Question

Yesterday when I did the Paramis meditation, I wasn't sure how I could say I've grown in Energy, because as I age, I don't have as much energy as when I was young. Do you mean some other energy? Can you please explain?

Answer

Yes we do. Bodily energy and mental energy. Sometimes they're interrelated. Sometimes we don't have as much bodily energy, but the type of energy that we would like to have is a type of vitality in the mind. Even when a person is ill, there can still be mental energy there, if that particular person is contemplating in the correct way. For example, I remember one time I got very ill, and I did a lot of confidence inspiring objects of meditation at that time. I found that the mind was bright, even though I couldn't lift my hand off the bed. When the bodily energy isn't there, we can still have the mental energy. This is very helpful to us if we're contemplating subjects like death, because we may not have a lot of body energy if we're sick and dying, but we can still have that mental energy there, if we haven't got some type of unfortunate illness that affects the memory. So mental energy can be manifested as physical energy at times, but when the physical energy is not there, there can still be a mental vitality. I've also seen that sometimes when I'm teaching and I've got a lot of responsibilities and extra other stuff going on, I might be quite exhausted physically but there's still a mental energy that keeps me going until such time that I can collapse at the end of the retreat. So the mental energy can keep you going until there's times that you can recharge the physical energy.

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