Brief Review of Why and How We Need to Analyze the Different Types of Appearances
We’ve been speaking about the various appearances that our mental activity gives rise to. We are analyzing them because how things appear to us affects very much how we respond to what we experience in life, doesn’t it? When we respond to the way things appear to us in an inappropriate way, under the influence of our unawareness of how things exist, and with the insecurity and confusion that it brings, that leads us to develop disturbing emotions and attitudes. These activate the various karmic tendencies for us to act in compulsive ways. Then we actually act compulsively, also mixed with disturbing emotions, and this produces all sorts of problems. Especially if we’re trying to help others, it really disables us and prevents us from being of best help to them. That’s because we become attached to them or we become annoyed with them when they don’t follow our advice, and so on. Or, we become control freaks: we think that we can control everything around us. Or we become perfectionists. These disturbing emotions and attitudes, then, produce all sorts of problems, don’t they? So, it’s very important to sort out these various appearances that our mental activity gives rise to and see which are accurate, which are inaccurate, and so on.
There are many variables concerning these appearances that we can evaluate. We can recognize which are the aspects that we need to work to get rid of and which are the ones that are always going to be there and that we just need to develop their abilities more. In other words, we have to understand what we mean by “purification.”
“Purification” can mean, on the one hand, to get rid of something completely – to attain a true stopping of it – or it can mean to get some mental factor or mental faculty to work more efficiently. If we’re able to successfully purify away everything that we need to get rid of, we’ll no longer be under the influence of our unawareness, our confusion, our disturbing emotions and the compulsiveness of our karma. We will become liberated beings, arhats, which means that we’ll no longer experience uncontrollably recurring rebirth. This means rebirth with the type of aggregate factors that we have now: body, mind, all the mental factors, and so on, which are the basis for experiencing the suffering of unhappiness, as well as the suffering and problems of our ordinary happiness, which never lasts, never satisfies – we always want more – and changes to unhappiness because we become bored with it. If we continue the purification process further, we can become enlightened Buddhas, so that we see the interconnectedness of everything, particularly in terms of behavioral cause and effect, and we know best how to help others.
We can undertake this process of sorting these mental factors out and purifying the ones that we need to get rid of with, if we think in terms of the lam-rim, the three levels of motivation. “Motivation” means an intention to reach a certain goal and to do something once we reach that goal, together with the emotion behind that intention. We want to sort out these mental factors that appear in our mental activity, first of all, to avoid worse rebirths, because we really dread that; we’re afraid of that, and if we get continuing precious human rebirths we can best continue to progress further to work toward gaining liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth altogether. We’re determined to be free from samsaric rebirth; we’re disgusted, and not just disgusted, but bored with it, actually. We’re bored of all the recurring problems and sufferings that we have because of our disturbing emotions and our compulsive karmic behavior. We want to gain that liberation, if we think in terms of Mahayana, so that in helping others we’re not going to have obstacles because of our own emotional backgrounds and behavior. Then, moved by love, compassion, and realizing our interconnectedness with everybody, and how we’re all equal, then we work toward the enlightened state of a Buddha so that we can be of best help to them.
If we’re working on the spiritual path already in the context of this advanced level of motivation, the Mahayana motivation, then we can work to achieve each of these three successive goals on the basis of love and compassion. “How can I really continue helping others if I’m reborn as a cockroach, and anybody who sees me just wants to step on me? That’s not going to be of great help to others.” Also, “How can I be of best help if I’m continuing to take rebirth? How utterly boring, I’ll have to be a baby again, I’ll have to go to school again, I’m going to get sick, I’m going to grow old, and so on... Boring! Also, I’ll still have attachment, get annoyed at things, and so on. I really have to get beyond that!” Also, “If people continue to appear to me as if they’re encapsulated in plastic and I can’t really see all the interconnectedness and so on, I don’t really have the large enough scope needed to be able to help them the best, so I have to get rid of that limitation!”
All of this means we really need to sort through all these appearances that our mental activity gives rise to.