I know the world feels like a dark place at the moment. The doomsday clock ticking closer to midnight.
I am struggling to live in it. It is heartbreaking witnessing the intense suffering of this time. So many beings in pain just now. The greed, hate and conceit of the world is turning it into a Hell realm.
But remember, this life is brief. And it isn't all there is. It is a tiny moment compared to the length of an aeon. A bubble in a stream.
Maybe there's no hope at this time, perhaps we are heading toward a dark dystopia, and maybe the world is about to end. Perhaps we will go extinct, who knows?
The best thing to do now, is not let these dark times take away your virtue.
Practise kindness, generosity, and the way of peace, develop those tendencies of the mind. That is what will lead to a good rebirth, to a good destination in the next life, that's how to become a deva. It's what's in the heart that counts, that is the currency of the heavenly realms.
Just because the world is getting more and more depraved and crazy doesn't mean we have to be that way. We can choose to practise the opposite. To love. To be different. To be a light in the darkness.
We all have both good and bad tendencies in the mind. And it's these tendencies that lead to our karma. It is better to die with a heart filled with loving-kindness and generosity than one full of hatred and stinginess.
When we die it is the tendencies of the mind we have cultivated and developed in this life that decide where we end up in the next one. This is the only thing we take with us when we die. That is what will greet us on the otherside.
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