The Blessing of a Long Life

~ By Ajahn Jayasāro ~

In all parts of the world, a long life is considered a blessing. But what is a long life? What if it were defined in terms of the time we are conscious of being alive? By this definition a person 60 years old who sleeps eight hours a night, has had only 40 years of life.

And what if we were to go further? Nobody wants a long miserable life; implicit in the positive perception of a long life is that it should be happy. So let’s look at life in terms of quality time and observe how it is tied to quality of mind. Ajahn Chah used to say that every moment spent without mindfulness is a kind of living death. Count up how much of your life has been spent on automatic pilot, caught in daydreams of the future, or killing time with trivial, superficial concerns. So many dead moments! And how much time have we wasted through greed, anger, dislike, jealousy, anxiety and depression. Looked at in this way, a life of 80 calendar years might shrink away to very little at all.

Let us aspire to the blessing of a long life. Not one measured in years and decades but in the number of precious moments of mindfulness, kindness and wisdom.

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"Food for the Heart", a series of Dhamma teachings handwritten weekly is posted on the Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives page with Ajahn's kind permission.

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For other teachings by Ven. Ajahn Jayasāro, please visit the Panyaprateep Foundation website.