Excavate the Buried City of Enlightenment

The purpose of this meditation is to contemplate our precious, rare and meaningful human life, and then to develop the strong wish to use it to practice Dharma. Following this, I will meditate on what this wish means in the light of actions and their effects.

I began by recalling Geshe-la‘s instructions from The New Meditation Handbook. My (and your, dear reader) human life is precious because it has all the special freedoms and endowments necessary to practice Dharma.

It is rare because since beginningless time I only have only had a few human lives, and of those only a small number had all the freedoms and endowments mentioned above.

And it could be so meaningful. This – THIS – human life could be the means for me to free all living beings from the fears of samsara and solitary peace.

I thought about these points and after a while I got the image of my human life being like a spade I could use to dig through the dirt of my delusions, and to uncover the buried city of enlightenment. I imagined standing on a vast desert plain with this special spade in my hand, and starting to dig. As I brought the spade up I threw the sand into the air, where it was whisked away by the wind. I kept digging until I started to uncover the buried city of enlightenment. The spade became a trowel, able to carefully remove the sand from small nooks and crannys. Then the spade became a brush, which I used to carefully brush away all the remaining sand. Then the brush became a sponge and warm water, which I used to gently wash off the stains of the sand.

Finally I stepped back to see the magnificent glittering city of enlightenment, which had been buried under layer upon layer of delusion right under my feet. Buddha has shown me where to dig, and my human life is the precious tool I can use to excavate the site.

I thought about the digging, and how versatile and perfect my human life is for every stage in the dig. Then I thought about the glittering city of enlightenment. I saw its shining domes and towers sparkling in the desert sunlight. I imagined stepping into the city and becoming one with it – perfection! I stayed with this feeling of perfection while at the same time remembering that it is my precious human life which is the means to get me there.

After a while I decided to think about what this means in the light of actions and their effects. Clearly my actions of practising Dharma purely are the means for me to remove my delusions and reach my goal. Also, negative actions are like piling more sand ontop of the buried city! I must only dig!! I returned to my feeling of perfection with the added dimension of karma, and that if I just keep digging, I will definitely uncover the hidden city of enlightenment.

Dedication

May all living beings use their precious human life to uncover the greatest treasure – the hidden city of enlightenment.

Practice in the Meditation Break

I will remember to dig, and not to cover.

Meditation 5/1