THE BUDDHIST WORLDVIEW
BEFORE DELVING INTO The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, it is first helpful to have a brief explanation of our current situation of life in cyclic existence, the self-grasping ignorance and self-centered thoughts that fuel our difficulties, liberation and full awakening as desirable states of peace, and the Buddhist path that transforms our mind into those states. These form the context for the teachings in The Wheel of Sharp Weapons.
From our usual perspective, we see ourselves as real individuals with our own unique essence, Self, or soul. Everyone and everything around us appear to be objectively “real,” existing from its own side, independent of everything else. This is the view of self-grasping ignorance. While people and things are fluid, changing, and dependent on other factors, ignorance confines them to being “solid,” independent, objective things “out there.”
Meanwhile, self-centered thought thinks, “I’m the most important one in the world. Everything should be the way I want it to be.” From this perspective, our task becomes to navigate our way through the external world so that we will encounter what gives us pleasure and avoid all that causes us pain. Security, comfort, and success are of greatest importance.
This view is limited in many ways. One is that it takes only ourselves into account. We primarily think about what I want, what makes me happy. While there are over seven billion human beings on the planet, we care principally about only one. Since everyone sees the world this way, we are left to quarrel about who really is the most important. Disputes, from family arguments to international wars, result from this limited view.
Another drawback is that it assumes only this life exists in the way that everything appears now. But a little reflection will show us that who we are is in fact fluid. Try this simple exercise. Ask yourself: “Am I the same person I was when I was one month old?” Our present body and mind are completely different; we are not exactly the same person as the infant in our baby pictures. Nevertheless, there is a continuum that connects the baby to the adult we are now. Similarly, there is a continuum that goes on after we die.
What we call “I” or “me” exists by being merely designated in dependence on a body and mind. While our body is physical and its continuity can be traced back to the sperm and egg of our parents, we also have a mind—the cognitive, perceptive, emotional part of ourselves that is not material form. If we trace back the continuity of our mind—each moment of mind being preceded by a previous moment of mind—we reach the moment of conception. Our mind at this time, too, had a cause, its preceding moment before taking place in the combination of sperm and egg. In this way, the continuity of mind can be traced back to before this life—the mind in previous lives. Although our body, mind, and self were different in our previous life, there is the continuity of the mind.
Going back from one moment of consciousness to the previous moment, from one lifetime to another, we see that we have been born into many different bodies in what we call cyclic existence, or samsara. Cyclic existence refers to taking a body and mind under the control of ignorance, mental afflictions, and karma. Cyclic existence is not our environment; it’s the state of our body and mind.
There is a saying, “Be careful what you want because you might get it.” In our case, at the time of death of one life, we wanted another body, and we got it! Why does our mind seek to be born in a body at the time of death? Having a body makes us feel real. On the basis of our body, we create many identities that we cling to, without which we would feel lost.
What makes our mind take one rebirth after the next? The fundamental cause is ignorance, a mental factor that misapprehends how phenomena exist. Once we grasp at a “real me” and think that our body and mind exist objectively and independent of everything else, mental afflictions arise: attachment to what gives us pleasure, anger at what interferes with our happiness or brings us pain. We become jealous of those who have what we don’t, arrogant regarding those who we think aren’t as good as we are, and competitive with equals.
Due to grasping a “real me,” we create identities based on our body: “I am this race, this ethnic group, this nationality, this gender, this sexual orientation, this age, this degree of sexiness, this degree of physical strength and athletic ability.” We also create identities based on our mind: “I am talented.” “I am stupid.” “I am creative, articulate, emotional, uneducated,” and so forth. Clinging to these identities, we react with attachment or anger toward what confirms or threatens them.
Motivated by these afflictive mental states, we then act—this is the meaning of “to create karma.” Sometimes we connive how to get what we want; other times we speak in inconsiderate ways; in other situations we may steal others’ possessions or use our sexuality in ways that harm ourselves or others. These actions leave on our mindstream—the continuity of consciousness—a residue, which may be called “karmic seeds.” Many different karmic seeds are planted on our mindstream in just one day, depending on the various intentions we have and actions we do. Depending upon which karmic seeds ripen at the time we die, our mindstream will be attracted to one or another type of body, and we are reborn. Sometimes we have kind intentions and act according to them, but because the fundamental ignorance is still present, these actions bring rebirth in cyclic existence nonetheless. These actions will influence the type of rebirth we take, where we are born, our experiences, and our habitual thought patterns and actions.
At the time of death, craving for our present life arises, and some of the karmic seeds on our mindstream ripen, making a particular rebirth appear attractive to us. We assume that new body and mind, and then cling to that new existence. When our sense powers contact various objects, feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain arise. Attachment arises for pleasant feelings, and hostility, for unpleasant feelings. Wanting happiness and not suffering, we again act to get what we find desirable and destroy or distance ourselves from what we find unpleasant. We respond to neutral feelings with apathy or boredom and distract ourselves. Actions motivated by kindness, compassion, wisdom, and the like lead to happiness in the future, while actions rooted in greed, hostility, and closed-mindedness bring us suffering.
This cycle goes on and on. We are born into one body after another, experiencing sickness, aging, and death repeatedly. Between birth and death, we try so hard to get what we want and avoid what we do not want, but are never completely successful. Meanwhile, suffering that we don’t wish for comes our way.
This is cyclic existence, and we have been experiencing it beginninglessly. From a Buddhist perspective, there was no initial moment in which this cycle began. Cyclic existence is not the creation of an external Creator. Rather, everything arises due to its own causes, and everything that functions must have causes and conditions that produced it. Therefore, there can be no beginning; everything is preceded by its own causes and conditions.
Spending our time and energy searching for a first beginning is unproductive. The Buddha encouraged us to be practical by giving the example of a man shot by an arrow. If, before getting medical treatment, he insisted on knowing who made the arrow, how fast it was traveling, and where it came from, that person would surely die. It’s best to deal with the present circumstance and get immediate treatment for the wound. Similarly, if we become immersed in theories of a beginning, our life will go by without confronting our suffering and its causes. Instead, it is more useful to deal directly with how afflictions create our misery.
MIND CREATES OUR EXPERIENCES
Our mind creates our experience in two ways. First, our mental afflictions motivate the actions that leave karmic seeds on our mindstream and eventually ripen in our experiences, as described above. Second, our thoughts influence our experience in each moment. Dwelling on perceived injustice to ourselves, we become unhappy and angry. Contemplating the kindness we have received from others, we perceive others as friendly and generous, and our mood lightens. A simple exercise is to observe the thoughts behind each of our moods, seeing how those thoughts—and not the external situation—affect our emotions and feelings of happiness and misery.
The moment afflictions arise, our mind is in a state of suffering. Attachment breeds dissatisfaction or fear of losing what we cling to. Jealousy creates a burning sensation inside of us. Arrogance stirs up restlessness. Anger may give us a lot of energy, but inside we’re not peaceful or happy.
In this way, the afflictions disturb our inner peace when they are manifest in our mind. In addition, they motivate actions that will ripen later in unsatisfactory situations. These situations, in turn, are the field in which more afflictions arise, creating more karma, bringing more uncontrolled rebirths. This is the meaning of cyclic existence. Seeing this clearly, the strong intention to oppose the three poisonous attitudes of ignorance, attachment, and anger arises within us, and we are motivated to attain liberation from this unrelenting cycle of unsatisfactory experiences.
The first step in doing this is to reverse the eight worldly concerns—four pairs of emotional responses that wreak havoc in this life and plant the seeds for misery in future lives. The first pair is delight at receiving and possessing money and material possessions, and dejection at not getting them or losing them. The second pair is delight at receiving praise and approval, and dejection when confronted with blame and disapproval. The third pair is delight at having a good reputation and displeasure when having a bad one. The fourth pair is delight at pleasurable sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations, and unhappiness when encountering unpleasant sensory experiences.
Spend a few moments contemplating how these four pairs affect your life. From morning until night, and even in our dreams, most of our time and energy are spent trying to get money and possessions, approval and praise, good reputation, and pleasurable sensory experiences, and avoiding their opposites. The attachment to the pleasant four worldly concerns and aversion to the four unpleasant ones are so powerful that we will act unethically to procure these or protect ourselves from them. Even when we are successful in getting the pleasant four, our attachment to them creates problems as we cling to them and fear losing them. When we don’t get them, our dejection leads to depression, anger, and even rage. As a result we act in ways that harm others and create suffering for ourselves.
The eight worldly concerns also distract us from spiritual practice, consuming our time and energy with plans, anxiety, and worry. They get us involved in destructive actions: fighting with others, taking their possessions, using sexuality unwisely and unkindly, lying, creating disharmony, speaking harshly, gossiping, coveting, thinking malicious thoughts, and pursuing wrong views. There is no space in our minds for virtuous mental states, such as genuine love and compassion, generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort, meditative stability, or wisdom.
In addition, the eight worldly concerns corrupt our Dharma practice by stimulating us to do the right thing for the wrong reason. For example, instead of meditating in order to attain liberation, we sit in a meditation position with a distracted mind, trying to appear like a spiritual practitioner to others. Rather than give a donation to a charity with the motivation to benefit the recipients, we do so with the wish to appear rich or generous in others’ eyes.
WORLDLY LIFE AND DHARMA ACTIONS
The difference between worldly actions and Dharma actions is the presence or absence of the eight worldly concerns. Subduing the gross forms of these eight is the first step in living a spiritual or Dharma life. Doing this requires time and persistent effort and leads to a peaceful mind. We will begin to consider that we will be reborn, and we will become concerned with creating the causes for a good rebirth that will enable us to continue our Dharma practice. On that basis, we can then cultivate even more noble motivations, such as seeking liberation from cyclic existence and progressing on the path to full awakening, so we can be of the most effective and long-lasting benefit to each and every living being.
Genuine Dharma practice is not the superficial appearance of reciting prayers, making prostrations, reading scriptures, or looking holy. It is about monitoring and improving what is going on in our mind, especially our emotional state. By taming the mind, our speech and physical actions will naturally improve as well. Is our mind seeking only the happiness of this life, or is there mental space to think about future lives, liberation, and full awakening? Is our attention focused on our own self-centered concerns, or is it directed toward the welfare of others? Are we thinking about long-term benefit or short-term pleasure?
In short, actions done with only a concern for this life and for the sake of the eight worldly concerns are worldly actions. Actions done seeking a good rebirth, liberation from cyclic existence, or full awakening are Dharma actions. Bearing this in mind is worthwhile since there is a huge difference between worldly and Dharma actions, and it is very easy for us to fall into old habits, seeking wealth, praise, good reputation, and sensory pleasure.
Sometimes people mistakenly think that practicing Dharma means having to give up everything that brings us happiness. In fact, chocolate cake, money, or a boyfriend is not the problem. The attachment, resentment, arrogance, and jealousy that arise in us in reaction to those things or people are the sources of problems. In other words, the deeper cause for our suffering is not the inability to get what we want. It is the craving that is obsessed with getting it. The moment we give up the self-centered craving that seeks “my happiness now!” our mind is peaceful and relaxed.
We begin practicing the Dharma by observing our mind and investigating our thoughts and emotions. What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What is the story behind this emotion? Is this mental state realistic? Is it beneficial? Am I exaggerating the good qualities of someone or something? Am I focusing on a particular goal because it will bring me happiness in the short term, even though it may interfere with others’ well-being or even cause me problems in the long term? Am I overestimating someone’s faults? Are my expectations of others unrealistic?
When we begin in earnest to observe our mind and investigate our thoughts and emotions—especially the habitual ones that arise so easily—we have begun real Dharma practice. Then, by studying the Buddha’s teachings, we learn the antidotes to the afflictions, practice them, and learn to cultivate constructive, realistic mental states. This will lead us to experience happiness now and in the future. In addition, we will become able to benefit others temporally and ultimately. This is what gives meaning and satisfaction to our lives. Such fulfillment coming from a life well lived is more worthwhile than possessions and money, praise and approval, good reputation, and sensual pleasure.
KARMA AND ITS EFFECTS
Causality functions in so many areas of our lives—physics, chemistry, biology, politics, psychology, economics, sociology, to name a few. In these areas, understanding causality enables us to shape our environment and experiences. In addition to these systems of causality, the law of karma and its effects influences us. The law of karma—actions of our body, speech, and mind—and its effects involve the ethical dimension of our lives. It answers the questions, Why was I born me? Why do things happen the way they do? What are the long-term results of my thoughts and deeds? The law of karma and its effects explain the link between our actions and our experiences and demonstrate why ethical conduct is so vital to having happy lives.
Karma means “action” and refers to volitional actions done by our body, speech, or mind. Karma has to do with our intentions; our mental plans, verbal communications, and physical deeds are all preceded by an intention. From the viewpoint of their causes, actions done with wholesome or virtuous intentions—such as kindness, love, compassion, wisdom, care, friendliness, and so forth—bring happy results, and thus are called “constructive (positive) actions.” Actions motivated by unwholesome intentions—such as anger, resentment, and greed—are considered and called “destructive (negative).” Here we see that hypocrisy and manipulation in spiritual practice don’t work to our benefit. While we can look good to others, if our intentions are rotten, so are the actions motivated by them.
We can also differentiate actions based on the long-term results they bring. Through supernormal powers, the Buddha was able to see the karmic causes of sentient beings’ present experiences. He labeled as constructive those actions bringing long-term happiness to the person who does them, and designated as destructive those actions that lead to that person’s suffering. Actions that lead to neither particularly pleasant nor unpleasant results are termed neutral. Thus our actions are neither inherently virtuous nor nonvirtuous; they become so in relation to their long-term results. The Buddha did not invent the law of karma and its effects, nor does he give out rewards and punishments. He merely described how this natural law operates.
What are the physical, verbal, and mental actions that cause long-term unhappiness to the person who does them? The Buddha observed ten unwholesome paths of action. Three are done with our body (killing, stealing, and unwise or unkind sexual behavior), four with our speech (lying, creating disharmony, harsh words, idle talk), and three by way of our thoughts (coveting, malice, and wrong views). The simple act of restraining ourselves from these ten creates constructive karma. In other words, when we are tempted to speak harshly, for example, restraining ourselves from harshly criticizing the other person is a wholesome action that will bring happiness. So is taking outside an insect in our house, instead of swatting or stomping on it.
Furthermore, doing the opposite of the ten nonvirtuous paths of actions creates constructive karma: saving life, protecting others’ possessions, using sexuality wisely and kindly, speaking truthfully, creating harmony with our speech, speaking kindly and encouraging others in constructive actions, speaking at appropriate times and in an appropriate way, thoughts of giving, love, and forgiveness, and correct views.
The law of karma and its effects has four basic principles. First, karma is definite. That is, happiness comes only from constructive actions, never from destructive ones, and suffering arises only from destructive actions, never from constructive ones. While the specific way in which a particular action will ripen is not fixed or predetermined, destructive actions will always bring misery and constructive ones will always bring happiness. Thus trying to justify our harmful actions by saying they will bring good results doesn’t work.
Second, a small action can bring a strong or long-lasting result in much the same way that a small seed can grow into a huge tree. For this reason, it is important not to rationalize our negative behavior by saying, for example, “It was just a little lie.” Similarly, being lazy, thinking, “It’s just a small act of kindness and isn’t of much significance, so why bother?” is a lost opportunity to create good karma.
Third, if we don’t create the cause, we don’t experience the effect. We ourselves are the creator of our experience, not another person or an external god. When we refrain from stealing, for example, we will not experience poverty or having our own possessions stolen. If we don’t practice the Dharma and create the causes for happiness, happiness will not come our way. The great masters say that simply praying for worldly happiness or for spiritual awakening is not sufficient. We have to create the causes for it through our actions.
Fourth, karmic seeds—the “residual energy” left on our mind-streams after we have done an action—don’t get lost. We will definitely experience their results, unless intervening forces arise. In the case of destructive actions, doing purification practices makes the results of those actions weaker, shorter, or occur later. The strongest purification practice is meditating on the nature of ultimate reality—the emptiness of inherent existence. Direct perception of this has the power to uproot seeds of destructive karma from our mindstreams so that they can never ripen in suffering.
Anger and wrong views have the power to interfere with the ripening of our virtuous actions, delaying the result or lessening the duration or strength of the happy situation. Therefore, we want to take special care not to destroy our own future happiness by allowing anger or distorted conceptions to govern our mind.
Once complete with three branches, our actions mature or ripen into three types of results. These three branches of a complete karma are the preparation, the action itself, and the completion of the action. (1) The preparation involves our motivation: we have a wholesome or unwholesome intention to do something, there is a certain thing or person that is the object of our intention, and we identify that person or thing correctly. (2) Then the action is done: either we do it ourselves or ask another person to do it. (3) Finally, the act is completed, fulfilling the aim that motivated it. In addition, we rejoice in doing the action.
Three types of results may come from actions done with all branches complete. These results usually come in future lives, but especially strong actions may bring their results in this life. The three types of results are (1) the ripening result, which is the body and mind we will take in a future life; (2) the causally concordant result, which is of two types, experiential (that is, we will experience a situation similar to the one our actions caused others to experience) or behavioral (that is, we will tend to do that action again in the future); and (3) the environmental result, which is our experience of the environment and climate where we live.
In the case of lying, for example, the ripening result is an unfortunate rebirth, the causally concordant experiential result is others lying to us, the causally concordant behavioral result is our tendency to lie repeatedly, and the environmental result is living in a filthy place where people are corrupt and dishonest.
Verses 9 to 47 of The Wheel of Sharp Weapons speak of the unpleasant causally concordant experiential results we are currently experiencing and what kinds of actions we did in the past to bring them about. This discussion enables us to identify our self-grasping ignorance and self-centered thought as the chief culprits that activated the afflictions that, in turn, motivated the destructive actions we did in the past that led to our present difficulties. Understanding this enables us to stop blaming others for our misery by realizing that the principal causes of it lie within our own minds. It also will make us more careful about the actions we choose to do in the future because we will be more aware that we’re creating our own futures through our present choices and actions.
Verses 54 to 89 focus on the causally concordant behavioral result—the habitual actions and attitudes underlain by self-grasping ignorance and the self-centered thought that we repeatedly do, which create the causes for future suffering. Learning these will make us more mindful of the values and ethical precepts we want to implement to guide our lives. It will also strengthen our introspective awareness so that we will be more aware of what we are thinking, saying, and doing, thus giving us more choice to either continue these actions or disengage from them. Instead of operating “on automatic” with little self-awareness of our choices and actions, we will be able to guide our lives with wisdom.
In short, our minds are the creator of our experiences. As the Buddha says in the Dhammapada (v. 1–2):
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.
BUDDHA-NATURE: OUR POTENTIAL TO CHANGE
Because our minds create our experiences, it is possible to free ourselves from cyclic existence by abandoning the ignorance, anger, and clinging attachment and the polluted karma that are its principal causes. These afflictions obscure the pure nature of our mind and can be removed. We have buddha-nature, the potential to become fully awakened buddhas, within us. As the very nature of our mind, buddha-nature can never disappear; we can never be separated from it.
What is this buddha-nature? There is a lot of discussion about this in the various Buddhist philosophical tenet systems. The view explained here is according to the Madhyamaka, or Middle Way, system, which most Tibetans consider to be the most accurate description of the nature of reality.
Buddha-nature is of two types: naturally abiding buddha-nature and transforming buddha-nature. Naturally abiding buddha-nature is the natural purity of the mind: its emptiness of inherent existence. That is, the mind lacks an independent essence of its own. If it had such an essence, mental afflictions would inherently abide in the nature of the mind; they would be inseparable from the mind and thus could never be eliminated. However, since the mind lacks inherent existence, it can change and the afflictions can be eradicated such that they can never arise again.
How is this possible? As described above, ignorance is the root of the problem. Because we misapprehend how we and other phenomena exist, anger, attachment, jealousy, conceit, afflictive doubt, wrong views, and a host of other disturbing mental states arise. These mental afflictions motivate actions or karma, and these karmic seeds then continue along with our mind. When suitable conditions arise, they ripen as our experiences in cyclic existence.
Ignorance is an erroneous consciousness—whereas people and phenomena exist dependently, it apprehends them as existing independently. By cultivating the wisdom that sees how things actually exist, ignorance can be eliminated. This wisdom correctly sees that people and phenomena are empty of inherent or independent existence because they exist dependent on other factors. All of us know that our bodies depend on the bodies of our parents, that our mental acuity is influenced by our education, that social problems and their solutions arise due to causes and conditions. Nothing exists alone, independent, isolated from everything. All phenomena are interdependent.
The wisdom that realizes that everything is empty of inherent existence because it arises dependent on other factors perceives the opposite of ignorance. While ignorance apprehends things as having an inherent nature, wisdom apprehends things as being empty of such a nature. Because wisdom apprehends phenomena as they actually are, ignorance cannot stand up to it. Ignorance cannot be manifest in the mind at the same time as the wisdom directly perceiving the emptiness of independent existence is manifest. When the wisdom directly realizing the absence of independent existence grows increasingly more powerful through familiarization and repeated meditation, it is able to overpower ignorance, uprooting it completely from our mindstream, eliminating it so that it can never arise again. In this way, it is possible to attain nirvana and full awakening. In the state of full awakening, naturally abiding buddha-nature becomes the Buddha’s nature body—the emptiness of inherent existence of a buddha’s mind and the true cessation of defilements.
The second type, transforming buddha-nature, is the seed for the unpolluted mind. It consists of virtuous and neutral phenomena that can transform into a buddha’s omniscient mind. These include the mental factors of concentration, love, compassion, wisdom, faith, and other virtuous mental states that we have now, but are currently undeveloped. The conventional nature of the mind, its clarity (luminosity) and aware (knowing) nature, is also part of the transforming buddha-nature. It is neutral—afflictions and defilements have not entered its nature—and can be transformed into a virtuous or wholesome state.
Every sentient being has two types of buddha-nature that are always present within them. No matter how disgusting someone’s actions may be at any particular moment, that person is not inherently evil or depraved. The actions are not the person. The person has buddha-nature, and thus change is possible; there is always hope, and that is a sound reason to respect each and every living being.
Afflictions are like clouds in the pure blue sky. The clouds are not in the nature of the sky. Although they may temporarily obscure the sky, they are momentary, adventitious. The pure nature of the sky remains untainted. The clouds can be removed. While we don’t have much control over the weather and the presence or absence of clouds, we do have the power to remove the clouds of defilements obscuring our minds. We can purify our negativities and create the causes for happiness and liberation. This is what this book is about.
The fact that we have buddha-nature also means that there is a valid basis for self-confidence. Instead of basing our self-esteem on transient factors—such as physical appearance, wealth, athletic or artistic ability, social status, others’ approval, reputation, and so forth—that will surely disintegrate with the passage of time, we can now base our self-confidence on a stable factor, our buddha-nature. No matter whether we are healthy or sick, rich or poor, appreciated or neglected, our buddha-nature is still present and gives us the possibility of attaining buddhahood.