Mahamudra Teaching - Dharma Media

that, from this perspective, the precious human life that we have also depends on cause and effect.
Since we created or accumulated great merit or good, positive causes in the past, we can call this life
here and now a precious human life.
Precious Human Life
Even though there are so many human lives in the world, the human life, which we have, is even
rarer still since it is accompanied by the eighteen favorable conditions. This type of life is very, very
rare. It is not just rare to have the eighteen favorable conditions, but it is rarer still that we have come
in contact with the Dharma teachings, directly or indirectly, by many forces. And then by contacting
the Dharma teachings, we became interested in the Dharma teachings. They make some sense and we
regard them to be something useful and feel, “I should do it.” That is so precious. We can not get this
from any other source outside of us. This kind of precious human life with a genuine interest in and
genuine devotion to the Dharma teachings can not be matched by even thousands of “wish-fulfilling”
jewels. The wish-fulfilling jewel is so precious but the human life, which we have, nothing else can
match this. So therefore we should be confident of this and possess a clear and decisive
understanding of cause and effect.
As for the precious human life, many of you have read books about this and about the corresponding
eighteen favorable conditions. Just to refresh this, we will go through it briefly. When we talk about
the eighteen favorable conditions, we are talking about both the qualities called the eight freedoms
and the qualities called the ten endowments. The eight freedoms are as follows: we are free from (1)
being in the hell-realms, (2) being hungry ghosts, (3) being animals, (4) being long-life gods, (5) being
members of the border tribes, where teachings are unavailable, (6) a time in which no Buddha
appeared, (7) wrong views, (8) an incomplete sense of body. There are so many human beings and of
all those various beings, there are few that are interested in the precious Dharma teachings, and
within that there are fewer that have time to practice these precious teachings. When we know the
qualities of the Dharma teachings in a complete form, then we appreciate what this precious human
life means. It becomes such a unique kind of technique or opportunity, which if we take advantage
of, there is the distinct possibility to become free from all the delusions. This is something that no
other life form can do. We are so fortunate to have such an opportunity to attain the complete
Enlightenment State. That is what is called the precious human life.
In considering the ten endowments, there are five which we should have within us and five which
we should have from outside. The five within us include (1) to be a human being, (2) the place where
we are a human being is a place which has Dharma teachings to practice, (3) we have the complete
sense organs, (4) we have devotion to the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and (5) we have not committed
any of the five heinous karma. So these are the five endowments which we should have within us.
And then there are the five endowments which we should have from outside. The five conditions or
endowments include (1) the Buddha must have appeared in such time in which we are, (2) Buddha
must have taught the Dharma teachings, (3) the Dharma which the Buddha taught has continued,
that continuity of the lineage is there, (4) there should be followers of the Dharma teachings, the
Sangha members, who we can take as examples of how to study, practice, follow, in the teachings,
and (5) there should be kind supporters to our Dharma practices or otherwise that we have the
condition to study and practice the Dharma teachings. So these five are called the endowments,
which we receive from the outside.