To know the four foundations intellectually is not enough. We have to contemplate and meditate on them until we personally experience them from the depth of our hearts the preciousness of this human life; and that our life’s end can come at any time. This is how you practise the four foundations. Although we have this precious human body with its 18 qualities, if we do not develop bodhicitta, love and compassion in our hearts, this human life is of no use. There are many material things in this world but none of them can accompany us at the moment of death. The only thing we can take with us from life to life until enlightenment is our development of love, compassion and bodhicitta.

-- Garchen Rinpoche