Reading about the origins of modern human civilization and findings that suggest there are hundreds of thousands of years of possibly lost history is causing strange feelings to arise. On the one hand, there is the hope that the manussa loka (even if homo sapiens sapiens aren’t the ones to occupy the role of humans) will continue even after we perish seems to be a bright spot at the end of this age of degeneration. However, there is the simultaneous realization that this has happened countless times before which leaves one feeling that the whole charade is ultimately pointless. The truth is, though, that life is not lived at either of these conceptual extremes and I have neither the samvega nor the wisdom to see things in a clear and dispassionate way.
What I can do with these thoughts is put them to work in service of the goal. The amount of time it takes to cultivate the paramis is unfathomably long and will require that I spend no small amount of lives in hells and ages of decadence – one cannot perfect the paramis in the heaven realms. So, courage and determination are called for as well as a kind of Buddhist amor fati that embraces the current conditions as optimal for spiritual progress and development.
Cattāri Brahmavihārā 
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