Now that you’ve gained the support of a human life, so hard to find,
Aroused a mind of renunciation, so difficult to develop,
Met an authentic master, so rarely encountered,
And taken up the sacred Dharma, so scarcely discovered,
Reflect, over and again, on the difficulty of finding
Such a physical support providing all the right conditions for practice.
If you fail to make use of the full human potential you now possess,
Which is impermanent like a candle in the wind,
Don’t think that you can rely on it for a long time to come.
At death and in the bardos, lacking the confidence of liberation,
How frightening will be the next life’s sufferings!
When we must wander endlessly in samsara,
How distressing it is to contemplate its nature!
Whatever you can do to gain real confidence in this life,
I, for one, will be most grateful!
This is what I hope for you.
~ Yangthang Rinpoche