"The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation"
About this Quote
History’s oldest procrastination hack is also its most merciless: the world will never stop giving you reasons not to sit down and look at your own mind. Milarepa, the Tibetan yogi-poet who made a career out of renunciation and hard-won transformation, isn’t offering a gentle wellness tip. He’s issuing a diagnosis. “The affairs of the world” aren’t just errands and gossip; they’re an infinite manufacturing line of urgency, status, obligation, and future-planning that keeps the self feeling necessary and therefore unexamined.
The line works because it punctures a common bargain: I’ll do the inner work after I tidy up the outer life. Milarepa calls that bargain a mirage. The affairs “will go on forever” is both cosmological and psychological. In a Buddhist frame, samsara doesn’t run out of content; in a human frame, the inbox is a hydra. Waiting for a clear calendar is waiting for a different species.
The subtext is bluntly compassionate: if you don’t claim your attention, the world will happily spend it for you. “Do not delay” carries the stern cadence of a teacher who knows how fast a life gets bartered away in small deferrals. Coming from a poet, it’s also craft advice: the quiet that yields insight is not the reward after living; it’s the condition that makes living legible.
The line works because it punctures a common bargain: I’ll do the inner work after I tidy up the outer life. Milarepa calls that bargain a mirage. The affairs “will go on forever” is both cosmological and psychological. In a Buddhist frame, samsara doesn’t run out of content; in a human frame, the inbox is a hydra. Waiting for a clear calendar is waiting for a different species.
The subtext is bluntly compassionate: if you don’t claim your attention, the world will happily spend it for you. “Do not delay” carries the stern cadence of a teacher who knows how fast a life gets bartered away in small deferrals. Coming from a poet, it’s also craft advice: the quiet that yields insight is not the reward after living; it’s the condition that makes living legible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Meditation |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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