Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

150 Timeless Rapture
If you don’t focus entirely on your own benefit,
You’ll fool yourself with the seeming appearance of helping others.
This human body you have right now
Is very difficult to attain repeatedly.
Once you are reborn in the three miserable existences,
You’ll have no chance whatsoever to meet the sacred Teachings.
Now, if your foot slips, you’ll fall,
To become like a stone in the depths of hell.
That’s the result of virtue and experiential cultivation
Put off for later—
Negative acts and faults pour down like rain.
Think of this and devote yourself to the Teachings.
Aging’s suffering will soon come;
Once sickness and unwanted circumstances appear,
It is hard for the Teachings
To draw a mind tormented by suffering to the path.
I ask you to devote yourself to the Teachings while you’re happy!
Now, during our human lives,
Our country’s and region’s changing fortunes,
Our spiritual masters’ and teachers’ lives,
Our monastic companions’ and tantric brothers’ and sisters’ destinies,
And our parents’, friends’, and foes’ situations
All expose the innate faults of impermanence.
Each passing year, month, and day
Is an instructor who teaches impermanence,
Evokes disillusionment, and is right beside us.
We will eventually have to leave behind
Any act we do at any time during this life—
Give up activity, my child, and meditate.
Your body is impermanent; its flesh and bone part ways.
As precious as this body is to you,