Is theirs the right kind of nurturing, are they expecting the relationship to be the same in the cold of winter as it was in the spring or the harvest time? Better to work towards the new spring, when they can replant and renew.
• Calamity and disaster come easily. Crops fail. Living in harmony is not easy. You can easily lose that which you value. Look to the future in the same way as the wise traveler keeps his destination in his mind’s eye.
• Those who have learned the Second Lesson of Life meditate in the morning and reflect in the evening. Each morning they consider what it is they seek to preserve, and what it is they seek to develop. When they do this they hold in front of themselves a vision of what they wish to develop and a time when that vision will be made manifest.
• In the evening they reflect on what they have done during that day to preserve, develop and nurture what they value. During the day they share their concerns and plans with those to whom they are closest.
• Each morning ask yourself how you can nurture that which is important to you. Think of some small action which will develop each of the main things you value, pledge to yourself to do these small acts before the evening. Do not pledge to do too many, nor to do acts which require extraordinary effort. A few very small acts (not more than 6) is quite sufficient.
• At the end of the day meditate on what you have done, count off your efforts to develop what you value, and look forward to the new day coming. Great events, acts, states of being, are simply the culmination of millions of small events and acts.
• First meditate on the values of life you understand yourself to discover what it is that is most important to you, then decide how you wish to develop that which you value. In towns and cities people do not meditate on what they value, but they are overwhelmed by the values espoused by others.
• Get a television and lose your children. You become a bucket overflowing with the values others want of you. What you truly value is often buried. Meditating on what you truly cherish will lead you to who you really are, and once you know yourself you will know where you want to be in the future.
• The world is now so full of so many lights that others want you to walk towards. Meditating helps keep your eyes firmly fixed on the light of what you value. It is a way of keeping that light in front of you so that you can walk towards that light, one day at a time, one step at a time.
• Ask yourself: How can I enhance and develop that which I value? How can I fill my life with that which I value most? What can I do today to move towards this new state?
• At the end of the day ask: What have I done to enhance what I value? What have I done to develop what I value? The answers are within.
• I knew that if I did what he suggested, I would find happiness, peace and harmony.

 

Chapter 5: The Power of Meditation