(Laughing) Very good. One of our old students prepared a complete list of all the meditations just to make sure they had everything. It was so long, stuff fell off the bottom of the page. Yeah, we're giving you a lot! Every retreat on the first night, we say, "We're going to give you a lot. We don't expect you to learn it all, we're all different personalities, and so on."
With the techniques it's actually helpful to write them all down, make sure you understand which ones they are. Write down which ones are for which purpose. And also write down what sort of mental states they're opposites for, so you actually know. See for yourself. If you're angry, OK, Compassion/Lovingkindness is opposite to anger. If you're full of future thoughts, death reflection's helpful to stop future thoughts. If you're just generally depressed, reflect on How Fortunate You Are, etc.
Now, regarding practicing them regularly; Of course you can't do every technique in one day, some of these techniques you can use more than others. For example with Compassion/Lovingkindness, we talk about systems. And on the printout for old students it gives you some examples for systems. You can do ages, you can do occupations, you can do countries, whatever, there are lots of systems. Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation can be done every single day. You can always do a little bit of Compassion/Lovingkindness, always do another system, this or that. If you ever think you've run out of systems, then ask yourself if you've done a hundred different hours of systems yet? Don't ever limit your Compassion/Lovingkindness. It can be done every single day.
Some of the other reflections can't be done every day. Say, for example, How Fortunate You Are. Once you believe this, you only have to remind yourself with one sentence every day. But I did say, "Once you believe this." A lot of people don't really believe how fortunate they are, so you've got to drum it in there first. You've got to actually go through long hours at a time reflecting just why you are fortunate. Each one of you walked in here. OK, you walked in here. Did that bring any image to your mind? You know, people who can't walk. A lot of you wrote questions on a piece of paper here. You know, how fortunate are you that you can actually write? I was astonished when I saw an entire map of the world labeling each country with little numbers for literacy rates in the different countries. This was right after, or during, the Afghanistan war. And Pakistan had something like 47 %, Forty-seven percent, whew. There were many others around 50%.
All of you are able to read and write, you can walk, you can talk. You've got to believe how fortunate you are, you've got to believe that just having the Dhamma is rare. As I said, from these people on the island in Thailand, 40,000 tourists, 50 come to the retreat. Granted a few others are at other centers in Thailand, but it's just amazing that you've got such good Kamma, that you're so fortunate. You've got to believe that. You may have to do that reflection on a regular basis once every couple weeks or something, until you finally believe it. Once you believe it, maybe one sentence a day, as I say, when you wake up in the morning, that might be sufficient to actually remind yourself, "Yeah, I'm fortunate." Then it may be something that comes up infrequently during the day. But as to doing formal practice, the "How Fortunate You Are" reflection, that's not going to be so regular, especially after you believe it. Reflecting on Compassion/Lovingkindness can still be every single day.
So this is something you've got to figure out for yourself, making a balance which fits for you. If you don't have heaps and heaps of future thoughts, if you're already pretty well in the moment, death reflection may not be as important. But for someone who's really caught up in the future, always dreaming that tomorrow's going to come, they definitely need death reflection. So, to see for your own personality, which ones you need more than others. If you're not sure, then what we can suggest is that you make a program and you make sure you go through every single one of them. If you're meditating morning and evening, then you make one for the morning, you make another one for the evening. You go through all 20 or 30 different techniques that you're going to have and you see how well you can go through each one. Then you start to see which ones you like to do more than others.
Also keep in mind that reflection meditation needs to be balanced with basic mindfulness meditation. That includes the breath, that includes walking meditation, that includes looking at the body, the physical sensations and so on. So we want to have a balance. If you're always doing reflection, reflection, reflection, that can get the mind too spacey. We have to also learn how to turn off the thoughts with the breath and with the walking meditation. So you've got to be sure you keep a balance there, too.