Once,
The Buddha was sitting with three monks.
And he asked this question to them.
He turned to the first monk and he asked,
How do you measure the duration of a man's life?
The monk thought for a while and said,
By the number of days.
The Buddha said,
You do not know the way.
The Buddha turned to the second monk and asked the same question,
How do you measure?
The duration of a man's life.
The monk thought for a while and said,
By the time that passes during an activity.
The Buddha turned to the monk and said,
You do not know the way.
And then he turned to the third month.
And he asked the same question.
How do you measure the duration of a man's life?
And this monk said,
By the breath.
The Buddha said,
You know the way.
What is the significance of this story?
When the Buddha asked the first monk this question,
The monk said,
By the number of days.
That's how you measure the duration of a man's life.
Now this is a standard answer to measure things in time.
But this was not the true answer.
Then he turned to the second monk and he asked the same question and the second monk said,
You measure it by the time that passes during an activity.
Now this answer was slightly deeper because if you are present during an activity.
Only then that time is counted if we are not present.
If you are not conscious,
If you are doing an activity unconsciously,
Then that time is not counted.
But a much deeper answer was given by the third monk.
When Buddha asked,
How do you measure the duration of a man's life,
This monk said,
By the breath.
And that is a deeper answer.
Because This means that only when we are conscious.
Then we are present.
Then the time is counted.
Because the breath is always in the present.
If you are aware of the breath,
That means you are present.
And if you notice,
The breath is always here,
Always now,
Always in the present.
It is not in the future.
It is not in the past.
And so.
That means that only when we are present,
Only when we are conscious,
Only that time,
We are truly alive.
That time counts.
Rest doesn't.
Now this made me wonder.
That how much time do we actually live you know we average human life is 80 years let's say or I think it's lesser I think it's 70 or something 73.
And out of that,
How much are we actually living?
Because only those moments we can truly count as living moments in which we are present.
If we are not present,
If we are not conscious,
If we are in our unconscious behavior or patterns,
Then that is not really living,
Right?
So I was wondering,
How much do we actually live out of these 75 years or whatever that time is?
Maybe I feel maybe even less than 10 years or maybe even lesser than that,
On an average,
A human being.
Because especially in today's world,
Most people are not really present.
Most people are not really conscious.
So they are missing out on life.
So being truly alive means to be truly conscious.
Now the question is how do we do that?
And I'll share that for me.
It is through meditation and through mindfulness.
If I have a consistent meditation practice.
If I am meditating regularly,
Then it makes me meditative,
It helps me to stay meditative and hence it helps me to stay mindful and present throughout the day as much as possible.
The more I am meditative,
The more I am mindful.
So my question to you is.
.
.
Are you living?
Are you truly living?
This is the first question and the next question is,
If you feel that you can live more,
And how can you live more?
How can you be more conscious?
How can you be more present with life?
