9. HINAYANA REALISM

THROUGH PURSUING THE meditations of a practitioner of initial perspective, one generates a spiritual interest sufficiently strong to support refuge and observance of the laws of karmic evolution. These practices have the ability to protect us from evolving into lower states and to help us gain a higher rebirth, but are these sufficient attainments? Even in the higher realms we will not be completely beyond suffering, so higher rebirth is not a final goal. When we meditate on the sufferings inherent in the higher realms of samsara, our mind naturally begins to seek a state of freedom from all cyclic existence.

THE THIRD DALAI LAMA

Training the Mind on the Common Path of the Being of Intermediate Perspective of Spiritual Application

Although by avoiding the ten negative actions and practicing their opposites—the ten disciplines—one can attain a special rebirth in the higher realms, one will not pass beyond the frustrations of cyclic existence. For this reason one must look to the attainment of nirvana, or liberation beyond all frustration and pain.

What is the nature of the shortcomings of cyclic existence? Those of the lower realms have been explained above, and you should meditate well upon them; for once you have done so, you will realize that in no way would you enjoy such long and intense misery, and you will automatically give birth to an inclination to work by every possible means to remain free of such unsatisfactory modes of existence. However, even the higher realms are not beyond the reaches of suffering, and to progress along the path one must sooner or later face this truth.

Wherever we look in samsara there is only frustration. The intensity of the miseries experienced in the three lower realms have become obvious from our meditations as a practitioner of initial scope. But even attainment of higher rebirth is unsatisfactory, for once that life-form ends there is no guarantee that we will not fall back into lower states. We all carry infinitely numerous karmic seeds gathered over an endless stream of lives since beginningless time, and unless we have generated the wisdom that frees us from the influences of these karmic potencies, our higher rebirth will only result in an eventual return to the lower realms.

Maybe we will say that this is not so bad, that there is not much suffering in the higher realms, such as this human world. To do so is merely a defense mechanism. Normally we insulate ourselves from awareness of the sufferings of the human world, but when we meditate upon them, their pervasive nature becomes obvious. The rich and powerful suffer from mental pressure and the poor have physical pressure. Rulers of nations miss their sleep over not being able to fulfill their objectives; the wealthy constantly worry that they will be cheated or reduced to poverty; and the poor suffer from hunger, overwork, and so forth. There is no ordinary human being who has not experienced suffering. It is common to all of us.

THE THIRD DALAI LAMA

A man, for example, is wrapped in suffering. While in the womb he suffers from darkness, constriction, and immersion in filthy substances. When during the last months of the mother’s pregnancy the downward pushing energies manifest, the unborn baby feels like a small piece of wood being crushed in a giant vise, or like a sesame seed being pounded for its oil. And after he has emerged from the womb, he feels as though he has fallen into a pit of thorns, even if he has been wrapped in soft garments and placed in a feather bed. Such is the agony of birth.

The baby gradually grows into a youth, and soon he is an old man. His back bends like a bow, his hair turns white as a dried flower, and his forehead fills with wrinkles until he looks like a strip of sliced leather. Sitting down is like dropping a heavy load and standing up is like pulling out a tree from its roots. If he tries to speak, his tongue will not obey, and if he tries to walk, he staggers. His sensory powers, such as sight, hearing, etc., begin to fail him. His body loses its luster and resembles a corpse. His memory degenerates and he can remember nothing. Powers of digestion fail and he can no longer eat properly, no matter how much he craves food. At this point his life is almost finished and death is rapidly approaching. Such are the sufferings of old age.

In addition to the sufferings of birth and age, throughout life he must continually confront the sufferings of illness. When the elements of his body fall out of harmony, his skin dries and his flesh sags. Food and drink, usually so appealing, seem repulsive, and instead he must ingest bitter medicines and undergo unpleasant treatments like operations, moxabustion, acupuncture, and so forth. Should the disease be incurable, he experiences immeasurable suffering from fear, worry, and apprehension, and if the disease is fatal, he must live with death close before his eyes. Thoughts of any evil he may have created during his lifetime cause his heart to fill with regret, and he recollects all that he has left undone. He understands that he soon must leave his body, friends, relatives, associates, and possessions; his mouth dries, his lips shrivel, his nose sinks, his eyes fade, and his breath passes in gasps. Tremendous fear of the lower realms arises within him and, though he wills it not, he dies.

Human beings suffer in many less general ways as well. Some meet with bandits and thieves and lose all their wealth. Their bodies become pierced by weapons or beaten with clubs and so forth. Some suffer heavy punishments at the hands of legal authorities for having committed crimes. Others hear dreadful news or rumors of distant family or friends and suffer terribly, or they fear the loss of their wealth and possessions and suffer with worry. Others suffer from encountering people and situations that they do not wish to encounter, and still others suffer through not getting what they want. For example, although one may try to cultivate a piece of land, drought, frost, hail, and so forth may destroy the crop. One may work as a sailor or fisherman, but a sudden gust of wind may result in one’s ruin. If one goes into business, one may lose one’s investment or, after much effort, make no profit. One may take monastic ordination, but then may have to face the sorrow of having broken the vows. In short, having taken a samsaric human form out of the forces of karma and delusion, one must face the sufferings of birth, sickness, old age, death, and so forth, and as well one is using one’s precious human incarnation largely as an instrument to produce more causes of lower rebirth and greater misery in the future.

As Pabongkha Dechen Nyingpo says in Liberation in the Palm of One’s Hand, “Everyone has many sad tales to tell by the time their life draws to an end.” When we see people from a distance, they seem very happy and free from suffering, but the closer we come to them the more we become aware of how imperfection and suffering scar their happiness. If you get together with them and exchange stories on the sufferings each has experienced in life, the accounts of personal tragedy become more and more gruesome.

Pain and misfortune are fundamental ingredients of mundane cyclic life. Humans must confront the four great sufferings: birth, sickness, old age, and death. As well as these, there are periodic sufferings of not getting the things one wants, having to face undesirable experiences, having to constantly struggle to get the basic requirements of life, and so forth. These fall on us like waves flowing in from the ocean. The ripening of these events is the suffering of pain.

A second type of suffering is that of changing happiness, or unstable happiness. We want something and work hard to get it, but somehow having it brings more suffering than pleasure in the end. Samsara is such that one is constantly in the situation of being pained by having or else by not having. This is the nature of the dissatisfied mind. There is a Tibetan saying, “If your possessions are the size of a louse, then your sufferings are the size of a louse. If your possessions are the size of a goat, you will have sufferings equal to the size of a goat.” To have is to have the suffering of having; not to have is to have the suffering of not having. This is the frustrating nature of changing happiness. We think that if we buy something, possess something, or move to another country, our mind will be satisfied, but there is no satisfaction in the samsaric approach. Unless we develop the wisdom giving freedom from karma and delusion, all happiness is bound to eventually dissolve and be replaced by sufferings.

The very substances from which our body is formed are themselves impure. As is said in the Red Hat Lam Rim, “What is our body but the quintessence of a thousand generations of evolution of sperm and ovum?” These come together in the lower regions between the intestines full of excrement and a bladder full of urine and so forth. And then the darkness of the womb must be experienced, where our body grows for nine months, bound and constricted all around. We lie as though strapped in a tight leather bag, experiencing intense heat when our mother eats or drinks hot foods and intense cold when she eats or drinks anything cold, feeling as though we are being beaten by a stick if she moves suddenly, and so forth. The mother herself experiences much suffering at this time, and toward the end of her pregnancy she feels almost ready to burst. At the time of actual delivery her suffering is so great that she must cry out and wail in pain.

As Shantideva writes in his Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, “If we do not make our life wholesome, our birth is worth only the pain it gave our mother.”

Even after birth one is a great problem to one’s mother. Because we are unable to do anything for ourselves, she has to serve us day and night for years. Even during her sleep we do not give her peace. We ourselves also undergo much suffering at this time, being unable to express or fulfill our needs or to control our body.

We human beings are not born grandly but in the midst of blood, urine, and much pain. Our entrance into life is indeed an ominous sign. “It would seem that this human body is little more than an excrement and pain-making machine,” writes Nagarjuna in A Precious Garland, and if we do not use our body as a boat for spiritual development, this is just what it is—a useless sack of blood, pus, excrement, and bones. Unless our direction is spiritual, the only use in our eating more food is to produce more excrement.

Because a samsaric body is a product of karma and delusion, it is a source of constant anxiety and pain. We usually end up spending most of our lives serving it, feeding it, clothing and sheltering it, washing it, and pampering it when it gets sick and so forth. But unless we use it to develop our mind, there is no benefit in the end. We die and our precious body that we cherished so much, that our mother looked on with such pride, turns cold and becomes the food of worms. This is the reality we have to live with all our lives.

A tantric yogi who has gained control of the subtle energies of the body and the subtle levels of consciousness will have control over the inner and outer elements and consequently can transform his or her ordinary samsaric form into a joyous rainbow body. But until we can do this, we have to accept the fact that our physical basis is a magnet attracting every kind of discomfort and pain.

From the tantric viewpoint, the ordinary human body is the source of much delusion. As the chakras, nadis, white and red mystic drops, vital energies, and so forth evolve, the nature of the flow of vital energies which act as the vehicle of mind, itself being impure, gives rise to impure states of mind such as attachment and anger. In the tantric view, mind and bodily energies that support it have this interdependent relationship.

This samsaric body keeps us running all our lives. We have to run to fulfill its endless needs, to keep it away from things that may harm it, and to protect it from anything unpleasant. We have to give it pleasure and comfort. We become ordained and at first this is very satisfactory, but soon our body makes it so difficult for us that we think our practice would be less disturbed if we were to live as a layperson. So we give up and return to ordinary life, but then we end up with a large family to support, leaving us with no time or energy for meditation. We have the pressing tasks of feeding, clothing, and sheltering our children and of arranging their education and so forth. Our lives are spent alternating between work and worry, with occasional short periods of pleasure, and then we have to die; but even this we cannot do in peace, for, when we lie down to die, our last thoughts are worried ones concerning the family we are leaving behind. Such is the nature of worldly existence.

Generally the happiest period of our lives is between the ages of five and fifteen, and the most creative is during our thirties. In this decade we are fully mature and can accomplish anything, either worldly or spiritual. Buddha, Milarepa, and Tsongkhapa all gained their realization at this time. I am in my fifties; the sun of my life is at high noon. Soon I will enter my sixties and seventies. My body will lose its strength and vitality, my hair will turn white, and even moving about will become a problem. These are the sufferings of becoming old that all humans must face. How naive to think that it will not happen to us.

The most beautiful people become ugly when old age strikes. Their hair falls out or turns white, their complexions fade. Some become thin like corpses; others become so fat that they cannot stand up without help. Still others become bedridden and helpless. Soon one looks more dead than alive, a skeleton wrapped in a parched, grayish skin. One’s reflection in a mirror is difficult even for oneself to bear. Although our family and friends continue to show us kindness, strangers look at us with cold eyes of revulsion. Perhaps the mind is still vigorous and lucid, but the body is unable to serve its wishes. We have to sit and watch ourselves wait for death to come, often with nobody to share our loneliness and sorrow.

To care for our old people—these ones who have given us our body, our life, and our culture—is a sacred duty of humanity. But most humans act more like animals than people, and often we see old people who have been abandoned by their families. Family units were very strong in Tibet, and old people were usually cared for directly by relatives. The national care for the old that we see in the West is something very good, a healthy sign, although perhaps here the spiritual and psychological basis is somewhat lacking.

The suffering of old age is something we all must face, unless we die prematurely. There is nothing we can do about it. Gone will be that false sense of personal ability and strength that made us so proud when we were young. Instead, helpers or friends will bathe us, dress us, spoon-feed us, and have to take us to the toilet. Rather than live under the delusion of permanence, we should engage in spiritual training so that we can enter old age at least with the grace of wisdom.

How can we imagine that the human body is indestructible? Its very basis is impermanence and disharmony. Which one of us has not known sickness, discomfort, and the threat of death? Aryadeva describes it this way in his Four Hundred Stanzas, “The elements supporting our body are like a group of poisonous snakes battling for power.” Every chemical in our body is a vital force vying with the others in a terrific battle, and only when all the elemental powers are balanced can health be maintained. The smallest germ or incompatible agent can destroy this balance and send us into weeks, months, or years of illness. Then we have to run from one doctor to another, suffering with discomfort and agony, listening to the lies that they tell us out of professional kindness. Sometimes our disease is contagious, and even our friends become afraid when they see us coming. At other times our flesh swells or becomes covered with sores that seep with pus, making us so ugly we are too embarrassed to go out of our homes. Some diseases sap our strength and leave us unable to bear even the sight of food; others make us unable to digest or assimilate it. The smallest accident can break our bones, leaving us unable to walk. Often even the medicines we take have nauseating side effects. Perhaps we get cancer, and the doctors tell us it is incurable. Tibetan herbal doctors state very proudly that they can cure it, but not being a doctor myself, I can only sit and watch. Anyway, a lot of people are dying of cancer.

So we can see that this body indeed causes us much grief in this life and, sadly, in their quest to satisfy its many needs, most people just collect an endless stream of negative karmic instincts that will lead them to lower rebirths in the future.

These are the sufferings of the human world.

The Essence of Refined Gold then goes on to describe the sufferings of the realms of the anti-gods, the sensual gods, and the gods of the heavens of form and formless meditation. Again, these are realms of existence that can only be perceived by beings with special perception, although there is evidence of them in the mystical writings of many world cultures. Some Lam Rim scriptures describe them in great detail. However, if we have no confidence in the existence of the celestial realms, it is sufficient to meditate upon the human sufferings. These become obvious very quickly when we begin to search for them. The important point here is to become aware of the third type of suffering, the subtle suffering that pervades all imperfect existence, the all-pervading misery concomitant with having a perishable, samsaric base. A god in the highest heaven, a human being, an animal, and also hell beings and ghosts are all enmeshed in suffering because the nature of their body and mind is bound with compulsive cyclic processes. Until we develop the wisdom that is able to free the mind from these compelling forces, there is no doubt that we shall experience suffering throughout our lives, and that we shall continue to wander endlessly in the wheel of birth, life, death, and rebirth where the presence of misery can always be felt.

THE THIRD DALAI LAMA

A samsaric form is merely a vessel holding the suffering of pain, the suffering of transient pleasure, and the all-pervading suffering. And, in that cyclic existence is by very nature all-pervasive suffering, one never knows any joy or happiness not wrapped in and embraced by misery and frustration. In the realm of the asuras, or anti-gods, the beings suffer from constantly fighting with and killing and wounding one another. Above that, in the realm of the desire gods, when the five signs of oncoming death manifest, the beings suffer more than do the hell denizens. As their splendor fades and they are shunned by the other gods, they know boundless mental anguish. Still higher in samsara are the gods of the realms of form and formlessness, and although they do not experience the suffering of immediate pain, those of the first three levels have the suffering of transient pleasure, and those of the fourth level and of the formless levels must endure the all-pervasive suffering, which is likened to an unruptured boil.

Since beginningless time we have been born again and again in the various realms of the universe. If you choose to believe that only humans and animals exist, then when you meditate on the lower realms, do so only on the sufferings of animals, insects, and so forth, and when you meditate on the upper realms, do so only on the types of imperfections with which human beings are afflicted. The aim in the former meditation is to generate the aspiration to transcend imperfection: to avoid negative behavior, the cause of future suffering, and to dwell in goodness, the cause of higher evolution.

In the latter meditation [upon the unsatisfactory nature of the higher realms of samsara], the aim is to transcend ordinary goodness, which is tinged with grasping at an implied true existence of things and thus is still within the limits of samsara. By replacing this mundane level of goodness with the goodness born from transcendental wisdom, one is able to cut the roots of all compulsive samsaric conduct and enter into the blissful serenity of nirvana. This is liberation from samsara, the third of the Four Noble Truths.

If cyclic existence and the distorted states of mind that give rise to it are elements that cannot be overcome, then there is no need to bother with spiritual practice. But on the other hand, if there is a way to exchange suffering for eternal happiness, one would be very foolish to ignore it. To do so would be a case of the samsaric mind deceiving and cheating us once again.

THE THIRD DALAI LAMA

You should think over these general and specific imperfections of the various dimensions of samsaric existence and then strive in every possible way to attain the state of nirvana, or liberation from them all. It should be noted that such a state is not causeless or conditionless, and so one should train in the practices which bring about actual attainment of liberation, i.e., the practices of the three higher trainings—ethical discipline, concentration, and wisdom. Furthermore, as the higher trainings of concentration and wisdom depend and are based upon the higher training in ethical discipline, you should first train in it, and because discipline is easily broken when mindfulness and such forces degenerate, you should maintain clear thoughts firmly supported by mindfulness and clarity and thus guard against all possible downfalls. If you ever breach your discipline, don’t waste a moment but immediately acknowledge your failing to yourself and resolve to proceed correctly in the future. When a delusion such as attachment, anger, jealousy, and so forth arises, meditate upon its opponent, such as non-attachment, love, equanimity, etc. Be your own judge in practice, and do not fall short of your aims. Let nothing you think, say, or do contradict the advice of the spiritual master.

How can we eliminate the deepest source of all unsatisfactory experience? Only by cultivating certain qualities within our mindstream. Unless we possess high spiritual qualifications, there is no doubt that the events life throws upon us will give rise to frustration, emotional turmoil, and other distorted states of consciousness. These imperfect states of mind in turn give rise to imperfect activities, and the seeds of suffering are ever planted in a steady flow. On the other hand, when the mind can dwell in the wisdom that knows the ultimate mode of being, one is able to destroy the deepest root of distortion, negative karma, and sorrow.

Our grasping at an inherently existent reality is not something with any strong support. The quality of concreteness, which in our ordinary process of perception we project upon everything, has no actual basis in the objects of our knowledge. The sense of inherent self-being that we feel is there in objects is merely a creation of our own mind, and, if we were to investigate for ourselves, it is unmasked as the source of all our suffering. From this grasping at inherent existence stems the entire range of delusion, emotional afflictions, and their ill-directed activities. Alternatively, by eliminating this method of viewing things, we eliminate the direct source of distorted states of mind as well as the activities they produce.

The force that severs this inborn process of grasping at true existence is the higher training in wisdom. This is the most important method in the quest for eternal liberation. However, to intensify and stabilize the higher training in wisdom, one should also cultivate the higher trainings in meditative concentration and ethical self-discipline.

Here the practice of self-discipline largely refers to the vows for individual liberation, such as the five vows of a lay practitioner, the novice and full ordinations of monks and nuns, etc. Any practice done on the stabilizing force of one of these sets of disciplines becomes far more effective. As for the five vows of a layperson—to refrain from killing, stealing, lying, adultery, and alcohol—in Tibet it was common for a layperson to take just one or a few of the five. Generally, every Buddhist should hold at least one of them. The higher the level of ordination, the more firm is the basis of discipline and therefore the more strong becomes all one’s other practices, such as the ten disciplines, meditation upon emptiness, and so forth.

With a foundation of ethical self-discipline one can then enter into the higher training of meditative concentration. Based on these two forces, our meditation upon emptiness takes on an ever-increasing strength. Throughout our training we should guard our discipline well, and whenever there is a transgression, we should recollect the Three Jewels, admit the fault, and purify ourselves of it, determining to practice harder in the future. In this way our combined practice of the three higher trainings reaches to the very root of samsaric suffering.

Success in the practice of these three trainings depends upon a correctly directed mind. Therefore we meditate upon the sufferings inherent in even the higher realms of samsara and cultivate an awareness that spontaneously looks upon the highest samsaric pleasures—such as the fame, wealth, power, prestige, and so forth of the human plane, or the power and transient pleasures found in the samsaric heavens—in the same way as the tiger sees grass. The spirit of freedom, which is the non-attachment and non-grasping of inner renunciation, inspires us to direct our every energy at transcending all samsaric imperfection.

THE THIRD DALAI LAMA

To quote Jey Rinpoche,

If you do not contemplate the Noble Truth of

Suffering—the fallacy of samsara—

The wish to be free of samsara will not arise.

If you do not contemplate the source of

suffering—the door to samsara—

You will never discover the means of cutting

samsara’s root.

Base yourself on renunciation of cyclic existence;

be tired of it.

Cherish knowledge of the chains that bind you to

the wheel of cyclic existence.

When the thought that aspires to transcend the world arises within you as strongly as the thought of finding an exit would arise in a person caught in a burning house, you have become a spiritual aspirant of intermediate perspective.