There are four parts:
·
A. The general explanation of the nature of suffering·
B. The extended explanation of the particulars·
C. The appropriateness of thinking about the sufferings of samsara·
D. The dedication of merit
A. The general explanation of the nature of suffering
(i.e. All problems and solutions come from the mind. The root cause of all suffering is the ignorance of the real nature of our own mind and of everything. Because of this ignorance we are continually attracted to the very causes of our own suffering: fixation, grasping, discrimination, analysis, intellectualization, control, investments in the five aggregates - in short accumulating karma. Everything that is caused is necessarily impermanent, unreliable, and unsatisfactory. There is no objects in the three worlds, no state of existence / being / becoming, that is safe. Even the best situation turns to the worst after a while because of ignorance. The more we suffer, the more we try to control everything and the worst it gets. The more we get happy, the more we want of the same or better, and are afraid of loosing it, the more we try to control everything, the worst it get. It goes round and round endlessly.)
There are eight parts.
·
1. The brief teaching of suffering (The three kinds of suffering)·
2. The examples of suffering (Suffering of suffering)·
3. The example of being seduced by desire·
4. How beings are tormented in successive births within the six realms of beings·
5. How enemies, friends, and relatives are uncertain·
6. How we suffer in countless births·
7. How, even if we attain the fruition of Brahma and so forth, we will ultimately suffer·
8. Suffering due to the nature of change (Suffering of change)
1. The brief teaching of suffering [The three kinds of suffering]
(i.e. The three kinds of suffering: physical, mental, cosmic / universal.)
After realizing the impermanence of dharmas, is the teaching of the suffering intrinsic to samsara. Anything one says about it falls short of the truth.
For those among the dharmas of the three realms of samsara,
Unremittingly changeable, there are the extremist sufferings.
With sufferings of suffering, change, and composite nature,
All beings of its six habitations live in extreme anxiety
The Sutra of Instructions to the King says:
O great king, this samsara is change. This samsara is impermanence. This samsara is suffering.
The suffering of suffering,
·
Dukkha as ordinary suffering as bodily or mental pain. Physical pain, external causes.·
Govinda: One of the lowest stage suffering is only bodily: physical pain, privation, and discomfort. -- In the most primitive form of Consciousness (animals, undeveloped human beings) suffering appears mostly as physical pain and bodily want and occasionally only in its mental aspect. -- Birth, old age, and death - the first group - are the symptoms of bodily suffering.·
HHDL: Suffering of suffering. This refers to things such as headaches and so forth. Even animals can recognize this kind of suffering and, like us, want to be free from it. Because beings have fear of and experience discomfort from these kinds of suffering, they engage in various activities to eliminate them.·
Geshe Rabten: Suffering caused by suffering - This type of suffering includes the pain, sadness and everyday suffering recognized by all beings. Even the smallest insect can recognize it. No creatures want this suffering. The reason why all creatures are so busy and active is that they are trying to avoid this type of suffering. Ants, for instance, are busy all day and night to avoid suffering from hunger; countries fight each other for fear of suffering from domination (even though this method creates more suffering).·
KKGR: Suffering of suffering is physical and mental pain (sickness, depression, etc.) -- the suffering of physical and mental pain brings about anguish -- The body composed of the five skandhas causes the suffering of physical and mental pain, for the moment we enter into it we experience suffering which brings about the feeling of pain.
The suffering of change,
·
Dukkha due to change.·
Govinda: On the next higher stage it is mainly mental: the discrepancy between our illusions (possession, stability, control, permanent self) and reality (impermanence, no-self, no absolute control), the disappointments of life, the impossibility to satisfy our desires. The average human being will be mainly afflicted with mental suffering (the second stage), though bodily suffering may be frequent and the refined form of the third stage may be attained occasionally. -- Not to obtain what one desires characterizes the second stage: mental suffering·
HHDL: Suffering of change. This refers to situations where, for example, we are sitting very comfortably relaxed and at first everything is all right, but after a while we lose that feeling and get restless and uncomfortable...but as soon as we have solved certain problems, new ones arise. We have plenty of money, plenty of food and good shelter, but by over-estimating the value of these things we render them worthless. This sort of experience is the suffering of change.·
Lama Thubten Yeshe: When Lord Buddha talked so much about suffering he was not referring primarily to physical illness and pain but to dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is the real suffering. No matter how much you get, your desires do not abate; you always want more. That is suffering; that is deluded frustration. ... Buddhist psychology enumerates six fundamental delusions, which frustrate and disturb the peace of the human mind and cause it to become restless: attachment, anger, ignorance, pride, deluded doubt and holding distorted views. These are mental, not external phenomena. Those fundamental delusions come from the ego, they make the mind restless. ... If you do not know the nature of attachment and its object it's impossible for you to have loving kindness for your friends, parents and country...Our problem is that we lack intensive knowledge-wisdom, or awareness, or consciousness...it doesn't matter what you call it…when you understand your mind's view, or perception of things, you realize that all along you have been grasping at the sense world -- and at an imaginary, idealistic future that is simply a projection of your mind and has not the slightest physical reality--you have been completely unconscious of the present·
Geshe Rabten: Suffering caused by change - This type starts as happiness and then changes into suffering. Most beings do not recognize this as suffering. Worldly happiness looks like happiness, but in time it too changes into suffering. If we are hot and immerse ourselves in cold water it is very pleasant to start with, but after a while it becomes painfully cold. If we are cold and stay in the sun to get warm we will, after some time, suffer from being burnt. When friends meet after a long time they are delighted, but if they then remain continually together they may quarrel and grow tired of each other. This type of suffering includes anything that appears to be happiness and changes into suffering. If a person wants to become wealthy, works very hard and becomes rich, suffering is produced from the need for maintaining the wealth, fear of losing it, and desire for more. If one country wants to take over another, the oppressed country reacts, and mutual suffering is caused. The first of these two types of suffering is easily removable. The second is not, because it is not easily recognized. Thus, it is more deeply harmful. Even small insects can stop the suffering caused by suffering, and so can human beings, who, when they are ill, for example, can get treatment. But most people and animals think that the suffering caused by change is real happiness and spend their whole lives trying to achieve it; for example, people in business who devote their lives to making money and people who fight each other in wars, all in search of happiness.·
KKGR: Suffering of change (impermanence of peace and happiness) is like eating food mixed with poison -- the suffering of change brings about a false sense of euphoria -- The joys of samsara are ultimately the cause of the suffering of change. It is written in the Karma sutra, "The kingdom of the gods and the kingdom of humans are the cause of suffering." No matter how high the rank you achieve in samsara, you will eventually fall, for you are fundamentally attached to temporary enjoyments, which cause the suffering of hope and fear.
And the sufferings of the composite.
·
The Dukkha of Conditioned Formations. The five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.·
Govinda: On the third stage suffering is no more concerned with the petty cares of our own person and of our momentary life, it becomes more and more universal and essential. We are taking part in the suffering of others, and instead of regarding our personality as the highest value; we understand that by clinging to it, it has become a hindrance, bondage, a symbol of limitation and imperfection. -- One who is on his way to enlightenment will be rather concerned with the essential form of suffering (the third stage). -- The five aggregates of existence (lit. 'clinging'), i.e. our personality, represent the essential form of suffering, its third stage. -- Birth, decay and death, which originally were felt as symptoms of bodily suffering, become objects of mental suffering as well - and finally the symbols of the essential laws of individual life to which we bind ourselves. This is indicated in the third part of the above-cited quotation, where the five Khandas themselves are designated as objects of suffering and described as aggregates of 'clinging' (upadanakkhanda). -- The Suffering which Buddhism is essentially concerned with is - I might almost say - cosmic suffering, the suffering implicit in the cosmic law which chains us to our deeds, good as well as bad, and drives us incessantly round in a restless circle from form to form. In short, it is the suffering of bondage. The experience of this suffering in its essential form can only be born of a higher state of consciousness. -- Suffering is no longer felt as coming from outside, from a hostile world, but as coming from within. It is no longer something foreign or accidental, but a part of one's own self-created being.·
HHDL: All-pervasive sufferings. Because it acts as the basis of the first two categories of suffering, the third is called, in Tibetan, kyab.pa.du.ched.kyi.dug.ngel (literally: the suffering of pervasive compounding).·
Geshe Rabten: All-embracing suffering caused by mental formations - This type is even more difficult to recognize than the suffering caused by change. It is the suffering inherent in samsara (the whole round of existence) and the cause of the previous two kinds of suffering. It covers, or embraces, all beings in samsara. As the earth is the foundation of our life, so this type of suffering is the foundation of the other two. If someone cuts us we automatically feel pain simply because we have bodies; our very existence is the root cause of this suffering. Because all beings exist in a state of causality, all are liable to suffering. This kind of suffering (duhkha) is produced from a harmful cause and all other suffering comes from it. All beings recognize the first kind of suffering; some recognize the second. But this third kind of suffering is very, very difficult to recognize. Without recognizing it, escape from samsara is impossible. This suffering is like a wound that does not give pain until it is touched. It is the ground containing all sufferings. When we remove this suffering we attain nirvana, or liberation.·
400: The subtle form of suffering: the aggregates themselves, the conditioning, are suffering - it we cling to them - because impermanent: The body itself constitutes the pervasive suffering of conditioning. Without recognizing that the contaminated psycho-physical aggregates themselves are the subtlest form of suffering, we cannot develop the genuine wish to free ourselves from the cycle of birth and death. Understanding the other two kinds of suffering (physical and mental) leads toward an understanding of this.·
Aryadeva: "Therefore all that is impermanent is said to be suffering."·
KKGR: Pervasive suffering (root cause of all suffering-impermanence of the unenlightened body) is the nature of samsara. No matter what kind of conditions we enjoy, sooner or later suffering will pervade our worldly state, where our afflicted ordinary bodies are a source of pain. -- The five ordinary skandhas are the cause of pervasive suffering, but ordinary people do not recognize them as suffering, just as when stuck by plague, they do not notice minor illness. However, those noble beings entering the path recognize this as suffering, just as, when the plague abates, one notices the pain of a lesser injury.Birth is suffering.)
By these the six kinds of sentient beings struggle and sink in the ocean of samsara.
2. The examples of suffering.
(i.e. Because they don't know the law of karma and its consequences, or the way out of samsara, beings create more and more causes for suffering. That is why it is so hard and rare to get out of the three lower realms and gain a precious human life.)
By these verses the examples of how the kleshas are produced are explained:
Like some person who is thrown into a fire,
Or attacked by a ravening horde of savage men or beasts,
Or imprisoned by some king, just like an animal,
With successive waves of suffering (1) like the Unremitting Hell
And having no chance of escape, our sorrows only increase.
Thus as the assembled faculties of sentient beings are not purified of former suffering, it will oppress them later. Unbearable, it is without measure or limit.
The Jewel Mala says:
Space in all the directions, earth, water, fire, and air,
Just as they are limitless, so are beings' sufferings.They rise again and again, as waves rise in the ocean.
They are like always having to live in terror and fearWith vicious beasts of prey and cruel savages.
Like the dungeon of a king, getting free is difficult.
3. The example of being seduced by desire.
(i.e. All beings are subject to suffering and want to escape suffering. But because of their ignorance of the real nature of everything they are attracted to the causes of their own suffering. The more they desire to escape it, the more they discriminate, the more they try to control everything, the more they accumulate the causes of their own suffering. While doing this, they cultivate the three poisons [passion, aversion, delusion], the five poisons [one for each realm: anger, greed, ignorance, attachment, jealousy, pride].)
Though all sentient beings want to find happiness and be free from suffering:
One may wish to find bliss, and be separated from suffering.
But suffering strikes us, acting as both cause and effect.
Like a moth who is attracted by the flame of a lamp
Enticed by grasping, desirous of his wished-for object,
Or like deer, bees, and elephants,
Enticed by sound or smell or else by taste, or touch,
Beings are seduced by desire for the five objects of sense.
See how they never find bliss, but only suffering.
By the obscuring power of accepting and rejecting, though we may want powerful means of entering into the fruition, we do not produce the cause. How can we be free from accepting and rejecting? Those who want happiness should practice the cause, the virtuous path. We want to leave suffering behind, yet wholeheartedly enter into its cause, non-virtue. We practice all the causes of suffering, the five klesha-poisons, and the three chief kleshas. We are rushing to practice the source of all suffering, whose fruition is suffering itself, and experience of its different varieties. Still we just accept this and cannot even be ashamed of it. This is like a thief who is punished by having his hands cut of, but still robs us again. This time his punishment is having his head cut off.
The Bodhicharyavatara says:
We think we have the intention of getting rid of suffering,
Instead we run right to that very suffering.
Though we want happiness, because of ignorance,
We conquer our own happiness like an enemy(i.e. In the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, the great yogi and bodhisattva Shantideva wrote,
"We all seek happiness, but turn our backs on it.
We all wish to avoid misery, but race to collect its causes."
What we want and what we're doing are in contradiction. Our activities aimed at bringing happiness just cause suffering, misery and trouble. Shantideva goes on to explain how even if we desire to obtain happiness, because of ignorance we usually destroy its cause. We treat the causes of happiness like we would an enemy. -- Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche, Renunciation)
How do we conquer it? By the force of desire and attachment to the five desirables, the power of the kleshas increases, and we enter into suffering. A moth desiring the form of a lamp's light, is burned when it is reached. Deer are killed because they listen to the sound of a flute. Bees who suck flowers, which are the source of nectar, get tangled when they close to them. Fishermen entice fish by the taste of food on the point of a hook. Elephants wanting to feel cool go into lakes and die.
A song in the Dohakosha:
By the mudra of samsara all beings are seduced.
Also it says there:
Kye ho! The stupid are wounded by arrows it is said.
View them as having been enticed like gullible deer.
They are like fish and butterflies, elephants and bees,
The kleshas arise from the five sense-objects, and by their force we wander endlessly in samsara. This is more to be feared than poison, it is taught.
The Letter to Students says:
Objects and poison alike are pleasant when first experienced.
Objects and poison alike are unbearably harsh when ripe.
Objects and poison alike are imbibed because of ignorance.
Objects and poison alike are potent and hard to reverse.
Poison and objects, imputed with certainty by the mind,
Both do harm, but poison may simply be avoided
But injuries by objects are not so easily shunned.
Poison is only poisonous in a sentient being
Our feelings regarding objects are poisonous anywhere.
Poison when mixed with other poison is neutralized.
Thus supreme secret mantra is properly used as a cure.
Poison skillfully used is of benefit to man.
However, the great poison, objects, never will be so.
4. How beings are tormented in successive births within the six realms of beings
(i.e. So they just go round and round: suffering because of their past actions and creating more causes for future suffering. All of this while being totally ignorant of it. Depending on the major cause [poisons: anger, greed, ignorance, attachment, jealousy, pride] and the predominant types of suffering, they are associated with one of the six realms of this wheel of samsara [Hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods, gods].)
These samsaric beings whirl about with each other and suffer:
For gods, asuras, Hell beings, and the hungry ghosts,
For humans and animals, all beings of the six realms,
Like the chain of buckets on a water wheel,
Limitless sufferings follow each other in train.
The Precious Mala says:
Its three paths have no beginning, no middle and no end.
Like the circle that is made by whirling a firebrand.
Mutual causes become the mandala of samsara. (i.e. The Wheel of Life)
5. How enemies, friends, and relatives are uncertain
(i.e. Because they desire to escape suffering, and because of their ignorance, they tend to discriminate: liking some, hating others, being indifferent to most. But those are only relative, circumstantial feelings. They forget the impermanence of such feelings. And it is because of such discrimination that they create more and more causes for suffering in the future.)
Thus when we are whirled within samsara:
In the course of the generations, every sentient being
Has carried the burden of being our friend and our enemy.
Also they have been neither, or something between the two.
The number of times that they have done us right or wrong
Or benefit and harm transcends enumeration.
Often a father becomes a mother and she a sister,
And she again a brother, lost in uncertainty.
We can never be sure if our friends will change to enemies
In all the generations from beginning-less time a particular sentient being will have been the father of all the sentient beings in the three realms, and so forth. The number of times that it will have been their father, mother, and intimate cannot be counted.
The Spiritual Letter says:
By desiring what is fine, deprivation, and death
Sickness, age, and so forth, are sources of many sufferings,
Samsara indeed is a treasury of every sorrow.
6. How we suffer in countless births:
(i.e. It has always been like that, suffering because of past actions, and creating more and more cause for future suffering. They have been in each of the six realms countless times. -- All discriminations, all choices, all actions, all investments (material and immaterial, bodily, emotional, concepts, knowledge, control) are based on this ignorance of the real non-dual nature of everything. They assume there are absolute objective characteristics, inherently existing dharmas, and that they can objectively perceive them, understand them, make impartial decision about them, and control them. They forget that everything is relative, that everything is interdependent. They believe in absolutes, and necessarily have to suffer the consequences of these mistakes in the future.)
If thus we think of the karmic succession in this world,
Our sorrow should increase to its ultimate extreme.
If all our previous bodies, when we were born as ants,
Were gathered up together and piled into a heap,
Its height would surpass Mount Meru, with its four precious slopes.
The tears we have wept would surpass the four oceans in their volume.
When we have been a Hell being or a hungry ghost,
The amount of molten copper that we have had to drink,
And the foul volume of pus and blood and excrement,
Is unmatched by the flowing rivers to the limits of the directions.
Our other sufferings were as limitless as the sky.
The number of time our head and limbs have been cut off,
Because of desire, is unmatched by the atoms of the world.
The Resting in Closely-attentive Mindfulness, says:
O monks, be sorrowful within the realm of samsara. Why? While we were being whirled about in beginning-less samsara, we were born as ants. If their discarded bodies were brought together in one place, and made into a heap, it would be taller than Mount Meru. We have wept more tears than there is water in the four oceans. The countless immeasurable number of times we have become
Hell beings and pretas, we have drunk more seething molten copper, blood, urine, pus, and mucus than there is water in the four great rivers that flow down to the ocean. [1] Because of desires, the number of times that our head, eyes, and major and minor limbs have been cut off equals the number of atoms of earth, water, air, and fire in as many worlds as there are grains of sand of the river Ganges.
The Spiritual Letter says:
More than the four oceans is the milk that we have drunk.
More than the retinue of existing individuals,
The heap of all our bones would be bigger than a mountain
If juniper berries were as many as our mothers,
The earth would not suffice for such a number of them.
7. How, even if we attain the fruition of Brahma and so forth, we will ultimately suffer.
(i.e. While being ignorant of the real nature of everything, there is no way, even from the most ideal situation, that they will not end up in the worst situation (realms) after a while. There is no way to escape it; they will necessarily desire more, pile up mistakes and have to suffer the consequences. There is nothing they can do to control it, not even as a god, not even escaping in the most perfect Dhyanas. All of those ideal states are all impermanent because they are produced, because they are dependent on causes and conditions, because they are all based on ignorance (the belief in inherent existence). It is the very fact that they are desiring something more, trying to discriminate and to control the situation that is the cause of their downfall. To desire something, and to discriminate, is to believe in something inherently existing, some absolute; and that is the mistake, the cause of future suffering. -- The only way out is to follow the Dharma (morality, concentration, wisdom) until they realize the real nature of their own mind, and of everything. Only then will they be able to transcend this cycle of conditioning.)
Moreover, when we course within samsara, here is what happens:
Charnel vampire-ghouls, and demonic mountain spirits,
Beasts and snakes, and various things that creep and crawl
Experience the countless pains and pleasures of this realm.
Brahma and Indra, and adepts of Dhyanas formed and formless
Defending their territory and seven precious possessions [2]
Human rulers, whatever splendor and wealth they gained,
Fell to the lower realms, suffering more and more.In this time of samsaric succession, there are no realms of earth, water, mountains, islands, and space, where we have not been. Countless times we have been gods, nagas, rakshasas, gandharvas, kimbhandas, [3] persons who experienced the sufferings of all the six lokas at once, [4] Brahma, and Indra, and world-ruling kings. There is no joy and sorrow of any of these that we have not experienced. Again, we have been whirled down to the lower realms and lived among their extreme sorrows.
The Letter to Students says:
What being exists that we have not been a hundred times?
What joy is there that we have not savored many times?
What glories, like splendid white yak tails, have we not obtained?
Yet whatever we have gained, our desires only increase.There is no river upon whose banks we never lived.
There is no country's region where we have never lived.
There is no direction where we have never lived.
And yet the difficult power of our desire increases.There is no sorrow that was not ours formerly many times.
Nothing could satisfy beings that we have not desired.
There is no sentient being that we have not engendered
But whatever we have in samsara, we are not free of desire.Completely grasping at birth these widely meandering beings
Are rolling on the ground in ecstasy and sorrow.
There is no being with whom we have not been intimate.
8. Suffering due to the nature of change.
(i.e. Everything in the three worlds is unsatisfactory because impermanent, because dependently arisen / caused / assembled. All eventually go from good to worst, round and round like on a wheel. Even the most perfect situation is dependent on causes and conditions, thus impermanent, and thus unsatisfactory. There is no absolute causes that can be controlled perfectly all the time. Trying, with this ignorance, will only make things worst. It is because they forget that everything is dependent on a multitude of endless causes and conditions, continually changing, totally impermanent, not staying the same even for an infinitesimal moment, that they get attached to them, try to control them, and suffer when they change. Ignoring this, they just try harder to control everything, and hold on to them even more, creating more and more suffering. So is it because everything is in the nature of change, or because of our own ignorance, that we suffer? A better solution would be to renounce desire for Samsára’s pleasure and aim for Enlightenment by relying on the Dharma and removing this ignorance. Then, after realizing the inseparability of appearances and emptiness or the Union of the Two Truths, everything would be seen as pure, perfect as they are. The problem is not with the dharmas, but with our own mind.)
These others who did badly in the mouth of samsara are worthy of further thought:
Having enjoyed unlimited wealth within this life
These beings of exalted station, after they departed,
Were stricken with poverty or even made to be servants.
As wealth in a dream is gone as soon as we awake,
If we thoroughly think of the sufferings of change (2),
Arising from the impermanence of all our joy and sorrow,
Our sorrow increases, building ever more and more.
Therefore beings within the three realms' habitations,
Without desire for Samsára’s pleasures, should get enlightened.(i.e. If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent. It is because you believe things are permanent. When a flower dies, you don't suffer much, because you understand that flowers are impermanent. But you cannot accept the impermanence of your beloved one, and you suffer deeply when she passes away. -- Thich Nhat Hanh, Impermanence)
(i.e. We hold on to objects, people / beings, relation, status, way of life, feelings, ideas, religion, views, consciousnesses, memories, Dhyanas...to anything in the three worlds.)
So it is for Indra, the king of the gods, and Brahma, the paranimitavashavartin gods, and those who have attained happiness among human beings. When they exhaust the fruition of their former virtuous karma Brahma, Indra, chakravartins, gods, including samádhi gods and formless gods, and ordinary people who had a great fruition, by the power of former karma, death, and transmigration, must experience many afflictions, going to the lower realms and so forth.
The Sutra on Renunciation says:
When from their joyful and excellent existences
Lion-like lords of beings have to die and transmigrate.
The gods will speak to them, saying words like these:
This carefree life must be completely left behind.
The joys of the gods, however many they may be,
All of these arose from the cause of our good karma.
Now by these pleasant actions that you have in mind
All your collected virtue is totally exhausted.
Now, experiencing suffering from non-virtue that you have,
You will fall into the suffering of the lower realms.
Extensive manifestations of this kind will arise. Also the Sutra on Teachings that are the Bases of Discipline says:
Wealth in a dream with houses and abundant enjoyments,
Dreaming that one has been made a lord of gods and men
Becomes quite non-existent as soon as we awake.
It is like that. The Bodhicaryavatara says:
Like the experiences that we have in our dreams
Whatever may be the sorts of things that one enjoys
These become nothing more than objects of memory.
They all are gone. We do not see them any more.
When one transfers between lives, this also happens. The Spiritual Letter: [5]
Indra who is worthy of homage from the world,
By power of his karma, falls back upon the earth.
Even after becoming universal monarchs,
Lords of the world are born again as others' servants.Breasts and buttocks of celestial courtesans,
Are delightful to fondle, but after time has past,
Destined to be sausage in the Lord of Hell's machines,
Such lovers will be attended by knowledge hard to bear.The touch of their shapely legs, is happily endured,
But having lived with tremendous joy for a very long time
Again in Hells of biting flames and rotten corpses
An equal result of unbearable pain will be produced.After the joyful attentions of celestial maidens,
After this life of pleasure in exquisite groves,
By a forest of trees, with leaves like swords and daggers
Ones arms and legs and nose and ears will be cut to pieces.Having lived in a place with divine girls free to hand,
All with pretty faces and golden lotuses,
Again we shall be helpless in the rivers of Hell
Forced into scalding water, as hot gates block return.Desire for the realm of the gods will be very great
But having attained the desire-less bliss of Brahma again,
Once more we will fuel the fires of the Avici Hell.
We shall be thrown into constant suffering with no gaps.Attaining the sun and moon, the light of our personal bodies
Will shine with brilliance to the limits of the world.
Then again we shall come into dismal murky darkness,
Unable to see so much as our own hands and feet.Thus, as for the merit of those who were criminals,
After the triple lamp of the Buddha's teaching appears,
They will go where the sun and moon have never shone,
They will pass into chaos, limitless endless darkness.
The three realms of desire, form, and the formless, are the cities of appearance, half-appearance, and non-appearance. This is because they have coarse appearance, subtle appearance, and none at all. Those who are happy, not desiring the path at all, are instructed to establish unsurpassable enlightenment. But being without the leisure to establish merit, they must make an effort.
The same text says:
If our hair or garments suddenly burst into flame
The first thing we would do is put them out again.
Then we would try to keep it from happening again.
There would be no priority that would be higher than that.
(i.e. Here we are talking about the objects of consciousness / the various phenomena/beings in the three worlds.
·
Body / Coarse: The Sense-World (including the Six Realms) is designated as purely the domain of sensuous desires, since its objects are bounded, 'I'-conditioned, in their individual-ness set in contrast with the subject, incapable of union with the subject, and hence beget that state of tension (dualism) which we call craving. -- Material objects, which are limited. Perceivable through the senses.·
Speech / Subtle: The Realm of Pure Form is intermediary between the two other realms inasmuch as it has something in common with each of the two - with the sense-domain, the property of form-ness; with the formless domain, the property of abstraction, namely, from the egocentricity of the lower domain of the senses filled with desires. That this is no mere artificial, intellectual abstraction follows from the intuitive character of these two domains. The properties of each domain are not something added to their particular character, but only modifications of the same. -- Immaterial objects, which are limited. Not perceptible to the lower senses, but certainly to the higher senses, when free from 'I', and therefore able to merge completely into the object, to become one with it, to experience it from within -- The consciousness in the realm of Pure Form: the five jhanas.·
Mind / Very Subtle: The objects belonging to the Realm of Non-Form possess no limiting boundaries, are beyond all multiplicity and every kind of isolation or 'I'-entanglement. With this is excluded all possibility of tension, of craving. -- Immaterial objects, which are unlimited. Perceivable by the mind. -- The consciousness in the realm of Non-Form: the fifth jhana. - ex. of objects: space, the infinity of space, the infinity of consciousness, nothingness, emptiness of consciousness.
From Govinda)
(i.e. Survey of Buddhist Cosmology, Beyond the Net:
Buddhism divides the whole of sentient existence into three basic realms:
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I. The sense sphere realmØ
II The realm of fine materialityØ
III The immaterial or formless realm
I. The sense sphere realm
This is the lowest realm. There are six planes of existence under this category.
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(a) The hells, states of intense torment and suffering.Ø
(b) The sphere of the 'pretas', the afflicted spirits (sometimes called the hungry ghosts). These are beings with strong, tormenting desires, insatiable hunger and thirst; they are always on the look out for food and drink.Ø
(c) The animal kingdom. The dominant characteristic of the animals is dullness of mind and strong brutal desire.Ø
(d) Sphere of the asuras Titanic beings dominated by the desire for power, by ambition and competitiveness.The hells, spheres of pretas, asuras and the animal kingdom are called the 'plane of misery'. These are unfortunate and undesirable states of rebirth. In the sense sphere there are two fortunate planes of rebirth:
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(e) The human world.The Buddha points out that of all the planes of existence, the most fortunate for one seeking liberation is the human world, for it has a good balance between opposing factors of life. On the one hand, human life is not filled with unbearable suffering. It allows enough leisure, ease and comfort for us to reflect on the nature of existence so that we can develop our understanding. On the other hand, the human world is not so intensely pleasant and enjoyable that we become deceived by pleasures and enjoyment. The lifespan is not so long that it deceives us into thinking that our lives are eternal. It is short enough for us to become aware of the truth of impermanence.
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(f) The world of the devas (heavenly world).Devas are beings inhabiting the heavenly worlds, enjoying long life, beauty, happiness and power. But the life in the heavens is also impermanent, subject to pass away, and therefore heaven is not the ultimate goal for those following Buddha's path to liberation.
II Realm of Fine Materiality
This is a realm of subtle matter. These states of existence are much purer than even the heavens of the sense-sphere realm. There the mind becomes bright and luminous. The lifespan is incredibly long, lasting for many aeons. And the gross forms of matter are absent. These realms, however, are also impermanent. Life there eventually comes to an end and the person will be reborn elsewhere as determined by his kamma.
III Immaterial or Formless Realm
These states of existence are entirely mental. The mind subsides without any material base, absorbed in pure peace, pure equanimity, for thousands of aeons. In these spheres too life finally comes to an end and the stream of consciousness takes rebirth elsewhere as determined by kamma.)
B. The extended explanation of the particulars
(i.e. All the suffering from the six realms come from the mind with ignorance. All of it appear like that just because we don't know the real nature of our own mind, and of everything. Because we think there is a real independent world out there, and an inherently existing self perceiving it opposite to the world. -- The cycle of the conditioning by present five aggregates, the conditioned actual perception and actions, and their conditioning effect on the next set of five aggregates. We are creating our conditioning because of this ignorance. -- But everything can become pure if appearances are united with the realization of their real nature as they arise. The whole cycle is empty of inherent existence and can be transcended by realizing its real nature.)
There are three parts:
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1. The basis of confusion (How does confusion arise? The root: ignorance)Ø
a. The basis of confusion in the three worldsØ
b. The basis of confusion in the eight consciousnesses·
2. The manner of confusionØ
a. By knowing or not knowing what we are there are liberation or confusion (three great doctrines of the Yogacara tradition)Ø
b. The suffering of wandering in samsara because of ego-grasping·
3. The Divisions of Confusion (The six poisons and their consequences)Ø
a. The HellsØ
b. The suffering of the hungry ghostsØ
c. The Animal RealmØ
d. The human realmØ
e. The suffering of the asurasØ
f. The suffering of the gods
1. The basis of confusion
There are two parts.
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a. The basis of confusion in the three worlds·
b. The basis of confusion in the eight consciousnesses
a. The basis of confusion in the three worlds. Mind
(i.e. There is the three levels of dharmas (the 3 worlds): the objects of the senses (material and limited), the abstract objects (immaterial and limited), and the unlimited objects like space (immaterial and unlimited). They are associated with the three impure gates: body, speech and mind. All of these objects are appearances naturally arisen in dependence on the mind (depending on past karma), thus impermanent, relative, conventionally named, empty of inherent existence. That is natural. It is only when there is ignorance of this, fixation and grasping, that they become impure and the causes of suffering, otherwise they are naturally arising wisdom, pure. So they can all be causes of suffering if hold on to. -- The purification of the body, speech and mind is accomplished by directly seeing the non-dual nature of the objects of those three levels, and their inseparability. Then there is no more belief in a real impartial observer seeing and being conscious of an independent separate / different world (nor are they thought to be the same). The fruit of this purification is seeing the four mandalas (outer, inner, secret, such-ness), the pure Buddha-fields, the four non-dual kayas, and the two wisdoms.)
Whatever sufferings exist, their basis of dependence is the inner three realms. These are body, speech, and mind; or desire, form, and the formless:
(i.e. See C2-B-4 "The impermanence of the Vessel and Essence" for an introduction to the three levels: Impermanence of all the levels of worlds and beings: A universe based on many interdependent levels from gross to very subtle: This flow of interdependence, and of impermanent objects and beings, is operating on an infinite number of levels, like a fractal that operates in the three worlds simultaneously (their distinction is only another artificial discrimination from the mind). But usually it is resumed with four levels: outer, inner, secret and such-ness mandalas -- related to body, speech, mind, and inseparability of the three, also related to the four kayas, the four empowerments, the four offerings ... The message in this section is that everything is impermanent in any of those levels. And also that these levels arise and ceased in a particular order, from gross to subtle and then very subtle; that will be explained later with the Bardo.)
(i.e. Unskillful karma of mind is the worst kind of karma because actions of body and speech arise from mind. ... All the sufferings of all beings in samsara are produced by mind. ... Body and speech are only servants of the mind. -- Geshe Rabten, The Graduated Path to Liberation)
(i.e. When all sentient beings become enlightened, there will be no samsara, no six realms, no three lower realms with hell, preta and animal beings. There will be the omniscient mind of enlightenment. The stream of our consciousness - actually, we are talking here about the subtle mind - never ceases. Since the continuation of this subtle mind never ceases, there is always the Dharmakaya. When everyone has removed the two obscurations, there will be no such thing as samsara, or even the lower nirvana, which is mere release from the bondage of karma and disturbing thoughts. You can understand from this that enlightenment and samsara exist by depending on the mind.
To use a simple example: while I might see someone as very ugly and undesirable, another person may see him as very enchanting and desirable. We are both seeing the same person at the same time. This simple example shows that the way things appear to me comes from my mind, according to my karma; and how things appear to the other person comes from his own mind and karma.
This way of thinking is very useful in controlling the dissatisfied mind of attachment. While an object is appearing to you as beautiful, try to be aware that you have created this beauty you have made it up. Your view, in which you believe one hundred percent, is that this object exists from its own side as beautiful. You believe that it is permanently beautiful. At the same time as this object is appearing beautiful to you, however, others may see it as ugly. Try to be aware that there are different views of the object. This makes it clear that your view of an object comes from your own mind. How an object appears to you depends on your mind. This helps you to understand generally your own karma and also different karmas. If the way of making commentary on an object, such as someone's face, were not dependent on the mind and karma of the individual observer, there would be no reason at all for the same object to appear differently to different people.
-- Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Everything comes from the mind)In the cities of appearance, half-appearance and non-appearance
Tormented by composition, pain, and change,
The compositions of senses, mind, and consciousness
Are remorselessly turning mills of the objects of joy and sorrow,
Body composed of coarse things is the city of appearance.
Speech, as appearance that is non-existent like an echo, is the city of
half-appearance.
Mind, without the phenomena of the five gates and completely without things, is
the city of non-appearance.
These are also called the realms of desire, form, and the formless.
The Entering the Intention says:
Body is the coarse, the desire realm. (i.e. the realm of sense objects)
Speech is the subtle, the form realm. (i.e. the realm of abstract objects; immaterial and limited)
Mind is the very subtle, the formless realm. (i.e. the realm of immaterial and unlimited objects, like space, the infinity of space, the infinity of consciousness, nothingness, emptiness of consciousness)
Within these three cities lives the child of apparent true existence.(i.e. All appearances of the three worlds are dependently arisen and functional; but impermanent, empty of inherent existence. And that is perfect as it is. -- It is only when there is ignorance, fixation and grasping, that they become impure and the causes of suffering, otherwise they are naturally arising wisdom, pure. When they are with ignorance we talk about the impure body, speech and mind of ordinary beings, and of the wheel of samsara. When they are pure, without ignorance, we talk about the inseparable unborn non-dual Trikaya, the wisdoms, the pure Buddha-fields, and the Buddha activities.)
That child is explained as naturally arising wisdom. The three gates are tormented by the three sufferings. By the condition of conceptualizing everything, arising becomes experience of one confusion after another. How does confusion arise? The objects of the six senses individually come forth by means of the powers of the six sense- consciousnesses. By fixating these objects, there is continuous attachment to them as happiness, suffering, and neutrality.
These individually arising phenomena of form and so forth are called "consciousness." The first, coarse, general phenomenal process of conscious is insight, Rigpa, or mind, sem. When we analyze the particular kinds, there are passion, aggression, and ignorance, a continual series of mental contents of one or another of these three kinds, comprising "content-mind," yid.
The Bodhisattvabhumi says:
The appearance of objects is known as consciousness
the first conceptualization of these is known as mind.
Subsequent particular analysis of these deals with the mental contents. This is content-mind. Mental contents are also established by mind as having universal relationships, similarities or classes that exist among mental contents.
When objects are evaluated by insight, at first there is a generalized perception of nature. The aspect that does this is mind. Then, by discriminating particular aspects, mental contents are individually designated conventionally. Because this is our real object understanding, and except for such analysis, there is no other.
(i.e. Ordinary beings, with ignorance of the real nature of all dharmas, think things are inherently existing independently of the mind, that there is a real objective perception of those objects, that there is real consciousness of those independently existing objects and characteristics, and thus that there is a real independent separate perceiver, a real stable self perceiving and being conscious. So they have feelings, desire, attachments, for the objects. They try to control them and suffer when they change.)
The Precious Mala says:
If you ask about the objects that are seen by mind,
They are what is conventionally expressible.
Without the mental contents, mind cannot arise.
Not to maintain them as co-emergent is meaningless.
At the level of a Sugata and the completely non-conceptual natural state, apparent objects are individually discriminated by insight, but there is no mind, content mind, or consciousness. This is because there is no grasping of dualistic appearance, or awareness of a grasped object by a fixating mind.
(i.e. For a Buddha there is no belief in the inherent existence of characteristics and objects (dharmas), because there is no more ignorance of the real nature of everything. Appearances are seen for what they really are: dependently arisen and empty of inherent existence. So there is no belief in objective perception of real dharmas, or consciousness of real dharmas, and no belief in a real impartial observer either. The Buddha doesn't believe in this duality of two separated independent observer and object observer meeting with the action of perception and consciousness.)
The Praise of Vajra of Mind says:
Sentient beings, who have mind, content-mind, and consciousness, since they are accustomed to grasping and fixation, conceptualize them. Therefore, they do not have non-conceptual wisdom. Supreme wisdom is the mind, lo, [6] that sees reality.
(i.e. Corruption: Because of this ignorance, what would normally be pure wisdoms is turned into poisons causing suffering. Naturally arisen appearances empty of inherent existence are fixated, conceptualized, analyzed, classified, discriminated, ... because they are thought to be inherently existing.)
The Structure of the Three Jewels says:
Neither mind, content-mind, consciousness; nor samádhi, which is free from these, are discarded. The secret mind of the Sugata is incomprehensible by thought.
(i.e. Purification: Saying that appearances are empty of inherent existence doesn't mean that they are completely non-existent, or from the mind-only. Their real nature is beyond any description, beyond any conceptualization. So this is not saying here that we should not discriminate, or drop everything, reject all conceptualization. It just means that we should combine the dynamic of the appearances with the wisdom of knowing their real nature, their emptiness of inherent existence.
-- The Buddha, having realized the Union of The Two Truths, see the real nature of everything as they arise. Thus he is not fooled by the appearances, doesn't develop fixation, attachment, defilements on their account. There is no more new uncontrolled karma formation, and no more of their consequences: future suffering.
-- So the Middle Way is: not accepting objects of the three worlds as inherently existing, not rejecting them as completely non-existent, or from the mind-only.)
When form, sound, and so forth arise as the corresponding external phenomena, and the mind's insight apprehends them, it is called consciousness, literally nampar phenomenal awareness shepa. Since these mental productions appear to be objective phenomena, they are called nampar shepa. At the first time when we know objects, the aspect of insight, that apprehends, "this," is mind. The analyzer of the distinctions that arise continuously connected to that is content mind. After the instant of clarity when individual things first present themselves, the knowledge that discriminates object awareness analyzes them. If it is attached to them as pleasant there is desire or passion. if as painful, there is aggression. If there is neither, but attachment to "this," that is ignorance. [7] Examples are, seeing a good woman we once knew; seeing an enemy that once conquered us; and seeing a wall, water, a highway, a tree, and ordinary people, toward which we have neither joy or sorrow.
(i.e. Appearances, and perceptions are natural phenomenon arisen from emptiness. The problem is not seeing their real nature as they arise. The problem is to believe that they are inherently existing, independently of the mind, and to pursue the analysis, the conceptualization, the trying to control everything. There is no absolute need to analyze, conceptualize, discriminate, control. Because there is no absolute basis for that. There is no absolute distinction between wholesome and unwholesome, between object and subject, between objects / dharmas. Everything is non-dual. There is nothing to accept or do, nothing to reject or not-do or drop. It is just a matter of directly seeing the real nature of our own mind, and thus the real nature of everything: not existent, not non-existent, not both, not neither; inseparability of appearances and emptiness; inseparability of dependent origination and emptiness; inseparability of The Two Truths; inseparability of the Trikaya.
-- Note: It is important to realize that this doesn't mean that there is absolutely no possibility for any impartiality or control at all. That would be totally contrary to everything we see around us. It is not because there is no absolute (inherently existing) causes, effects, and causality, that effect are without causes, that causes have no effect, or that there is no possible control at all. That doesn't mean that everything is meaningless, and that we should drop everything. That would be falling for one extreme: nihilism. The Middle Way is to stay away from all extremes. The efficiency of sciences should be a proof enough of the possibility of "some control". It is just not "absolute".
-- So, again, it means that, although everything is impermanent, unsatisfactory (empty of inherent existence), we have to consider the law of karma and its consequences (causality, interdependence, dependent origination). We cannot talk about impermanence (or emptiness) without talking about karma (dependent origination); or vice versa. One without the other is only half of an introduction to the Two Truths. A good understanding consist of the Union of the Two: impermanence (or emptiness) and karma (dependent origination). They may look contradictory at the conceptual level, but this Union of The Two Truths is beyond all conceptualization. Until then we have to use both together, all the time.)
The Sutra on Teachings that are the Basis of Discipline says:
If we see amicable people, then we feel desire.
If harmful ones are present, our minds become aggressive.
For intermediate ones, our ignorance will increase,
In any case the gates of our faculties have been bound.
b. The basis of confusion in the eight consciousnesses
(i.e. Because of ignorance all present perception, consciousness, actions are conditioned by past karma, filtered by the actual five aggregates. The five aggregates represent the expectations, the investments done in the past, all based on the belief in the inherent existence of something (some actions, ideas, fabrications that probably brought some success in the past). They represent the crystallization of past karma. The present actions, in their turn, are going to condition future perception and actions, by being investments themselves. They are done while thinking that they are right, thus discriminating on the basis of a belief of something inherently existent. So conditioning perpetuates itself until there is a major failure, until the expectations based on ignorance are confronted with an unpredictable ever changing reality. All fabrications, material or immaterial, are born to fail at one point or another, because everything that is caused is dependent on those infinite number of causes and conditions, and thus impermanent, thus unsatisfactory. It is not knowing this, and having unrealistic hope based on ignorance, that cause karma formation (investing in the five aggregates) and its consequences: suffering.)
Now the ground of arising and divisions of these are extensively taught as follows:
Alaya consciousness, content mind, and then the five gates,
Gradually proliferate, one upon the other.
From that arise the cause and effect of samsaric suffering.
The root of samsara and suffering is ignorance,
Having the confusion of grasping and fixation.
By objects, conceptualization, and mind's habitual patterns,
By fixating "me" and "mine," samsara is established.(i.e. Desire and aversion are both produced by ignorance. We experience them because we do not know the real nature of things. The reason for practicing meditation is to overcome suffering; to overcome suffering we must overcome karma; to overcome karma we must overcome desire and aversion; to overcome desire and aversion we must overcome ignorance. Meditation overcomes ignorance. No beings want suffering; they all want to remove it. Most do not know how to, and some even create suffering in their efforts to remove it. People take medicines that cure sickness temporarily but cannot remove it forever. To remove suffering permanently, we must find its cause -- karma; we must remove the cause of the cause -- desire and aversion; we must remove the cause of these -- ignorance. Ignorance is the deepest root of all suffering. If ignorance is removed, all that stems from it will automatically disappear. Escape from samsara is impossible unless ignorance is removed. If we sit in meditation without understanding the real reason for doing so we will achieve only limited results. If we want to remove ignorance, we must first discover its nature and that of its opposite, shunyata (emptiness). Then, through meditation on emptiness, we have to remove ignorance. There are two different kinds of ignorance: ignorance regarding the ego and ignorance regarding external phenomena. ... This twofold ignorance about the ego and outer phenomena is the root of all defilements, karma and suffering. To remove suffering we must remove this ignorance completely. The only way to do this is to meditate on emptiness. There are many other objects of meditation, but emptiness is the most important.-- Geshe Rabten, The Graduated Path to Liberation)
Here to distinguishes the different aspects, at the very time when awareness [8] of individual objects [9] arises, without divisions of their vividness, mind [10] which has insight of this is called the alaya-consciousness (8). Then the mind that fixates that, that peacefully saves it, with much analysis of objects at its leisure and so forth, is content-mind (7).
The Sutra of the Ornament of Manjushri's wisdom says:
Mind is the alaya consciousness (8).
The "I" fixator is content-mind (7).
The eye-consciousness sees, when forms are seen, depending on the eye. Similarly depending on the ear there is sound, depending on the nose there is smell, depending on the tongue taste, depending on the body touchables. These are the five consciousnesses (1-5) The arising of later knowledge from such former phenomena is called the ayatana (6). In Tibetan this is kyeche, meaning increase or proliferation of what has arisen. The objects and awareness of these have immeasurable conditions, and since these many and extensive aspects are not put aside, but "retained" this is called kham or in Sanskrit dhatu.
From the object there is the arising of the seemingly supported
perceiver-mind. [11] From what is former, a
connection to the later arises, and dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata,
their nature, occur. This is interdependent arising. When the two minds of
object and perceiver are combined, pleasure and such like phenomena are felt and
included in insight. By the condition of contact, this is called feeling. The
particulars of these and other aspects are beyond describing.
In brief, by the three poisons, arising from the three collections of objects,
the senses, and the actions of concept mind, come all motivating karmas. These
karmas are unhappiness.
(i.e. Desire and aversion [discrimination] are both produced by ignorance. We experience them because we do not know the real nature of things. -- Geshe Rabten, The Graduated Path to Liberation)
(i.e. The Ratnavali of Nargarjuna says, "Every action arising from desire, aversion and ignorance produces suffering; every action arising from the absence of desire, aversion and ignorance produces happiness." -- Interview with Sakya Trizin)
(i.e. With regard to the six consciousnesses, the first five of these are what are called the consciousnesses of the five gates, the five gates referring to the five senses.
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1) The first of these is the eye consciousness. The eye consciousness is that which experiences as its object visual form, various shapes and colors and so on, on the basis of or relying upon the organic support of the physical eye. And that is the eye consciousness.Ø
2) The second is the ear consciousness, which in much the same way experiences its objects, which are the various sounds, pleasant and unpleasant and neutral and so on, through the medium of relying upon its organic support, which is the ear.Ø
3) The third consciousness is called the nose consciousness, and it experiences various smells as objects, through the organic support, or relying upon the organic support, of the nose.Ø
4) The fourth is the tongue consciousness, which experiences various tastes " sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and so on " relying upon the organic support of the tongue.Ø
5) The fifth consciousness is called the body consciousness or tactile consciousness, and the objects of this consciousness are all forms of tactile sensation. Whereas the other four organic supports were specific sense organs, which primarily perform their specific functions, here the organic support is the entire body, all of which can detect or feel a tactile sensation. So the fifth consciousness is called either the body consciousness or the tactile consciousness.Ø
6) The sixth consciousness is the mental consciousness, and it’s always enumerated by the learned as the sixth because in the case of any of the first five consciousnesses, it will ensue after them or follow upon them. In general, the object of the sixth consciousness is all things, anything that can be thought of, because it is this consciousness that thinks about the past, thinks about the future, thinks about the present. But also this consciousness experiences all of the objects of the five senses: forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. However, it does not experience them in the direct and clear manner of the five sense consciousnesses themselves. What happens is that following the generation of one of the sense consciousnesses; a mental replica or image of that particular sense consciousness is generated, which is called a mental consciousness. This mental replica is not a direct experience, but has been called a vague approximation. And this vague approximation forms the basis for the subsequent conceptuality of recognizing it as such and such, or good and bad and so on, which ensues. Therefore, while it does base some of its content upon the five sense consciousnesses, the sixth consciousness itself does not rely upon a particular organic support like a sense organ. It’s generated following any of the five and can also arise under other circumstances. It relies essentially upon cognition, or cognitive capacity itself, as its support.
Now, the five sense consciousnesses are non-conceptual, which means that they can only perform their specific function of mere experience. So the eye consciousness sees forms and the ear consciousness hears sounds and so on. Therefore, they can only experience the present, and only directly. Now, the present and the past and the future are important concepts, which are discussed a great deal in the study of Buddhism. The present, of course, ceases immediately, and by ceasing, it becomes the past. The future, which does not yet exist while it is the future, occurs, at which point, once it has occurred, it is not the future any more but is the present. So the present, this term "the present," or "now," really refers to an instant in between the past and the future. And this is all the five sense consciousnesses can experience. Your eyes, for example, can only see the present. Your eyes cannot see what is past nor can they see what is the future. And not only that, but your eyes cannot estimate or evaluate the present. Your eye consciousness only sees shapes and colors. It does not, in itself, recognize these various shapes and colors as some "thing" or another, does not conceptualize about them. Now, all of the five sense consciousnesses are, in the same way, non-conceptual.
The sixth consciousness, however, is conceptual, because it recognizes things, it brings concepts to bear upon experience and thereby confuses the experiences with the concepts about those experiences, including the confusion of a present experience with a past experience of something similar or apparently the same. So the sixth consciousness, which is conceptual, not only experiences the present but brings the concepts of the past and the future to bear upon this present experience.
Those six consciousnesses are called unstable or fluctuating, which means that they are suddenly generated by the presence of various causes and conditions, and then they cease when those causes and conditions are no longer present.
The other two consciousnesses in the list of eight, which are the consciousness which is the mental afflictions and the all-basis consciousness, are by contrast referred to as constant consciousnesses, which means that they are not suddenly generated and then suddenly ceasing; they are always present. However, while they are always there, they are not clear or manifest or obvious, like the first six. They are always there, but they are very hard to detect.
Ø
7) The first of these two, the seventh consciousness or the consciousness which is the mental afflictions, or klesha consciousness, is the innate fixation on a self that we all possess or that afflicts all of us. It’s this innate assumption of "I." Now, this is present whether we recollect it or not, whether we think of it or not, whether we’re conscious or not, whether we’re walking or sitting. No matter what we’re doing, this persists. Now, sometimes, when we think "I," we generate a literally conscious fixation on a self. That is not the seventh consciousness. That is the sixth consciousness’s version of fixation on a self, because that is sometimes there and sometimes not. The seventh consciousness, this fundamental fixation on a self, is always there, and in fact it will be there until you attain the eighth level of bodhisattva realization.Ø
8) The eighth consciousness is called the all-basis consciousness, and it is the mere cognitive lucidity, which is the fundamental basis for the rest of the functioning’s of mind. And because it is the basis for all of the rest of the mental functioning’s or activities, it’s called the all-basis. Now, it is on this basis that all of the habits of samsara are piled: habits of karma, of kleshas, and so on. And through variations in one’s habituation - the habits that you accumulate - then various results arise. Through various types of habituation, then you tend to cultivate more virtuous and fewer un-virtuous states of mind, or the other way around; and through all of these variations and habituation which produce habits that are laid onto or piled onto the all-basis, then you experience the world in your own particular way.
Various appearances arise, and you experience the fluctuations; and to the extent you experience fluctuations in the degree of mental affliction, you experience fluctuations in your intelligence and your compassion, and so on.
Now, the all-basis, together with the other seven - all of these - are what are called the eight consciousnesses.
And through the practice of meditation in particular and the practice of dharma in general, gradually these are transformed into what are called the five wisdoms, which means that their basic nature is revealed. And the full revelation of these, the full transformation of the manifestation of these from the samsaric manifestation of the eight consciousnesses into the pure manifestation, is the five wisdoms. The full and final extent of this is Buddhahood.
Transforming Samsaric Consciousness Into the Five Wisdoms, The V. V. Thrangu Rinpoche, Shenpen Osel
I will name the eight consciousnesses for people who don't know them. The first five are the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, tongue, nose and body consciousness. These five consciousnesses function through the organs to perceive the five external objects of sense. In themselves, these five are very partial and limited. The eye consciousness is only for form. It cannot taste or hear sounds or smell. Similarly, the ear is only for sound, not for seeing, tasting and so forth. Now how can these scattered consciousnesses be brought together into one united state? That is the function of the sixth consciousness, which is like the driver or a judge who makes decisions. It receives and organizes the input of the five external consciousnesses and gives meaning to our experience. The sixth combines and integrates the sense consciousnesses into one. It is known as mind consciousness.
The first five consciousnesses are very immediate. They have no continuity. They only refer to the present. They cannot sense the past or the future. They only communicate directly with the present. They are very exclusive and one-sided. The sixth consciousness not only unites these five, it can also refer to the events and activities of the past and future. It is actually structuring our sense of time.
A closer look reveals that the mind has two sides. One, which we have called the sixth consciousness, is dealing with the business of the past, present and future; making decisions based on the information received from the first five consciousnesses. It is very neutral and rational. There is another side to this mind, the seventh consciousness, which is basically very emotional and gives rise to ego clinging. On the basis of ego clinging, ignorance, anger, attachment, jealousy, pride and doubt develop. All this arises in that singular aggregate we call the mind.
All seven of these minds are based upon an eighth consciousness, which is known a 'kun-gzhi' in Tibetan, the ground of mind. It is sometimes translated as 'subconscious storehouse'. In Sanskrit, it is called 'alaya'. The nature of the eighth consciousness is neither positive nor negative; it is neutral. Alaya retains every basic habit-pattern of individuals. Everything is stored there; our good karma, bad karma, and neutral karma. All kinds of habits and whatever actions we perform during our lifetimes are registered there. This is why it is known as a 'storehouse'. Alaya is a consciousness, but it is very subtle.
When these eight consciousnesses are transmuted or transformed, they become the Five Wisdoms. The Five Wisdoms are symbolized by the five Dhyani Buddhas. They are the radiant spectrum of clarity qualifying the Dharmakaya. The central Buddha of Dharmadhatu Wisdom is Vairocana. The eastern Buddha of Mirror-like Wisdom is Akshobya. The Wisdom of Equality is embodied in the Buddha of the southern direction, Ratnasambhava or Rinchen Jungnay in Tibetan. The western Buddha of Discriminating Awareness Wisdom is Amitabha or Opagme in Tibetan and the northern Buddha of All Accomplishing Wisdom is known as Amogha Siddhi. These are the principle Buddhas of the Sambhogakaya.
-- The Three Kayas, Khenpo Palden Sherab
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[Mahayana] From patience and so forth freedom from the three poisons arises. This is the great happiness, the great bliss.Ø
[Hinayana] On the path of the ten virtues and so forth, prajña and compassion are not fully accomplished. This is the path of the lesser happiness.Ø
Accumulated by ignorant earthly beings, after the fruition of samsaric happiness is produced, it is exhausted. This is happiness proportional to merit.Ø
The enlightened happiness produced by completely finishing the path is happiness proportional to liberation.Ø
[Dark Path] By the three poisons there is universally arising unhappiness. The lower realms and whatever suffering there may be are produced by this cause.Ø
Happiness proportional to merit grasps the glorious highlights of divine and human happiness.Ø
The happiness proportional to liberation is produced both by incidental highlights and ultimate true goodness.(i.e. There are three types of karma, and their results. Unwholesome
karma lead to unhappiness. Wholesome karma lead to happiness. And neutral
actions lead to neutral effect. The result is in relation to the cause, and
proportional to the cause. All actions (wholesome or unwholesome) based on
ignorance lead ultimately to suffering because there is karma formation,
investment in the form of the five aggregates, construction of something
impermanent, unsatisfactory.
The Hinayana path, because it is based on such
discrimination, cannot lead to total Enlightenment beyond all dualities. There
will always remain a subtle form of karma, the basis of the discrimination
between a self to be liberated and the rest of the world. There remains this
duality.
The Mahayana Path, because it combines both method and wisdom, not accepting
and not rejecting, can lead to total Enlightenment, Buddhahood. It uses the
first five paramitas to accumulate merit, and the sixth to accumulate wisdom.
Because it is in accord with the non-dual nature of everything (not existence,
not non-existence...) it can lead to complete transcendence of all
conditioning.)
The Precious Mala says:
As for passion, aggression, and ignorance
The karma produced by them is unhappiness.
As for non-passion, -aggression, and -ignorance,
The karma produced by them is happiness.
Unhappy karma is all suffering.
Happy karma is all the higher realms
And all the happiness of sentient beings
'Externally appearing things are like the things that appear to be other in a dream.' This means that grasping involves habitual patterns of objects. These various appearances of pure and impure are confused existence. Habitual patterns of reality are produced by the karma of bodily arising and also by the inner condition of not knowing such-ness. These are the skandhas (i.e. Five aggregates), dhatus (i.e. Irreducible Elements), ayatanas (i.e. spheres of sense and sense objects), and so forth. From them arise all the kleshas, and the suffering that is their fruition, the support of the confusions of fixation.
(i.e. All perception and consciousnesses are filtered by the actual five aggregates which are the result of accumulated karma. They develop in a cycle: perception / action, karma, five aggregates, perception / action, ... Past success build up unrealistic expectations; the wheel turns until there is a big failure. While we forget the real nature of everything, we invest in a particular set of the five aggregates by accumulating more and more karma, until the consequences of karma formation manifest. It is because everything constructed, caused, is impermanent, unsatisfactory, empty, that one day we have to be deceived by our unrealistic expectations. So all of our perception and actions are conditioned by our actual five aggregates, and they produce more karma that will cause the next set of the five aggregates. All of this at the scale of every infinitesimal moment, and at the scale of lives.)
Luminous, naturally arisen wisdom is in essence empty, and by nature luminous. It is the source of the unobstructed arising of various kinds of radiance. (i.e. This is a description of the three aspects of the real nature of the mind: empty, luminous, unobstructed)
(i.e. It is natural that appearances arise from emptiness. It is ok to discriminate, to act, and to help all other sentient beings. The problem is to do it while having unrealistic expectations based on the belief in inherent existence. Discriminating with ignorance is a poison leading to karma formation and suffering, discriminating without ignorance is a wisdom, the basis for Buddha activities, and there is no karma formation (investment in the five aggregates, expectation).
When we become attached to this as the individualizing characteristics of grasping and fixation, insight arises as the habitual patterns of mind. The five or the three poisons arise. The root of confusion is fixating on the "I" and ego. Because of that, the confused appearances of samsara arise like reflections, dreams, or hairs drifting before the eyes. Moreover, fixation is fixated as "I", and grasped objects are fixated as "mine" with an attitude like that of the owner of a house.
(i.e. "The path to freedom is only to be found, by removing the ignorance which apprehends essence where there is no essence". -- Geshe Yeshe Tobten, Praise of Dependent Origination)
(i.e. "Ignorance is itself conditioned by the actual mind and body (the five aggregates). A cycle of self-reinforcing bad habits, samsara." -- )
(i.e. "So miss-knowledge as he translates it, or ignorance or bewilderment (it's in the next line here) means a positive apprehension of something being independently there. The opposite to something that comes about dependently…this ignorance or apprehension of essences in a universe which is in fact totally dependent-arisen..." -- Geshe Yeshe Tobten, Praise of Dependent Origination)
(i.e. "Nirvana the cessation of accepting everything [as real]." -- Nargarjuna, Karikas)
2. The manner of confusion,
There are two sections:
·
a. By knowing or not knowing what we are there are liberation or confusion (three great doctrines of the Yogacara tradition)·
b. The suffering of wandering in samsara because of ego-graspinga) By knowing or not knowing what we are [13] there are liberation or confusion (three great doctrines of the Yogacara tradition)
By knowing or not knowing what we are there are liberation or confusion.
Now the basis and way of confusion are extensively taught, as follows:
The changeless nature of mind, perfection, Dharmakaya,
By ignorant fixation, takes on habits of false conception.
Involving confused appearance of impure relativity,
Dualistic appearance of objects as self and other,
Then come to be grasped as really being two.
Intrinsically this presents itself as limitless suffering.
When we have realized the ever-changeless nature of mind,
By the path of meditation on this unerring perfection,
We will properly reach the field of pure relativity.
Easing the weariness of the village of samsara.
(i.e. So appearances, luminosity, are naturally arisen from emptiness. They are not impure, to be dropped, to be purified, to be changed. The natural function of the mind is to create those appearances, like reflections in a mirror. The problem is when those appearances are not seen for what they are, when there is ignorance of their real non-dual nature. Then there is fixation, grasping, discrimination, conceptualization, analysis, etc. Then everything turns into poison. All of this because there is the belief in an inherent existent world and in the inherent existence of a self in opposition to it.
-- But once we directly realize the real nature of our own mind, and the real nature of everything, then there is no more problem; everything is then seen as pure; the three gates are then purified and united.
-- Everything has always been pure and perfect. The mind is the same before or after; there is nothing to add, nothing to reject, nothing to control, nothing to do, nothing to not-do. Trying to control was the problem. Samsara and Nirvana are not separate or different, but still not the same.
-- Even relativity (the theory of dependent origination, the Wheel of Life) (or even emptiness) can turn into a poison if it is seen as something inherently existing, as an absolute. This might be the problem in some Hinayana sects where there is so much attachment in discrimination between wholesome and unwholesome. But when dependent origination is combined with emptiness (and vice versa), as in the Mahayana, uniting both method and wisdom, then there is no more problem. There is no danger to fall into one extreme or another.
-- The perfection of the meditation on the suffering of the six realms, the Wheel of Life, is to do it while remembering that all elements are empty of inherent existence, that all suffering of the six realms are caused by our own mind, by our own investment, by our own karma. Dependent origination is not the real nature of everything. It is just a skillful means. The same for emptiness. The real nature of everything is called the Union of those Two Truths. It is beyond any description, beyond any conceptualization.)
Here three great doctrines of the Yogacara [14] tradition are taught. These are
1. False conceptions,
2. Relativity,
3. And the perfectly established,
in Sanskrit, parikalpita, paratantra, and parinishpanna.
Cittamatra is a complex and sophisticated tradition, much less studied in the
West than Madhyamaka. It certainly should not be presupposed that all or even
most of the Cittamatra masters and texts teach exactly the same doctrine.
Nevertheless, they do have some teachings in common, and central to Cittamatra
thought is that of the Three Aspects. The teaching of the Three Aspects is for
the Samdhinirmocana Sutra the final correct doctrine, requiring no
interpretation or adaptation, the antidote to thy nihilistic interpretation of
emptiness.
All things, which can be known, can be subsumed under these Three Aspects.
The first Aspect is called the constructed or conceptualized aspect (parikalpitasvabhava). The SamdhinirmocanaSutra connects it with the falsifying activity of language. It is the realm of words which attribute inherent existence to things. More informatively, the Mahayanasamgraha and its commentaries explain that the conceptualized or constructed aspect is appearance as an object when really there are only perceptions (vijnaptimatra). By 'object' here is meant both poles of an experience, both experiencer and that which is experienced, referred to in Cittamatra terminology as 'grasped and 'grasped' (grahaka/grahya; Mahayanasamgraha). The conceptualized aspect is the world as it is experienced by everyday unenlightened folk the world of really existing subjects confronting really existing and separate objects. It is how things appear to us, the realm of subject-object duality. These things do not actually exist at all (Trimsika v.20), things are not really like that.
The second Aspect, the dependent aspect (paratantrasvabhava), is, according to the SamdhinirmocanaSutra, the dependent origination of dharmas, that is, the causal flow. According to the Trisvabhavanirdesa it is that which appears, in opposition to the way in which it appears, which is the first Aspect, the conceptualized aspect. In other words, it is the substratum for the erroneous partition into inherently existing subjects and objects which marks the conceptualized aspect.
In order to understand what is being said here, one should try and imagine all things, objects of experience and oneself, the one who is experiencing, as just a flow of perceptions. We do not know that there is something 'out there'. We have only experiences of colors, shapes, tactile data, and so on. We also do not know that we ourselves are anything other than a further series of experiences. Taken together, there is only an ever-changing flow of perceptions - Vijnaptimatra. Due to our beginning-less ignorance we construct these perceptions into enduring subjects and objects confronting each other. This is irrational, things are not really like that, and it leads to suffering and frustration. The constructed objects are the conceptualized aspect. The flow of perceptions, which forms the basis for our mistaken constructions, is the dependent aspect.
In itself the dependent aspect is, of course, beyond language, since language is the realm of the conceptualized aspect - language necessarily falsifies, constructs inherently existing entities. Indicating its nature, we might say that the dependent aspect is the flow of experience, which is erroneously partitioned. The Mahayanasamgraha describes it as the support for the manifestation of non-existent and fictive things (2: 2). Note, however, that for the Cittamatra falsification (pace the Madhyamaka) requires a really existing substratum. This point is strongly made in the very earliest phase of Yogacara thought, in the Yogacarabhumi. One has to avoid both under- and over-negation.
Ø
Under-negation is to take for inherently existing realities entities, which are merely the creation of language, in other words, the conceptualized aspect.Ø
Over-negation is to deny the substratum which really, ultimately (paramartha) exists albeit inexpressibly, and to say that nothing exists at all.Both these faults are ruinous to religious practice. There must be a real substratum, for without a real substratum erroneous construction, the conceptualized aspect, could never take placed. Moreover, if the dependent aspect as substratum did not exist, then likewise liberation, seeing things the way key really are, could also not occur. There would be simply universal nonexistence (Mahayanasamgraha).
The final Aspect is called the perfected aspect (parinispannasvabhava). According to the Samdhinirmocana Sutra it is the 'Such-ness' or "Thus-ness' (tathata), the true nature of things, which is discovered in meditation. It is said to be the complete absence, in the dependent aspect, of objects - that is, the objects of the conceptualized aspect (Mahayanasamgraha). This is not as difficult as it sounds. What it amounts to is that through meditation we come to know that our flow of perceptions, of experiences, really lacks the fixed enduring subjects and objects, which we have constructed out of it. There is only the flow of experiences. The perfected aspect is, therefore, the fact of non-duality; there is neither subject nor object but only a single flow. It is also emptiness explained for this tradition as meaning that one thing is empty of another. That is, the flow of perceptions - the dependent aspect - is empty of enduring entities - the conceptualized aspect. What remains, the substratum, which is empty of those enduring entities, the flow of perceptions themselves, nevertheless does exist (Willis 1979: 163 Thurman 1984: 214).
One of the commentaries to the Mahayanasamgraha explains all the Three Aspects with reference to the example of water seen in a mirage.
·
The water as perception rather than real water is the dependent aspect.·
The water considered by a person hallucinating to be real water is the conceptualized aspect,·
While the complete absence of real water in the water as image is the perfected aspect (on 2: 4).
Were there to be no dependent aspect there could likewise be no liberation, for without a flow of perceptions there would be nothing at all! According to the Mahayanasamgraha, no dependent aspect, no perfected aspect. Elsewhere it is explained that the dependent aspect is conceptualized aspect in one part, and perfected aspect in another. The first part is samsara, the second Nirvana. That is, the dependent aspect, the flow of perceptions, experiences, as substratum for erroneous construction, the conceptualized aspect, is the substratum for samsara; as substratum for realizing the true nature of things it is the substratum for nirvana. In everyday life we deluded people do as a matter of fact hypostatize our experiences, which in reality are all there is, and construct them into enduring objects and enduring selves. This is samsara, the round of rebirth, frustration, and suffering. It is based on a fundamentally wrong understanding of what is really there. Through realizing this in meditation, coming to understand that objects and the Self are just a flow of experiences with no enduring elements set in opposition to each other (no duality), we attain enlightenment. This very same flow of experiences can be a basis for suffering in the unenlightened man, but also a basis for liberation in the saint. It becomes possible, therefore, to talk of two types of dependent aspect.
·
The tainted dependent aspect is those phenomena, those perceptions, which are then projected, as it were, into 'really existing' subjects and objects.·
Pure dependent aspect is the post-meditational experience of the saint who has seen in his meditation the way things really are. It is a flow of purified perceptions, perceptions without the ignorance of construction into enduring entities.5Mahayana Buddhism, Paul Williams, Chapter 4 - Cittamatra)
There are two kinds of false conceptions, characteristics, and accountable false conceptions. [15]
·
By characteristics, from someone's viewpoint something is conceptually imputed, though it is non-existent, such as the horns of a rabbit or the alleged ego. This includes any bad doctrines and all the names and meanings of this and that established from that that may be presented by such a mind. What is this like? Some search for the real bodily existence of that to which the name "lion" is imputed, but do not find it. Though the phenomenal meaning has been presented as "this," from mere arrogance, giving individual characteristics without any real remembered mental object, they may say it is like "fire." (i.e. Appearances from the mind-only, pure illusions with no valid basis.)·
Accountable false conceptions are various aspects of the environment and inhabitants of the phenomenal world arising from the viewpoint of confusion--joy and sorrow, the skandhas, dhatus, and ayatanas. Because they really do not exist, but only appear like a dream from the confused viewpoint of mind, they are called accountable false conceptions. (i.e. Appearances dependent on the mind, but not from the mind-only. There is a valid basis.)·
Though all these things are nature-less, they appear from the viewpoint of confusion. Since they are exaggerations, they are called parikalpita, or false conceptions, in Tibetan kun tak, [16] literally all-imputation or all-labeling. The Bodhisattvabhumi says:As for the false conceptions of parikalpita
Though non-existent, are produced by the mind of confusion.
There are also two kinds of relativity, pure and impure.
·
Pure relativity is the pure fields and the objects of the pure seeing of the Buddhas, appearances that arise of Buddha fields, the seven precious things [17] and divine palaces of pure light. Some say that the relativity of Yogacara tradition is unacceptable, since all such things are classified as personal appearance. [18] Such disputatious people have not seen this properly. This sort of relativity is not established by oneself from personal habitual patterns of awareness. It is not like the phenomena reflected in a mirror, which are produced by conditions. (i.e. Maybe pure relativity is dependent origination united with emptiness. The Union of The Two Truths as realized only by the Buddhas. Something that is beyond description, beyond any conceptualization. It is seeing things and phenomenon as not existent, but still not completely non-existent either, not from the mind-only. It is seeing thins as dependently arisen but not with inherently existing causes, effect, causality.)Whether everything is included within personal appearance should be analyzed. Either mind is included within mere appearance, or appearance is included within mind.
Ø
If it is like the first, at the time of mere appearance, there is no discernible boundary between phenomena that are included and those that are not included. Therefore "included" is a mere word, having nothing to do with real phenomena. [19]Ø
If it is like the second, how can this be suitable? Someone might say, "Since appearance arises from mind, it too is mind." Then a boy child that comes from a woman would also be a woman, but this is not so. Excrement comes from the body, so it would be the body. This is clearly not the case.Ø
Someone also might say, "Appearance is mind because it appears in mind." Then form would be visual consciousness, because it appears in visual consciousness. Buddhas that appear to erroneous sentient beings would be the minds of those beings. Fallaciously, these sentient beings with their erroneous minds would be Buddhas. Since sentient beings also appear to these Buddhas, the whole realm of sentient beings would all be Buddhas. Moreover, this fault that spotless Buddhas are also defiled sentient beings could never be abandoned. This is because if Buddhas were not mind, they could not arise at all. [20]Ø
If someone says, "Phenomena are mind," then what is really cause and fruition would be a single thing. If this did not exist, neither could arise at all. Thus, an enemy and one's anger at the enemy would be the same single thing. Therefore, without the enemy, there could be no anger at the enemy.Ø
Also it is not proper to say, "phenomena are mind because they are produced by mind." Then the details of a painting would be the painter, because the painter produced them. How is it proper to maintain that external earth, stones, mountains, and rocks are mind? Admit that their arising from the habitual patterns of mind is confused appearance. If this were not so, when a hundred people look at one vase, the vase that is seen by them all would be their awareness, and all the hundred beings would be a single awareness. If this is maintained, it would be proper reasoning that if one of them gets enlightened, they would all be enlightened. If one went to the lower realms, they would all go there. If it is like these notions, sentient beings in the world like you and me would not exist at all, since all that appears like that would be other than one's own mind. Moreover, it would not be suitable that there were any other Buddhas besides the single one Shakyamuni. This is because all objects seen by him would be his awareness. If one maintains that, clearly he is us. These days many people fixate such traditions and completely obscure the Mahayana. [21] From what they say it would follow that a huge body could be covered by one the size of a lotus. A flower could have earrings. A gold face would be more than a mere ornament. An elephant would be just the sound of trumpeting.
If you ask what are pure appearances, when it is proclaimed within proper reasoning that completely false phenomena that are spotless are mind-only, that tradition says:These appearances of oneself to oneself are one's own mind appearing to itself, but the apparent object is not mind. (i.e. Appearances are not different or separate from the mind, but still not the same.)
Many Yogacara texts say:
As many things that appear, that many are mind.
But that is not so for apparent objects themselves.
Having habitual patterns from beginning-less time,
We are shaggy, as it were, with hairs before the eyes.Appearance and the apparent object are distinguished. Others may think, "The apparent object of a mountain is a mountain!" but the clear appearances of fixation of mind arise in dependence on the faculty of sight. The objects we directly encounter, the phenomena fixated by our minds, are private, personal appearances. [22] Then when others encounter the same mountain, that their apparent objects are the same as ours does not follow. Apparent objects are fixations of what appears in sense perception in terms of the habitual patterns of former eye consciousness.
A mere abstraction, [23] a mental object, a luminous appearance of what does not exist, vividly appears in the mental sense. Therefore, even if appearances apprehended by the mind and the fixator of them, appearances of others and the fixator of them are all mind, the object, which arises for and is perceived by the mind is classified as an apparent object. All the objects of the five gates appear even though they do not exist, like shaggy hairs before the eyes, because of beginning-less habitual patterns. Thus they become dualized. It may be asked, "Do you therefore establish appearance and apparent object as different?
For you also they are two. This is because they exist externally to apparent mind, and because this is maintained within the fixating mind. [24] These are one within the mind, but are called "two." [25]
It may be asked, "according to proper reasoning are they one? Here the apparent object caused by confused habitual patterns and the appearance ascertained by fixation, while both do not exist, [26] neither differs conventionally from the phenomena confused by habitual patterns. Moreover, since there are not really two such objects, they are established to be not two in nature. For we who profess Madhyamika, if we analyze, not only the thing which is the apparent object, but the appearance too is maintained not to be mind. This is because mind is inner and does just so, not exist externally and external appearance that arises within the individual senses is analyzed as being within the mind. If appearances had an external aspect too, then peoples' consciousness would be two or more at the same time, or one's consciousness would be a material thing. [27] There would be many such fallacies.
Therefore, the fixator of appearance and non-appearance is mind, but appearance itself is not established as mind. What is or is not the word "tail" is grasped by the listening consciousness, but listening consciousness itself is not established as the word, "tail."
In brief, one's own mind, though seemingly externally projected does not really go outward, and therefore, external phenomena really appear inwardly. However, external appearance is never internal mind. Why? Because what appears does not exist. A variety of such things, white and red, arise. [28]
For one who has diseased eyes due to a disorder of the phlegm objects which are completely non-existent nevertheless appear, externally, internally and between. These are said to be nature-less or empty of essence. Neither what is established as mind and what is established as other than mind are liberated from attachment to truly existent self-nature. In that respect they are indistinguishable. Some one may say, "Isn't this assertion that there are external objects-things which are not directly known, like that of the Shravaka Vaibhashika School?
It is not the same. The vaibhashikas proclaim that these objects are established to have individual characteristics of material things. We, on the other hand, say that habitual patterns of confused appearance appear to mind even though what seems to be there is non-existent like a dream. This approach is not refuted by Madhyamika, and so it is suitable.
Someone may ask why what has been proclaimed by us is not refuted by the prasangika Madhyamaka School. Mere appearance is not refuted, but attachment to true existence is refuted.
The teacher Nargarjuna says:
Thus though
appearance itself is not to be refuted,
Eliminate thoughts that conceptualize this as truly existent.
(i.e. True Emptiness doesn't deny dependent origination; and vice versa. In fact they are interdependent. One implies the other. They are not different, not the same. The real nature of everything is seen when this duality of dependent origination (or causality) and emptiness of inherent existence is transcended, when the two are "united". The real nature of everything is not dependent origination, not emptiness, not both, not neither. Transcending doesn't mean rejecting the duality, nor accepting it. The Middle Way: not accepting, not rejecting the world. There is no absolute causality, but no complete absence of causality either. The real nature of everything is beyond all description, beyond all conceptualization, beyond all dualities. But we call it the inseparability of appearances and emptiness, or the Union of The Two Truths.)
The Yogacara true-aspectarians proclaim that phenomena are mind. Both the true and false aspectarians assert the refuted tenet that the absolute is truly established as self-insight, [29] so how will they deny that confused appearances of habitual patterns arise while they are non-existent and that classifications of existents are really entered into? This is because these would be made into the classification of the relative at the same time. [30]
Thus outer relativity and the relativity of mind or insight, [31] arising after the former, its appearance depending on other previous objects, must be analyzed in terms of inner patterns. If seeming appearance of before and after is imputed, the name alone is the meaning, and they accord. If it is maintained to be other and different from what is present, one's own insight cannot be established as a characteristic of something other, because the very assertion is contradictory. This is not good reasoning. The former text says:
Thus all these various different kinds of appearances,
Because they seem to be phenomena that are other,
Are the impure relativity of grasping and fixation.
The pure is also said to be relativity,
But what becomes through external power is not pure.
This too is explained as appearing to be something other.
The perfectly established is changeless and true. This changeless, completely established nature without confusion is the emptiness of dharmata, by nature intrinsically pure, without distinction of earlier and later. This changeless perfectly established is the quintessential natural state. The empowerment of this is established as empty or as threefold. (i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature)
It is naturally empty of itself, other, and both.
·
As for emptiness of itself, it appears as non-existence, like the moon in water. Individual characteristics are abandoned, and divided aspects of self and other do not exist; but spontaneously present dharmas are not put aside, there are both imputations of these and of the emptiness of their self- nature.·
Other emptiness is the other emptiness of not having or the other emptiness of accountables.·
Emptiness of both self and other has both emptiness of accountables and emptiness of the individual characteristics denoted by the words.
This luminous nature of mind, the nature, the dhatu, the essence, is empty of all fallacious things. It has the characteristics of the Buddha qualities. Its purity of essence is beyond faults and virtues, and establishing or clearing away.
Various defiled dharmas of confused appearance, red and white, arise. These false conceptions, the eight consciousnesses, are nature-less. Their self-nature is empty. Accountable like a pillar or a vase, they are empty and fallacious. The pure nature is beyond faults and virtues, establishing or clearing away. The paths too are empty of themselves and have some virtuous and some faulty aspects. But the pure essence is beyond faults and virtues.
At the time of the ultimate purity, all injurious faults together with their habitual patterns are obscured in emptiness. This is the absolute itself. Whatever qualities of the absolute dhatu exist are also ultimate manifestations and are not empty. [32] The pure essence is beyond faults and virtues, establishing and clearing away.
·
In brief, as for self-emptiness, the nature of dharmas of this and that has no true existence. From the two divisions, as for characteristics being empty of their own essence, whatever characteristic is described is non-existent like the horns of a rabbit. Though appearing from the viewpoint of confusion, it is without nature or reality, empty like the moon in water. Emptiness of self-nature of imputation, is emptiness of what is imputed by names, words, and letters. Except as mere mental constructions, the individual characteristics of these objects do not exist, as for small children what is imputed by the name "lion" really has a turquoise mane. What is actually denoted by the word used by this small child has a body without such a mane, but since the understanding producing name can have an understood symbolic meaning even when it is empty, all impute to it an effect-producing power.·
In emptiness of other, a dharma is imputed to be empty of another dharma. From the two divisions, in other emptiness of not having the sun is said to be empty by not having darkness, a pillar, a blanket, and so forth. Here, dharmas that are non-existent within the sun are other real individual natures. [33]·
As for emptiness of accountable others, "the sun" and "light-producer," and "the one with seven horses" are general accountable imputations. Since the natures [34] and particular included examples [35] expressed do not touch the individuating characteristics which are the meaning of the sun, it is empty of them.·
What is empty of both self and other is a dharma that has neither. From the two divisions. There are accountable imputations and real individual characteristics.Within the one involving accountable imputations, are the skandhas, dhatus, and ayatanas and so forth, which are imputed by samsaric confusions. All such things are also empty of the individual characteristics of the three realms, since they are constructions of conventional mind in names. They have both empty individual characteristics, like the water in a mirage, and no individual characteristics, like the child of a barren woman. Though they are empty of any truly any existing nature, they un-obstructedly appear, vividly luminous, with an emptiness like that of relativity.
The Third Chapter of
the commentary on
The Great Perfection:
The Nature Of Mind, The Easer Of Weariness
called the Great Chariot
·
Guru Puja - Reviewing the Stages of the Path86.
Aghast at the searing blaze of suffering in the lower realms,
We take heartfelt refuge in the Three Precious Gems and seek
Your blessings that we may eagerly endeavor to practice the various means
For abandoning what is bound to misfortune and accumulating virtuous deeds.
87.
Violently tossed amidst waves of delusions and karma,
Plagued by hordes of watery denizens—the three kinds of suffering—
We seek your blessings to develop an intense longing to be free
From this monstrous ocean of boundless and vicious existence.
88.
Having abandoned the mind that views this unbearable
prison of cyclic existence as a pleasure grove,
We seek your blessings to partake of the treasure
Of Aryas' jewels and the three higher trainings,
And thereby to uphold liberation's banner.
·
The Mountain of Blessings, by Lama Tsong Khapa
Bless me to perceive
All that's wrong
With the seemingly good things
Of this life.
I can never get enough of them.
They cannot be trusted.
They are the door
To every pain I have.
Grant me then
To strive instead
For the happiness of freedom.
·
By knowing or not knowing what we are there are liberation or confusion.·
Thus though appearance itself is not to be refuted, Eliminate thoughts that conceptualize this as truly existent.·
Correct perfect establishment is the path of true liberation. In realizing the natural state as it is, since the phenomena of appearance are not put aside, in the relative, merit can be accumulated. The nature of emptiness, which is contemplated, is the accumulation of wisdom within the absolute. Earnestly produce this dharmata like the sky free from one and many. (i.e. dharmin, the realm of dharmas, and dharmata, their real nature)·
The suffering common to all realms and specific to each realm.·
The three kinds of suffering: sufferings of suffering, change, and composite nature·
The eight kinds of [human] suffering that always grasp us in samsara·
The mandala of samsara. (i.e. The Wheel of Life)·
How does confusion arise? The objects of the six senses individually come forth by means of the powers of the six sense- consciousnesses. By fixating these objects, there is continuous attachment to them as happiness, suffering, and neutrality.·
The root of samsara and suffering is ignorance, having the confusion of grasping and fixation.·
'Externally appearing things are like the things that appear to be other in a dream.' This means that grasping involves habitual patterns of objects. These various appearances of pure and impure are confused existence. Habitual patterns of reality are produced by the karma of bodily arising and also·
The root of confusion is fixating on the "I" and ego. Because of that, the confused appearances of samsara arise like reflections, dreams, or hairs drifting before the eyes. Moreover, fixation is fixated as "I", and grasped objects are fixated as "mine" with an attitude like that of the owner of a house.The changeless nature of mind, perfection, Dharmakaya,
By ignorant fixation, takes on habits of false conception.
Involving confused appearance of impure relativity,
Dualistic appearance of objects as self and other,
Then come to be grasped as really being two.
Intrinsically this presents itself as limitless suffering.
When we have realized the ever-changeless nature of mind,
By the path of meditation on this unerring perfection,
We will properly reach the field of pure relativity.
Easing the weariness of the village of samsara.
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Three great doctrines of the Yogacara tradition: false conceptions, relativity, and the perfectly established,·
About the six realms:Ø
Hot Hells: If someone in the Hells remains un-terrified, But knows the nature of these endless samsaric torments, Then that person will have the means of passing beyond them.Ø
Cold hells: Beings with minds should then arouse their strength of effort To conquer these merely mental worlds of Hell.Ø
Hungry ghosts: Having seen this saddening nature of how things are, Accordingly, persons, to gain their liberation, Should distance themselves from Samsára’s hedonic calculus. By that the true peace of holy Dharma will be established.Ø
Animals: Having thought about this, those who want liberation from the world of animals, to benefit themselves, Should customarily travel the path of accurate vision. Striving day and night to be absorbed in the wholesome.Ø
Humans: Thus within the limits of this human world, with suffering as cause and effect, there is no happiness. To be liberated from this, think of the excellent Dharma. That offers the means of liberation from samsara.Ø
Asuras: Therefore, those who are going to happiness and peace should quickly practice the Dharma that leads to liberation.Ø
Gods: You yourself must gird yourself in the armor of effort. Now is the time to ascend the path of liberation. / Being liberated from the lower realms and from samsara depends on our own efforts. / Therefore having come to recognize our faults, Mindful in our hearts of the suffering of samsara, So that we and beings may be liberated from samsara, Let us truly embark upon the path of peace.
Ø
The nature of samsara is suffering. The fruition of suffering is the five skandhas.Ø
There is no reliance in any of the six realms; all are impermanent, suffering.Ø
Not even the four Dhyanas are bringing lasting happiness.Ø
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Strong desire to escape completely the whole samsara; renunciation; strong desire to practice the dharma.