That can develop a great motivation for you to practice while you're young! This is perfect! Don't put off for tomorrow what you have to do today, because you just don't know. Yes, it's very important, while you have the time, to put in a lot of good Kamma. Don't wait until you're old. Actually it gets harder as you get old, because we get stuck in our ways so much and it's very hard to shift. I'm so fortunate that I started meditating when I was twenty. I see many people when they get older, it's harder to change their opinions. I've seen a lot of older people who have become senile. They have actually depended on their good fortune through their life, being very fortunate in the ways of the world, with wealth, opportunities and pleasure, but as they get older, it starts to disappear they don't have anything to help them in those times. And it becomes very, very painful for them as they see all that they depended on for their happiness disappearing.
And as far as Kamma goes, one German student told us, there's a German proverb which says your true nature starts to be shown as you get older. I'm not sure whether they were right or not. But if you become senile then what you have done in your life tends to manifest more clearly.
I'll give you a little Thai story. There was a monk in Thailand who was getting older, and he became ill and he was a little delirious from malaria at the time. He was going on alms round, and because he was a little delirious and he didn't know what he was thinking about or what he was doing, every time someone came up and put something in his bowl he said to them, "Now have you become a stream-enterer1 yet?" And they wondered, "Has he gone strange? He's gone mad!" And they said, "No." Then he said, "Well keep on working!" And he kept on going on and on, and every person he met, he said, "Have you become a stream-enterer yet?" Every day he would go out and do the same thing. He was delirious from his illness, and after a while the villagers started to realize that he wasn't in his usual frame of mind, so when he asked them they said, "Yes!" and he said, "Very, very good! Keep working and you might become fully enlightened!" His going a bit senile was in a very nice way, wishing for other people to get enlightened.
So if we become senile, perhaps if we have developed a lot of beneficial qualities in our life, we'll go senile in a nice way, and not in an angry way. And as far as senility goes, there is a teaching on Kamma that if we lose our ability to make these decisions, it's our habitual Kamma that is going to support us in these times. If we have made a lot of good habitual Kamma during our life, and we're not able to make a conscious intended thought or decision at the moment of our death, then it is our habitual Kamma that will support us at these times. So if you develop a loving peaceful mind and a lot of good Kamma during your life, then perhaps you may be a little bit like this monk who asked people if they had become stream-enterers!