For the first one, actually it may be helpful to do a combination-type reflection using three types of reflections. Sometimes, when we are not giving enough time to our meditation practice we have forgotten what is actually important to us. So, often what I will use for these types of people, is to give them a combination reflection. First of all, I will ask them to reflect, combine their "Dedication of Direction" with "Death and Impermanence" and, the last of the five reflections, "To Care and Not To Care."
And I will ask them to actually go through their life and consider some of the things they are spending a lot of time on, relate it to how it affects their Dedication of Intention. Does it have any relevance towards this considering that you might die tomorrow? How much time are you giving towards this? And asking yourself whether you can care less about this? And, at that time, to make a resolution to bring up more equanimity towards this particular activity, through compassion to yourself. And when you see that you are not giving enough time to something that is important to your direction, considering that you may die tomorrow, to make a resolution to yourself to care more about this. Because often we forget our priorities in the course of our everyday life, we get caught up with things.
So, it is helpful to reflect deeply about how we are using our time in our life, and whether it is useful for us and relates to our dedication of direction, considering that we may die tomorrow, and learning how to care and not to care more. Having more equanimity towards the things that we think are so important at that time, but may not be, and having more compassion for ourselves to care more about the things that are important in our life. Because there are so many things that we may think we want to do, and what other people want us to do.
When we have been believing that something is very important when it is not that important, unless we have a keen understanding of what is important to us, we won't learn how to bring up more equanimity towards these things, making resolutions and determinations within ourselves. Then it is difficult to bring that determination to our everyday life when, especially the pleasurable things come up, "Ah, that looks nice to do." And then we forget about our dedication of intention, our direction, we forget that we may die tomorrow, we don't believe it, of course. Reflecting in this way can remind us again, "Yes, this is very important" and give us determination to have more equanimity towards these things, to be able to say: "Just not now".
"What was it that motivated you to give up your farm?" Lack of suitable conditions. I think Steve explained them. Although it was beautiful and a lot of people couldn't understand why we were suddenly letting it go, we started to realize what was important to us and what was not as important to us. The spiritual practice was becoming much more important to us than the farm. There was also a lack of spiritual friends close by. So, we decided to come to Thailand to spend more time on our meditation practice. We actually didn't know what we were going to, we didn't plan it, we just had this understanding that that was unsatisfactory, it wasn't enough at that time. Although it was a good life, it was unsatisfactory. And so the understanding of how important the spiritual practice was, developing ourselves, considering that we may die tomorrow became much keener. Although it wasn't easy going into the unknown.