Review of the Initial Scope
We have been going through the graded stages of the path and have finished one major part of it, which is the initial scope. The graded stages are organized according to three levels or scopes of motivation: the initial, intermediate, and advanced. With the initial scope motivation, we are aiming for rebirth in one of the better realms, specifically, a precious human rebirth, so that we can continue on the spiritual path. With the intermediate scope motivation, which is what we’ll begin this evening, we are aiming for liberation from all samsaric rebirths. On the advanced scope, our motivation is to become Buddhas so as to be able to help everyone as fully as possible.
Tsongkhapa points out that there is more benefit to presenting the lam-rim teachings in terms of these three scopes as opposed to presenting them just in terms of an advanced scope of motivation. He says this is helpful for overcoming the arrogance of thinking that we are already working for everybody and so on, when, in fact, we don’t even take our next lives seriously. I think this is very wise. What he’s talking about, I think, is a bit similar to what I call “Dharma-lite,” where we don’t really take rebirth or anything like that seriously. Instead, we are just looking to be humanitarian, to help everybody, etc. – which is wonderful but which is not quite the Real-thing Dharma. He says that presenting these teachings in terms of the three scopes – and as Atisha says, these are levels that we ourselves need to work on, we ourselves need to advance through – makes for a tremendously stable Buddhist spiritual path.
The Precious Human Rebirth
To develop the initial scope motivation of wanting to continue to have precious human rebirths – or to have rebirth in one of the god realms, but that’s not emphasized so much – we, first of all, think of all the wonderful qualities with which a precious human life is endowed. We are free, but only temporarily, from the states in which we would have no freedom to engage in any sort of spiritual practice. We have very rare and wonderful opportunities that enrich our lives, and so on. It’s very important to recognize the rarity of such a life and the difficulty of obtaining it – not to waste it.
Death and Impermanence
The point is that death will come for sure, and we never know when. Unless we have prepared for what’s going to come next in terms of future lives – all of this is based on the assumption that there are such things as future lives – and have done something to prevent a downfall, as it were, to a worse state, we are going to die with terrible regrets. What a waste it would be not to have, in a sense, taken out an insurance policy for our next lives. This is very important.
Dreading Worse States of Rebirth
Then we think very seriously about the types of rebirths that we could have if we haven’t taken some preventive measures of the Dharma. We thought about what it would be like to be (1) a trapped being in one of these joyless realms, the so-called hells; (2) a clutching ghost wandering around, never being able to satisfy even the basic needs of hunger and thirst, and even if we get something, not being able to enjoy it; or (3) a creeping creature on the floor, which is likely to be eaten alive by larger creatures, or hunted or exploited by humans, and so on. This is not terribly nice at all.
We, obviously, would not like to experience any of that, and we develop a healthy sense of fear of that. It is not an unhealthy type of fear, feeling paralyzed, helpless and hopeless. Instead, it is a healthy type of fear, thinking, “I really don’t want to experience this, but I know that there is a way out. There is a way to avoid it.” So, not wanting to experience such rebirths, we are very strongly driven to take some measure to avoid that from happening. This is to put a safe direction in our lives, what’s known as “refuge.”
Safe Direction
We saw that what putting this safe direction in our lives entails on the deepest level is to think in terms of attaining (1) that state in which all suffering and the causes of suffering are gone – namely, a true stopping, the third noble truth; and (2) the states of mind and ways of acting that bring that stopping about and that result in the attainment of that stopping – namely, the true pathway minds (“true paths”), the fourth noble truth. Buddha said at the end of his life that this deepest Dharma Gem, these attainments, should be the primary thing that we take refuge in, actually – so, not to rely just on a leader or a community or something like that. The Dharma will not let you down, whereas people can. The Buddhas are those who have taught the Dharma and realized it in full; the Arya Sangha are those who have realized it in part. So, this gives us inspiration and some support along the way.
This safe direction, then, is the direction we need to go in to avoid worse rebirths.
Refraining from Destructive Behavior
What we need to do first of all to avoid worse rebirths is to avoid engaging in destructive behavior. We had a long, long discussion about karma and looked at all the factors that are involved in destructive behavior – although these factors can be used to analyze constructive behavior as well. We saw that if we are aware of all these factors and how complex everything is in terms of what we experience as a result of our behavior, we can then have some idea of what we need to work on and how to minimize the negative effects of the destructive things that we have done and might continue to do out of force of habit. We went through a very detailed discussion of that.
At the conclusion of that section, we make a very firm decision to avoid, as best as possible, engaging in destructive behavior and to engage in constructive behavior, which is to refrain from acting destructively. The destructive acts of body are killing or harming others, stealing, and engaging in inappropriate sexual activities. Those of speech are lying; speaking divisively – trying to break others up; speaking harshly – hurting others with what we say; and chattering meaninglessly – just wasting everybody’s time. Those of mind are thinking covetously – thinking over and deciding to get what other people have, being filled with jealousy and so on; thinking with malice – thinking over and deciding to hurt others, to get even with them and so on; and thinking distortedly with antagonism. Thinking distortedly not only entails disbelieving in cause and effect and denying the value of doing anything positive, it also entails thinking over and deciding very strongly to repudiate a view that, from a Buddhist point of view, is correct: “People are so stupid for thinking like this. I’m going to go out and tell them that they are just wasting their time trying to be helpful. They should just go out and try to make as much gain for themselves as possible.”
These are the sorts of things that we decide we are going to try to refrain from as much as possible.
If we find ourselves engaging in this type of behavior after all, we then try to apply the opponent forces to minimize the negative consequences we would experience as a result. After openly admitting that what we did was mistaken, we then regret what we did, resolve as best we can not to repeat that action, reaffirm the direction that we want to go in life, and finally, apply some counteracting positive forces as a remedy to that, such as doing more positive things.
So, that was the initial scope.
The Intermediate Scope
Tonight, I’d like to start the intermediate scope. The intermediate scope is built on the initial scope. Without that foundation, it really doesn’t make any sense – if we are talking about the Real-thing intermediate scope. It is very difficult, as I have tried to emphasize, to take what we are doing for future lives seriously. Do we really believe in future lives? Are we really confident with regard to our future lives? What steps are we taking, on the one hand, to avoid having worse rebirths? And what steps are we taking, on the other hand, to ensure that we will have precious human rebirths, the main causes of which are ethical discipline, together with the far-reaching attitudes of generosity, patience, perseverance, some mental constancy, some discriminating awareness, and on top of that, making dedication prayers to continue having precious human rebirths? Also, what positive things are we doing to build stronger and stronger Dharma connections for the future?
Developing the Determination to Be Free: Renunciation
Now, on the intermediate scope what we are aiming for is to go beyond even that. We don’t want just to have precious human rebirths. What we want to do is to gain liberation from any type of uncontrollably recurring rebirth because, even with precious human rebirths, we are still going to have disturbing emotions, we are still going to act in compulsive, karmic types of ways, and we are still going to do more destructive things. Who are we kidding? So, there are many, many drawbacks even to a precious human rebirth.
This is the difficult thing with this intermediate scope. It is so easy to be attached to the idea that “I really want a precious human rebirth. I’ll be with my guru, I’ll be with my Dharma friends and loved ones, and everything will be nice.” We are attached to that and want to continue that. We think that that is part of this precious human rebirth. “If I can continue having that forever, that would be great. I wouldn’t even mind having to go back to school every lifetime.” But we are not thinking so deeply here. It’s this type of attachment that we need to overcome in order to take the intermediate scope motivation really seriously – that we want out. “I want out from this uncontrollably recurring rebirth.”
Just as we shouldn’t minimize and trivialize the initial scope motivation, we shouldn’t minimize and trivialize the intermediate one – and even less so the advanced one, wanting to benefit equally absolutely every limited being in the universe. Who are we kidding? That type of scope is unbelievable. To work sincerely on the level of that type of equanimity is just unbelievable. Usually, we just want to help people that we like. Or we want to help but not too much because “I can’t handle it” or “I want my time off.” As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said, bodhisattvas don’t even have the concept of taking time off from being a bodhisattva so that they can relax and watch television or whatever.
What we are aiming to develop and to have at the end of this intermediate scope is renunciation. The Tibetan term for it means to “become determined.” To be determined means that “definitely, this is what I want.” And what we definitely want is to get out of samsara. That’s what it’s all about. That involves being willing to give up our attachments and all the various other things of samsara, in addition to giving up the other disturbing emotions that we might be more willing to give up, like anger and hatred. Those things are easier to want to give up. But giving up attachment to things that we like is much, much more difficult, especially when we derive a so-called sense of security, a false sense of security, from these things, things like friends, love, family, etc.
After Giving Up Samsara, Then What?
To have that determination, we need to have some confidence in what things would be like after we have gained liberation. We can’t think only in terms of getting rid of uncontrollably recurring rebirth, all our attachments and so on because then we’re left with the question, “Then what?” If we don’t have some idea of what would follow, thinking about what comes after could actually be pretty frightening. And what things would be like as a liberated being is presented differently in the different Indian Buddhist tenet systems. We tend to follow here, as Tsongkhapa does, the Prasangika view as Tsongkhapa understands it. He considers the Prasangika view to be the deepest view. Most schools agree with that, though some explain Prasangika slightly differently, but let’s leave that aside. That’s part of the Madhyamaka School.
Here, when we talk about tainted and untainted aggregates – aggregates, in short, meaning the body and mind of a person as they continue in a samsaric rebirth and beyond – we are defining them according to the Prasangika view as presented by Tsongkhapa. According to that view, “tainted” means mixed with an appearance of self-established, or truly established, existence. Things appear to exist solidly, all by themselves, unrelated to anything else, and to establish their existence by themselves, by their own power. When arhats are totally absorbed on voidness non-conceptually, their aggregates are untainted because, at that time, their minds don’t produce this false appearance. But after that, in the periods subsequent to that absorption, their aggregates are tainted because their minds still produce that type of appearance. So, they still have a lot to work on. So, let’s not talk about untainted aggregates as something that we, all of sudden, attain.
The point here is, what type of body do arhats have? First of all, in the lifetime in which they gain liberation, they continue with the gross type of body that they were born with. That they have until they die. After that, they have a type of body that is called a “mind body,” a mental body (yid-lus), or a “light body” (‘od-lus), What that refers to is a body that has the functional nature of a mind or of light. It can only be known by the mind. And what does that mean? It means that they have a body that is made of subtle elements, which is similar to the type of body that one would have in the form realm – so, not the gross elements of the type of body ordinary beings have. We, as ordinary beings, wouldn’t be able to perceive them. Or if we were to, we would only be able to do so with mental consciousness, not with eye consciousness. Other arhats, however, can see them with their eye consciousness. Anyway, this is the type of body we would have.
The Different Kinds of Arhats
There are several varieties of arhats. There are those who just work to become arhats, not Buddhas. After they die in the lifetime in which they are liberated, they go to some pure land. They would stay in that pure land – forever, if they wanted to do – with this type of body. They would not be subject to our ordinary types of birth, death, rebirth, and so on. They would mostly be absorbed in meditation on voidness or something like that – but not exclusively. What they do the rest of the time I have no idea – maybe meditate on other things. I doubt that they just hang out at the swimming pool. Another kind of arhat is one who develops bodhichitta. Arhats can go to teachings – Buddhas appear in pure lands – so they could develop bodhichitta and go on to follow the Mahayana path. Then there are those who were already following the Mahayana path, before attaining arhatship. They attained arhatship while following the Mahayana path. So, we have these three varieties of arhats.
Those who have a Mahayana goal and are aiming to become Buddhas could stay in Buddha lands like the pure lands – something that a regular Mahayana practitioner could also want to do – where they would work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, studying, meditating and practicing in order to reach enlightenment. So, no time off. But everything is conducive there. As an arhat in a pure land, there’s no samsaric body to take care of. There is only a mind body. The other possibility is for them to take rebirth in a human realm and to study and practice there. In that type of situation, their liberated minds and mind bodies would take as their grosser physical support the gross elements of the human body that they assumed. That gross body would undergo death, old age and things like that, but they wouldn’t suffer. That type of rebirth wouldn’t actually be considered a samsaric type of rebirth.
So, having this understanding of what follows after becoming an arhat can help rouse us to aim for becoming one. It’s not as though liberation is a big unknown and a big nothing – that we just go off into oblivion and disappear or something like that. Of course, all of that requires actually believing that there is such a thing as liberation and that it is possible to attain it. But I am jumping ahead in the intermediate scope.
The stages that we go through on the intermediate level help us to develop a progressively stronger wish to get out of samsara. This is done, first, by thinking of the sufferings of samsaric rebirth in general and, then, by thinking of the sufferings specific to the human realms, the god realms and so on because those things, too, are included in what we really don’t want.
A Brief Synopsis of the Main Areas of Study and the Steps We Take on the Intermediate Scope
To an extent, we have spoken about the three types of suffering. On the initial scope, we speak about the suffering of suffering, the suffering of pain. In the beginning of the intermediate scope, we speak about the suffering of change, which is our ordinary happiness that changes all the time and isn’t secure. Then, we do a big analysis of the disturbing emotions, the causes driving samsara, followed by an analysis of the 12 links, the mechanism that drives karmic rebirth. At the end of that, we develop so much disgust and boredom with the whole thing – which is what brings us to the third type of suffering, the all-pervasive suffering, what perpetuates the whole cycle of samsara – that we develop renunciation, the determination to be free. Finally, what follows that are the three higher trainings: higher discipline, higher concentration, and higher discriminating awareness. That’s how we finish training on the intermediate level.
That is a broad introduction to the intermediate level. Perhaps we can take a minute to absorb that, and then we’ll jump into the discussion of the disadvantages, or sufferings, of samsaric rebirth in general.
[meditation]
I think one thing that we have to evaluate at this point is how sincerely we are working at the initial level. How sincerely are we thinking about future lives and doing something to ensure that we will have better rebirths? Without taking the motivation of that initial scope seriously, the intermediate scope is not the real thing – although we can certainly benefit from a Dharma-lite version of the intermediate scope, which would only be to get rid of the disturbing emotions.
[meditation]
Any comments?
Working with the Initial and Intermediate Scopes – A Personal Account
I’ll give you an example of how I personally am working with this material. Since I have been doing my website, I have been looking at it very much in terms of building up causes to continue having a precious human rebirth, to reconnect with the Dharma in a precious human life and to continue the same type of work. When it comes to building up the causes for a precious human rebirth by refraining from destructive behavior and doing something positive, I suppose I do put more emphasis on the latter – doing something positive. But I do try, as much as I can, to refrain from destructive behavior. But of course, attachment is still there, I must confess, to students, friends, teachers, the work itself.
It has taken me a long time, actually, to get to any level of sincerity with the initial scope, to be motivated on a deep emotional or gut level so that that initial scope motivation is, as they say, “unlabored,” meaning that I don’t have to work on thinking that way. Now it is totally part of the way that I think, the way that I lead my life.
As I work with the intermediate scope motivation, liberation, the thing that I think about is that gaining liberation doesn’t mean no longer being able to continue doing the type of work I’ve been doing on the website, trying to help others with Dharma, giving teachings, etc. It doesn’t mean giving that up. What it means is being able to continue that with something like a human rebirth (I’m not terribly interested in pure lands, personally; I’d much rather be “hands on,” actively helping others) but without the suffering associated with a samsaric body. If I’m going to have a human body, of course, I’m going to have to go through childhood, old age, and so on. But I want to be able to go through that without the faculties of mind degenerating, without all the disturbing emotions, without the moods of unhappiness, and stuff like that.
As long as we are still samsaric beings, we are sometimes going to feel happy, sometimes sad – for no apparent reason. It doesn’t matter what we are actually doing. Sometimes we just feel sad, are in a bad mood, don’t feel like working, or whatever. How wonderful it would be to be able to continue the type of Dharma work that I do without that aspect of suffering. That would be as a liberated being.
I think that’s the way to think about it. At least that’s how I’m working with it now. Within the context of rebirth, “OK, I’m going to continue, lifetime to lifetime to lifetime, all the way to enlightenment, but I want to do it without being a samsaric being with all the junk that goes with that samsaric package.”
So, that’s just to give a personal account of how I work with this material. And just as it’s really hard to take the initial scope, working for future lives, seriously, it’s really hard to take the intermediate scope seriously because we fool ourselves about what it entails, especially when it comes to our attachments.
I look at somebody like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He doesn’t seem to be attached to anybody. He is the best of friends with absolutely everybody. He has incredible equanimity. That kind of equanimity is hard to even conceive of, let alone to actually want, because we like having special people in our lives, don’t we? And we would like to be special people in other people’s lives. So, to get a whole picture of what it would be like to be a liberated being, or a Buddha, for that matter, and to sincerely want to have that and to give up what we would need to give up – not give up, but go beyond, grow beyond – in order to have that is not at all easy to do.
So, this is what the intermediate scope is all about.
Participant: I am wondering how you would be able to do Dharma work without the human body unless you send an emanation.
Dr. Berzin: This is what I said: Rather than going to a Buddha land, where, basically, you’re doing Dharma work of meditating and doing that type of intensive practice, you could continue in human form. Well, you could also manifest in other ways in order to benefit others. However, in order to continue on the path to enlightenment, you’d primarily want to be a human again.
Participant: Yeah. But then I’d go from…
Dr. Berzin: Then you’d have to go through all the garbage associated with having this gross type of body because this is the type of body that humans have. However, we shouldn’t think of it as a soul going into a human body and using it. It’s not like that. The self is an imputation phenomenon on the basis of the clear light mind and subtlest life-supporting energy. In the case of a Buddha manifesting as a human, their clear light mind and subtlest energy take as their physical basis the gross elements of a human body. In the case of arhats taking a human body, their liberated minds and mind bodies take as their support the gross elements of a human body. So in both cases, the support is just a regular physical body. Holy, holy as it might be, it’s still going to fall apart. But that’s not really the body of a Buddha. The body of a Buddha is the subtlest energy. Similarly, as an arhat, you would go through all the stages associated with having a gross body, but you wouldn’t experience any suffering. You wouldn’t have disturbing emotions. So, you wouldn’t have the limitations of a regular, samsaric rebirth.
It’s a very interesting question: As an arhat taking rebirth, what would your knowledge of your attainments be like as a baby in that rebirth? I have no idea. The Mahayana version of the life of Buddha Shakyamuni is that as soon as he got out of the womb, he took seven steps and said, “I am here” – “I have arrived” type of thing. We certainly don’t find anything like that in the Theravada versions. Again, it’s really hard to say what that would be like. But certainly, it would be better than what we have now. Frankly, I don’t worry about the details of what it would be like to be a baby arhat. I am not looking forward to being a baby in any case. Not much fun. We’re pretty helpless. There’s not much we can do as a baby, except cry when we don’t get what you want.
Participant: You can bring fun to the parents.
Dr. Berzin: Wonderful. Thank you very much. You can also keep them up at night. Would a baby arhat cry when they were unhappy? Well, Buddhas have only happiness. And according to the explanation that I received, arhats experience either happiness or a numbness of feeling, depending on the level of concentration, the dhyana, with which they are absorbed. When they are deeply absorbed in meditation with the fourth level of mental constancy, the fourth dhyana, they experience a numbness of feeling that is without any trace of happiness or unhappiness.
The Six General Types of Shortcomings of Samsara
Anyway, let us go on to the beginning of the intermediate scope, now that we’ve done a little bit of survey of what’s involved with it, and think about the sufferings of uncontrollably recurring rebirth in general.
Here, we have a list of six types of shortcomings. I’ll just read them, and then we’ll go into them one by one.
[1] The shortcoming of having no certainty – no certainty of what situations we will be reborn in and no certainty of what kind of relationships we will have with others.
[2] The shortcoming of having no satisfaction – as in “I can’t find no satisfaction”: we are never satisfied.
[3] The shortcoming of having to forsake one’s body repeatedly.
Participant: What does “forsake” mean?
Dr. Berzin: To “give up.” One has to leave one’s body repeatedly.
[4] The shortcoming of having to fit into new rebirths repeatedly. We have to fit into new rebirths – new family, new situation, new times, new country, perhaps, new customs – which is worse than changing schools when we are little kids and having to fit in. We have to get used to being a baby again, learn how to use our bodies and these sorts of things. Do we really want to go through toilet training again, get teeth and all of that? That’s not very pleasant.
Participant: Your nervous system is completely different from that of an adult.
Dr. Berzin: Also, our cognitive system is different. In very early infancy, we can’t even see very clearly.
[5] The shortcoming of having to change status repeatedly from exalted to humble. This is part of the whole up and down type of stuff, like no certainty.
[6] The shortcoming of having no friends. Nobody is going to be able to stay our friend and be with us forever. Ultimately, we are alone.
These are the six shortcomings. Let’s go through them one by one and really chew on them.
Of course, we could do these in a Dharma-lite fashion, without thinking of rebirth: “There’s no certainty in my life as to what my situation will be. I’m always frustrated. I’m going to have to die. In my life, I will have to fit into different situations. I can go from a high to a low position. It’s very hard to have friends throughout one’s whole life.” But if we do a Dharma-lite version of it, we would not derive the full benefit from these six. So, let’s see if we can apply them not just in terms of this lifetime but in terms of future lives as well – and past lives.
[1] Suffering of No Certainty
No certainty has to do with our relationships with others. They always use the classic example: The father of a household was reborn as a fish in the pond, and the son ate the fish. The son then hit the dog, which had been his mother, with the fish bones of his father, while cradling his child, which had been his enemy. So, there is no certainty as to our relationships with others. Everything is going to change.
A basic thing here, which is pointed out by people who have spent a lot of time with Tibetans, myself included, is the difference in attitudes that we Westerners have. If we believe in rebirth at all, we are thoroughly convinced that we will continue to be reborn as humans, whereas Tibetans don’t at all. They really, really think that they are not going to be reborn as humans. So, I think that’s the first thing.
When we think of no certainty, we might well accept that we will be reborn in different situations, but how seriously do we take the possibility – in fact, the high probability – that we won’t be reborn as humans? This is something we had to consider on the initial scope, but I think it’s important to visit that once more. Not only is there no certainty regarding the status of our relationships, there’s no certainty, really, that we will be humans – especially if we haven’t really done anything about it.
So, let’s first review where are we at – whether we seriously consider that we can be reborn in other realms besides human ones. And why am I so confident that I’ll be a human again?
[meditation]
It’s too awful to think about the worst realms, as we did in the initial scope, so we tend to deny any possibility that we could be reborn there. Some people are scared out of their minds of the hells. Then, usually, they are very, very stiff in their discipline, very, very inflexible. Basing one’s discipline on a really strong sense of fear is not, I think, always very healthy because behind it all, is a big, big grasping to “me” – which is, in a sense, what makes the fear so paralyzing.
[meditation]
But it’s better to be too strict than too loose with discipline, with ethics – definitely.
[meditation]
Any comments?
Participant: I more or less believe that if I behave well, I am likely to be reborn as a human. But some time ago, I saw a television program about the animals that lived before the last ice age and how so many of them died out. That affected me because it made me think that even if I behave “well,” the surroundings here on earth might change and there might be no possibilities for human beings to live here, no possibility for me to live here as a human being… unless I, my continuum, could be reborn in a completely other universe.
Dr. Berzin: So, even if we have the karma to be reborn as humans, there might no longer be the circumstances on this planet that would allow for a human rebirth. But we might be reborn as a human in some other universe. Buddhism would certainly accept that. If we have the karma to be reborn as a dinosaur and there are no more dinosaur rebirths available on this planet, there may be such rebirths available on some other planet – something like that. So, that’s allowed in Buddhism. But the circumstances are all going to be different. They’re going to be different every time. And there is no certainty as to the type of relation one would have to the beings there, what position one would be in.
Participant: I was thinking along the same lines – that it is unlikely to be reborn as a human. When I think of all the universes and planets that exist, I think there must be life in other worlds. But I cannot imagine that life would be the same as here and that humans would be able to evolve in the same way.
Dr. Berzin: This becomes a very interesting question because Mahayana says that when a Buddha isn’t teaching here, he’s teaching – going through the 12 deeds and teaching – in some other world, in some other place. So, there will always be a place where the teachings are available. There might be a dark age in this world system and so if we were reborn here as a human, we could only practice the Dharma based on instincts from previous lifetimes and without any teachers. This is the type of practice of a pratyekabuddha. But in other world systems, there could be other opportunities. So, there are always opportunities to come into contact with the Dharma – which doesn’t diminish the difficulty of gaining a precious human rebirth.
According to abhidharma, every world system – which is not a universe exactly, but more like a planet – has a southern, northern, eastern, and western continent. On each continent, lives a different type of human species, a different type of humanoid. The humanoids born on the southern continents – where we are now – have the possibility of having been born with precious human rebirths. On a southern continent, which is where a Buddha would go, the life span varies. It’s not fixed, etc., so one reaps the results of what one does in that lifetime. It’s not that, no matter what one does, one is going to live a thousand years, which is the case on a northern continent, for example.
Participant: Isn’t it kind of necessary to be optimistic that you will be born as a human again? If you don’t believe you can, you could get really frustrated and become very discouraged.
Dr. Berzin: That’s true. But the point is not to think that a human rebirth is going to come automatically just because you go to a Dharma center and listen to a lecture once a week and do very irregular meditation with a tremendous amount of mental wandering.
Participant: I do regularly.
Dr. Berzin: So, you regularly do meditation with a lot of mental wandering. Don’t we all!
Participant: What I was thinking about was that sometimes, especially when I’m in a bad state of mind, the question comes up in my mind, “Do I really want to die in this state of mind? What would happen if I were to die now with this state of mind?” It’s sometimes quite helpful. And it helps to make you less sure that you will be a human again.
Dr. Berzin: That’s very good. “What would it be like to die right now? What type of rebirth would be triggered by the state of mind that I’m in?” That sobers us up and makes us realize that we might die in a very unfavorable state of mind and that there is no guarantee, no certainty at all, that we will be reborn as humans. Very true, very helpful.
The point that I was going to make had to do with the certainty factor regarding our relationships with others within a precious human rebirth. We think, “Oh, I really want to be with my teachers and my loved ones,” etc., but we could be reborn as the dog of our teacher or a flea that hops onto the teacher or something like that. Also, they will be going through all sorts of karmic changes, so who knows what they are going to be reborn as. So, even if we are thinking in terms of being with our loved ones again, what are the chances that they are going to be reborn with a human rebirth and that they’re going to be reborn at the same time as we are?
I think of my good friend Alan, a strong Dharma practitioner who died last year. Even if he is reborn as a human with a precious human rebirth and connects with the Dharma and our same teachers again, he’s going to be the wrong age for me ever to be able to interact with on any sort of meaningful level. By the time he grows up to be somebody who could study the Dharma, I will be well into my eighties – if I am still alive. Or with the young Serkong Rinpoche – he is now 26, and I am 65. How does that work? By the time he becomes a really great teacher, I won’t really be able serve as his translator anymore, and I won’t be able to remember that well what he says. Already, my short-term memory is going, and one needs short-term memory to translate. Then, if after I die, I am reborn as a human, meet the Dharma again and so on, by the time I am old enough to be able to study with him again, he would be a very, very old man.
When we start to think about how everybody will be going through different cycles in terms of what age they’re going to be – not to mention whether they will be a man or a woman or be in this country or that country or speak this language or that language – we begin to see that there really is no certainty. So, I think that what helps here is to think about all the variables that are involved in actually being with the ones that we would like to be with in our future lives. Now, mind you, I learned Tibetan. We could learn other languages, and we could travel to other countries, but there is no guarantee about any of that – that we’ll be with our loved ones again. And the ages will undoubtedly be wrong.
Participant: With His Holiness the Dalai Lama, it will be fine.
Dr. Berzin: With His Holiness the Dalai Lama? I hope so! It depends on how old each of us is when we die and how old His Holiness will be when, in a next lifetime, he’ll be able to give significant teachings – not just give so-called blessings as a teenager.
Participant: But isn’t that a little bit too linear a way of thinking? I think that to have this thought that the next life will be the same as this is…
Dr. Berzin: Right, to think in these linear terms is also very presumptuous – linear in the sense of thinking that we will immediately get a precious human rebirth without there being an enormous gap of time in which we’re living out animal rebirths or even worse rebirths or living in other universes or whatever. There is absolutely no certainty. And the status of everybody in relation to us could be completely different. I could be their servant, I could be… Even with a precious human rebirth, I could be too poor ever to be able to afford to study.
Participant: Or I might be a woman in an oppressive country.
Dr. Berzin: I could be in a completely different society in a world in which the men are oppressed. Or I could be in a society that is totally prejudiced and have the “wrong” color skin.
So, it’s not just dependent on us, is it? There are so many other things intertwining, so many variables in terms of the karma of everybody in the universe that, unless we’re Buddhas, it’s impossible to predict what all the circumstances are going to be. The result of that – of everything being under the force of the karma of everybody – is gross, gross insecurity concerning what the future will bring. If we were arhats, perhaps we could push things in the direction of always being teachers or something like that. You get the point?
Participant: I was thinking about what you said – that we should really want to avoid destructive behavior. We should act in constructive ways and not wait for some immediate reward. Instead, we should act in constructive ways simply out of respect for what is positive and those kinds of things. I was thinking about this in a deeper way, as I think we’re trying to do now, that we should also try to avoid being too attached and trying to control what we are going to get, as if it were a kind of reward.
Dr. Berzin: That is exactly the point. As we discussed when we discussed karma, we want to avoid destructive behavior. And one of the important mental factors involved in avoiding destructive behavior is respecting positive qualities and those who have them, exercising restraint and so on, and, at the same time, as you say, not being too attached or not being attached at all to what the results might be. It’s not that we get a reward for being good. I would agree with that completely.
I think that when it comes to making an initial scope prayer or dedication, we want to think, “May I continue to have a precious human rebirth. May I continue to be able to meet with the Dharma quickly, easily and be cared for by the really great spiritual teachers. May I get the best education and have the most conducive circumstances to be able to continue on the path,” and not to specify too much after that (“may everything be conducive” will cover it) – and not to be so attached, thinking, “May I be with my best friend,” and all of that. That’s very true. The point is not to get attached.
Questions
Tulkus
Now, it’s interesting: What about wanting to be reborn as a tulku, as a reincarnate, and having your disciples find you and bring you back to the house of your predecessor where you will be raised as the continuity of your predecessor?
Participant: That could have quite disturbing elements as well, no?
Dr. Berzin: It could, especially if you are not already in a line of tulkus. Being the third or fourth in a line is very different from not having started a line at all and telling your disciples or friends, “Look for me, and find me.” That would be pretty odd.
Participant: I always thought that these tulkus needed some kind of attainment to be able to control their rebirths.
Dr. Berzin: Well, they need a certain type of attainment, but that attainment is not as high as one would think. They need extremely strong bodhichitta, though I am not sure whether it needs to be unlabored, which if it did it would mean they need to have attained the first of the five pathway minds, the pathway mind of building-up, the so-called “path of accumulation” (tshogs-lam). But in any case, extremely strong bodhichitta is the main prerequisite. They want to continue to re-appear in order to be able to benefit others the most. And they have to have a certain level of proficiency in the visualizations concerning death, bardo, and rebirth in the generation stage in highest tantra. And they have to make prayers. And people have to look for them. If nobody looks for them, nothing is going to happen.
Participant: That’s why there are thousands around.
Dr. Berzin: That’s right. There are thousands around because their disciples look for them. And this is what I’ve said is a fault, a misunderstanding of guru devotion by Westerners. We think, “If I don’t look for my teacher after they die, that means that I didn’t really believe they were a Buddha.” So, when any geshe or any kenpo (mkhan-po) or any person who has done a three-year retreat and gotten the term “lama” dies, some people feel they have to find the tulku in order to prove how devoted they are. And sometimes the ones they find might be authentic. Sometimes they might not be.
But this is the thing, is it attachment to think, “May other people find me and bring me back to my old household so that I can continue my work”? That’s an interesting question.
Participant: But a tulku has a certain level of bodhichitta. So, supposedly, the motivation would be to help others.
Dr. Berzin: So, now we get a very good point: If the person is authentic, they would have bodhichitta, so wanting to be reborn as a tulku would not be for selfish purposes. The Dharma-lite version would be, “I am really attached, so I want to come back and continue to live in my wonderful house and have my people take care of me,” and so on – so, wanting to get a free ride and to be treated as special from the time they’re a baby.
Participant: You said you don’t need so much attainment, just very strong bodhichitta and…
Dr. Berzin: You don’t need so much attainment in terms of having gained non-conceptual cognition of voidness. That’s what I meant.
Participant: But for unlabored bodhichitta…
Dr. Berzin: That’s an unbelievable attainment.
Participant: But for unlabored bodhichitta, one needs to attain shamatha first or with it.
Dr. Berzin: No, you don’t need to achieve shamatha first in order to have unlabored bodhichitta. With unlabored bodhichitta, as I said, you attain the first of the five pathway minds, the pathway mind of building up. You could either have attained shamatha beforehand or you could achieve shamatha on that first stage.
Participant: Don’t you need for that bodhichitta to be unlabored all day?
Dr. Berzin: Unlabored all day doesn’t mean that it is manifest all day. When it is manifest, both you and your consciousness have awareness of its object of focus, your individual not-yet-happening enlightenment. However, at other times, for instance when cognizing something else or when asleep, it is subliminal, which means that your consciousness still takes your individual not-yet-happening enlightenment as its object, but you do not. In Western terms, we would say you are not conscious of it.
“Unlabored” just means that you don’t have to build that bodhichitta motivation up. You don’t have to go through the seven-part cause and effect meditation or anything like that. It’s just there all the time, subliminally. As Shantideva says, even when you are asleep, you have it. There are many subliminal minds that are going on simultaneously. For example, when you are asleep, the ear consciousness is still functioning, but you don’t hear anything. However, when the sound of the alarm clock hits the ear consciousness, you hear it. If the ear consciousness were totally turned off, you could never hear the alarm. You would have to hear it in order for it to turn on – which doesn’t make any sense.
Participant: Actually, what I learned is completely different. In our study program in Hamburg, I heard it said several times, “No shamatha, no unlabored bodhichitta.” So, to develop unlabored bodhichitta, you at least have to have achieved shamatha.
Dr. Berzin: I haven’t heard it explained like that. My understanding is that with unlabored bodhichitta, you achieve a pathway mind of building up. You could achieve shamatha either before you’ve achieved that pathway mind or while you have it. However, I am sure there are many versions in the different tenet systems – Svatantrika, Prasangika, and so on – and in the different textbooks concerning it. So, I am not saying that what you’re saying is wrong. I am just saying that there seem to be several versions.
Participant: I think it’s in Chokyi Gyaltsen’s textbook.
Dr. Berzin: Well, fine. But it still doesn’t mean that you have it manifestly all the time. Otherwise, how could you have it when you are asleep?
Participant: That’s a completely different thing. It just said that it’s impossible to develop it without first achieving shamatha.
Dr. Berzin: From one point of view, it makes sense that you not only have to be able to have it unlabored, you also have to be able to stay focused on it with shamatha, without any mental wandering. I could understand it from that point of view. The debate would come up as to whether you could achieve shamatha for the first time with a building-up pathway mind or whether you would have to achieve shamatha first, as a prerequisite – and that I have not heard.
[Addenda (2024): His Holiness the Dalai Lama, for example, states publicly that he has attained a building-up pathway mind but has not yet attained shamatha.]
Participant: Have you heard that all tulkus have achieved shamatha?
Dr. Berzin: No, not at all. As I said, there could be various versions. There could be another version from the point of view of tantra. I have no idea. Anyway, let’s not get hung up on this point.
Summary
That brings us to the end of the class and, perhaps, to the end of this first point, no certainty. There are so many variables. There’s no certainty as to the type of rebirth we would have, no certainty, even if we were to have precious human rebirths, as to the type of circumstances we would be in, and no certainty as to the type of relationships we would have to other people, other beings, and the type of relationships they would have to us. And all of these variables could be in any sort of combination. So, if even if we have a constellation of wonderful circumstances now, everything in the future, even with a precious human rebirth, will be completely different – even for tulkus.
I find it quite interesting playing a big role in the two lives of Serkong Rinpoche – in one lifetime as his disciple, translator and type of attendant, and in the next lifetime, given that I’m forty years older than the guy, as a bit of a father figure, an advisor. I’ve given him oral transmissions that I received from the old one and stuff like that, which makes for a very, very different relationship.
Participant: That’s why it’s not linear.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s not linear.
Serkong Rinpoche had this incredible ability to know the karma of others. When he was old, he chose young children to be his attendants. They were teenagers when he died, and they are now his close attendants. So, he sort of handpicked everybody. But he was at an unbelievable level of attainment to be able to do that.
So, it’s an interesting question: Do we form relationships with young people as we are older with the thought that – which, again, could come out of attachment – “in my next lifetime, I’ll be connected with these people”? It’s an interesting thing to think about. And I think the point that you made about wanting to be control freaks with the whole process is that, though we want to control everything, we are still not willing to give up our disturbing emotions, our attachments and all of that. So, wanting to control is based on attachment.
Even if we were Buddhas, all we would be able to control is our own states of mind. We wouldn’t be able to control what happens in the world and with other people. If we look at what we find in the Pali Canon of the life of Buddha himself, we see that there were several wars that broke out during his life. He tried to prevent them, but he wasn’t able to prevent them. If a Buddha were able to prevent wars from happening, there would never be any wars. His Holiness the Dalai Lama wasn’t able to prevent what the Chinese communist army did in Tibet. So, even as a Buddha, one can’t control everything that happens.
Participant: But the Dalai Lama makes an example. Maybe that…
Dr. Berzin: So, the Dalai Lama makes an example. Buddha made the example: not getting upset in this whole thing.
Participant: Maybe in the future, wars will be prevented because of that example.
Dr. Berzin: However, the karma of the universe and the energy and ability of a Buddha are equivalent: one can’t override the other. I look at it as there being only a certain amount of energy in the universe. And Buddha can’t override the force of everybody else’s karmic energy. Buddha can only indicate the way.
Samsaric Rebirth: Karmic Bingo
So, there really is no certainty – no certainty about us, no certainty about situations. That doesn’t make for a very attractive state of affairs. I always used to describe the samsaric situation we are in as karmic bingo. We have attachment at the time of death, then, afterwards, what we experience is like karmic bingo. In the game of Bingo, there are these machines with the ping-pong balls inside that have numbers on them. Somebody presses a button, and a ping-pong ball with a bingo number comes out. Bingo – this is your next rebirth! Or bingo – this is the next thing that ripens in your life! We have absolutely no control. It would be nice to stop playing karmic bingo. It really is a very boring game.
Participant: Does our last incarnation care what we are doing now?
Dr. Berzin: Our last lives are finished, so how can you say that the beings that we were care about now? However, I am very concerned about how I continue to act in future.
Participant: Would it be the same situation?
Dr. Berzin: Would it be the same? I use this in the sensitivity training, though not in terms of last lifetimes. I say to imagine ourselves ten years ago, and imagine ourselves now and then think, “I wouldn’t want the ‘me’ of ten years ago to feel ashamed of the way that I am now.” Similarly, we could think, “I wouldn’t want to be ashamed of the way that I act in the future.” We could extend it like that. And also, the way I have it in the sensitivity training (now that I recall), we would say, “I don’t want the ‘me’ in the future to be ashamed of how I am now because I’m trying my best.” So, now, we would really want to try our best, even though we might not succeed. So, this whole thing of being ashamed…
Participant: You’re talking a little bit about fear, because everything is uncertain. But I wonder, what does it change if I think about the future “me” thinking back to “me” now because the “me” now will be dead? It doesn’t matter, actually.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It doesn’t matter because the only thing that’s happening is what’s happening right now. So, what difference does it make? It’s a hypothetical question how the “me” in the past would think of me now and how the “me” in the future would think of me now.
Participant: It’s about the worry.
Dr. Berzin: It’s about taking the whole process seriously. I think that’s really the issue here.
First of all, the “me” of the past is not a solid “me.” It’s not the same “me” now and won’t be the same “me” in the future. Is it somebody totally different? No, it’s not somebody totally different either. I think it’s somewhere in-between. For myself, it’s more that I just wish that it will be somebody that will have the instincts that I have now and will build up further what I have now. I think it’s a very delicate thing, though. It’s not very easy to relate to past things in our mental continuums and future things in our mental continuums, the ones that have not yet happened.
I think that, in terms of Mahayana, we just want to be able to continue benefiting others. And in terms of the intermediate scope as well, we would want to get to a point – certain points that we can reach with the attainments – where there is no falling back, no backsliding. For instance, I knew Chinese very, very well when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. I was fluent in it. I have forgotten most of it. Only a little bit is left. I was good in Japanese. I have almost completely forgotten my Japanese. That’s what it means to fall back. Even though we have attained something, we lose it. So, I certainly wouldn’t like that to happen when it comes to dealing with anger, dealing with attachment, and these sorts of things. Whether I forget a language is not so important. So, I think that if we are going to think in terms of future lives, we would at least want to strive to get to the point where our attainments are fairly stable.
Participant: It’s nice way of looking at it.
Dr. Berzin: It’s a nice way of looking at it. But then the question is, what about when I am a baby? These are hard things.