Perseverance
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche says 
Every step we take is a step closer to the grave. As we walk, we should meditate on impermanence and death, otherwise that it will be a walk toward misery. Each step we take away from our room, that much of our life is gone. With the first step, that much of our life is gone; with the second step, that much more of our life is gone; and with the third . . .and so forth. By practicing mindfulness of impermanence like this, a walk can be so helpful.
Every step we take is a step closer to the grave. As we walk, we should meditate on impermanence and death, otherwise that it will be a walk toward misery. Each step we take away from our room, that much of our life is gone. With the first step, that much of our life is gone; with the second step, that much more of our life is gone; and with the third . . .and so forth. By practicing mindfulness of impermanence like this, a walk can be so helpful.It is the same when we are talking. With each word we say, that much of our life has gone. This is especially good to remember when we gossip, when we talk about meaningless things that cause delusions to arise. With that many words spoken, words that could have been highly meaningful for us and others, that much of our life has been wasted.
When we read a book, every word we read is one word closer to death; every page is one page closer to death. When we finish that book, it is one less book we will read in this life. When we eat a plate of rice, each time the spoon goes to our mouth, a spoonful of life has finished.
For every mantra we recite, think that life has become that much shorter; and after each mala, that our life is shortened by that much, that we are that much closer to death.
This is an especially effective meditation to do when we are driving because we are travelling at speed and so we can really feel how we are racing toward death. The faster we drive, the quicker we reach the hells. We might be driving to work or to a restaurant, but we are really driving to our place of execution.
The nature of impermanence is that we are all dying every moment. In a hospital there are doctors, nurses, and staff who are labelled โnot dyingโ and terminally ill patients who are labeled โdying,โ but in reality there is no such difference. We are all dying. Some of us have only a few hours left, some a few days, some a few years. And who is to say that the doctor treating the person in the last stages of cancer will outlive the patient? We all have a terminal condition called life. The difference between our illness and that of the cancer patient is just a matter of degrees. Ours will probably take a little longer to take effect.
All this is morbid and depressing unless we can see the truth in it and how this is the big wake-up call to get us to stop wasting our life. Seeing how we are racing toward death, we should think, โI must not waste my life. I must practice the Dharma purely. I must make my life highly beneficial by practicing bodhicitta. I will do whatever is of greatest benefit to sentient beings.โ By thinking in all these different ways about impermanence and death, we should reach this conclusion.
From the chapter *Overcoming Laziness* in which Rinpoche offers commentary and guidance on how to overcome this greatest obstacle to our happiness from ๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ: ๐๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฆ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ช๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ฉ๐ช๐ด๐ข๐ต๐ต๐ท๐ข
Read the rest of *Overcoming Laziness*
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