Review
We are going through the stages of motivation in order to develop ourselves all the way to wishing to reach enlightenment and actually attaining enlightenment. These are the graded stages of the path. These are studied or worked with in several ways. One way is to start as a beginner, progressively developing more advanced and extensive motivations for our spiritual growth without really knowing what’s coming next. Another way, since many have studied and worked with these stages already or have at least become familiar with them, is to go back through them in the context of the advanced scope – or at least aiming for the advanced scope – and seeing each step as a stepping-stone toward the advanced scope of wanting to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Approaching All the Lam-Rim Stages with the Advanced Scope Motivation
The first of these three scopes is aiming for a one of the better rebirths, particularly a precious human rebirth. We can do that within the larger context by thinking, “If I really want to be able to benefit others and continue on the path to enlightenment, I need to continue to have precious human rebirths. If I am born as an animal or worse, how can I possibly help others in any significant way, except maybe as a seeing-eye dog for the blind (which is not very much, given the potential we have to help others)?” So, we aim to always continue having precious human rebirths.
Then we see that if we really want to benefit others, we need to gain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth. That’s the motivation of the intermediate scope. We can aim for that just in terms of being completely fed up with the suffering of samsara and wanting to get out of it ourselves. But if we are also aiming to benefit others, then we would think, “How can I really benefit them if I am under the influence of karmic impulses and acting in destructive ways or ways in which I’m thinking just of myself? If I have anger and, attachment and, jealousy and all of that, how can I really help them?” If we are under the influence of all the disadvantages of samsara, we really can’t be of much help, neither to ourselves nor to others. So, we have to get liberated from all of that, all the emotional obscurations.
In terms of the advanced scope, we think, “Even if I am liberated from all of these disturbing emotions, confusion, karma, and all of that, I still don’t really know what I am doing in terms of helping others because I can’t see the long-term effects of what I would teach them. And I can’t see the effects that what I would teach would have on everybody else that the people that I teach interact with in all of their future lives. It’s really just guesswork – what I would offer to teach them and how I would help them.” So, if we really want to achieve the enlightened state of a Buddha and benefit others, we have to overcome the final set of obscurations, the cognitive ones, that prevent our minds from understanding everything and seeing the interrelationship with everything without our minds projecting onto things that they exist in isolation, established by themselves. So, we aim for enlightenment.
In this way, our scope increases more and more, wanting to benefit not just ourselves but all beings. This is the general outline of the graded stages of the pathway minds that lead to these goals.
Initial Scope
We started with the initial scope, thinking about the precious human rebirth that we each have now. We think about how very fortunate we are to have that, appreciating all its freedoms, its temporary freedoms or respites, from the worse situations, which would prevent us from engaging in any spiritual work or making any spiritual progress. We think about how enriched it is with wonderful opportunities to learn and practice and see how rare that is. Even if we are engaged in so-called Dharma practice, doing rituals and things like that, how rare it is even to actually be working on ourselves, taking the Dharma seriously and sincerely to heart by working on transforming ourselves in terms of getting rid of our emotional shortcomings and so on, instead of just mouthing the words of the Dharma and doing empty rituals, which has no significance in terms of the state of our minds and hearts. This is very, very rare. It’s also rare not to have a negative attitude toward spiritual things. So, we think about the causes for such a precious rebirth, how difficult it is to attain, and how easily and definitely it will be lost at the time of death.
We don’t know when death will come; it could come at any time. As one great Indian master said, each day that passes, each hour that passes, we are getting closer to our deaths – one day closer, another day closer, and another day closer to death. This is a very sobering thought – that our lives could end at any time.
We think what might follow, in terms of a next rebirth, if we haven’t taken any preventive measures to avoid a downfall. If we haven’t done that, we could very easily find ourselves in one of the worst rebirth states as a hell creature, one of these trapped beings in a joyless realm, as a clutching, wandering ghost, or as an animal, a creeping creature, that is unable to do very much of anything except live in fear of being exploited, hunted and eaten alive, or used for our skin or our work.
We think, “Is there is a way to avoid that?” We are afraid of that happening, but it’s a healthy sense of fear because we see that there is a way out. The situation is not helpless and hopeless. This way out is to put a safe direction in our lives, to work toward the Dharma, the Dharma Gem, which on the deepest level refers (1) to the state in which all the obscurations are gone forever and (2) to the state of mind, the pathway mind, that will bring that stopping about. We gain our inspiration from the Buddhas, who are those who have achieved this in full and have taught us the way to attain that ourselves, and from the Arya Sangha, those who have attained this in part and who help us on the way to liberation and, eventually, enlightenment.
We saw that what we first need to do is to avoid destructive behavior since this is what will bring us worse rebirth states. This brought on the whole discussion of karma.
That concluded the initial scope.
Intermediate Scope
We are working on the intermediate scope in terms of thinking about the sufferings of samsara. We’ve looked at the general sufferings of samsara, and now we’re looking at the sufferings of the three so-called better states of rebirth, starting with the human rebirth. We saw that there is the suffering of birth and the suffering of old age. That’s what we have discussed so far.
One of the points that I think needs to be mentioned is that what we are aiming for, here, on the intermediate scope is liberation from samsara, uncontrollably recurring rebirth. In other words, we want to attain the state of a liberated being, arhatship. As arhats, we would be free of ordinary birth, sickness, old age, death, and all of that. After our deaths at the end of the lives in which we attained liberation, we would, according to the more common explanation of arhatship, find ourselves emanated into a pure land. In a pure land, we could continue forever. We would never have the uncontrollable impulses that would cause us to act in impulsive ways mixed with confusion. We wouldn’t have any disturbing emotions. We wouldn’t have any type of suffering whatsoever.
What Would We Do as Arhats in a Pure Land?
The question is, what would we do in a pure land? This is a very interesting question. If we are not going to continue on the bodhisattva path – we are just there as liberated beings – then we abide in what is known as the “extreme of the tranquil peace of nirvana” (zhi-mtha'). In other words, we are just there. What do we do? Well, nobody has really answered that. But then, I haven’t really pursued the question. They say that one can alternate between being deeply absorbed in meditation and being out of meditation. And depending on the level of absorption, either we would have an untainted, blissful state of mind, or we would have a dumbness of feeling that is without any trace of happiness or unhappiness when in the very deep states.
So, what would we be meditating about? And what would be the purpose of meditating? That is the interesting question because, from the Buddhist point of view, we meditate in order to get rid of the obscurations, the emotional and the cognitive ones. Here, we’ve already gotten rid of the emotional obscurations, the disturbing emotions, unawareness, and all of that. So, what would be the reason for meditating? If we are not aiming to get rid of the cognitive obscurations – in other words, we haven’t developed bodhichitta, and we are not aiming for enlightenment – what are we left with?
What we are left with are the dhyanas (bsam-gtan), these states of mental constancy. There are four states – or actually eight: four within the realm of ethereal forms and four in the formless realm – of total absorption on deeper and deeper and more and more refined states of mind, which lead, eventually, to meditation on the infinity of mind, infinity of space, nothingness, and this type of thing. Why, as an arhat, would one do that? That’s an interesting question. I don’t know why one would do that, except that maybe it’s fun or something like that. They have to do something.
Participant: These states would be common to Hinduism?
Dr. Berzin: These are common to Hinduism. So, they are not specifically Buddhist. They only become Buddhist if they are developed with the motivation of wanting to get the understanding of voidness, etc. And as it’s stated very clearly in the Mahayana texts, they are not that useful. All one has to attain is the very first level of the first state of mental constancy. Then one can go into a vipashyana type of meditation on voidness. One doesn’t need to go into these higher or deeper absorptions. In fact, they are distractions. And it’s very tempting to get attached to them.
So, what would one do as an arhat in a pure land if one is not really interested in working toward enlightenment? One characteristic of an arhat is having the ability to know the past and future lives of themselves and others – up to a certain point. They don’t know what a Buddha would know, but up to a certain point, they know. That’s interesting: Do they then totally ignore those who are not in a pure land, or are they aware of them and able to see their suffering and so on? If they are aware of them, then considering that on the path to becoming an arhat one does meditate on love and compassion, it’s not so far-fetched to think that they would develop bodhichitta, although it’s not inevitable that they would.
Two Options for Arhats Who Have Developed Bodhichitta
If we have developed bodhichitta, we have two options.
[1] Staying in a Pure Land until Enlightenment
One option would be to stay in a Buddha-field where we would continue to study, meditate, and get further teachings. And when we become arhats… Well, it’s interesting. And it gets complicated. When are we arhats? Are we arhats according to Prasangika or arhats according to the other tenet systems? If our understanding of voidness is according to one of the non-Prasangika tenet systems, that understanding of voidness applies only to the selflessness of persons and, so, under-refutes what Prasangika asserts needs to be refuted in order to gain a true stopping of the emotional obscurations. Thus, Prasangika refers to them as “tenet arhats,” not actual arhats. They are not even aryas, so I don’t know what they would be meditating on. They are just in some deep absorption or something like that, but not being aryas, they’re not in a pure land. To be in a pure land according to Prasangika, you need to be an arya according to the Prasangika definitions. Let’s leave aside here the presentation in the Vajrayogini tantra teachings about going to her dakini pure land even before becoming an arya. Let’s also leave aside all the tantra practices of phowa (pho-ba), the transference of consciousness to a pure land, which one can have done at the time of death even if one has no attainments. Let’s stick strictly to the sutra presentation of pure lands.
If we are arhats according to Prasangika’s definition, then we are at least aryas. As arya beings, we would already have had non-conceptual cognition of voidness, and we would be able to get teachings from a Sambhogakaya emanation of a Buddha. Sambhogakaya is a Buddha that emanates in a very subtle form in these pure lands to teach arya bodhisattvas the Mahayana path. So, we could stay in a pure land as arhats, develop bodhichitta there, though it might take a while (so, that’s something productive to do in a pure land). We would not have birth, sickness, old age, death or anything like that, which means that we could work toward attaining enlightenment in a very efficient way.
[2] Manifesting in the World to Benefit Others while Working to Achieve Enlightenment
The other option would be to manifest in the world, rather than in a pure land, so that we’d have an opportunity to benefit others as much as we can while on the path. In that case, we wouldn’t receive teachings from Sambhogakaya because we wouldn’t be in a pure land. However, we could get teachings from Nirmanakaya, which are emanations of a Buddha’s Sambhogakaya, or from the gurus who are teaching in their stead. In that situation, we would have to go through the cycle of birth, old age, and death. We might not get sick, but we would at least have to go through birth, old age, and death. However, we wouldn’t have any unhappiness or suffering. We would be limited, of course, because there is not much one can do as an infant. We’ve discussed how, as an infant, one can make others happy, but this is a very superficial way of helping others compared to leading them to enlightenment. Still, we would be willing to do that in order to be able to benefit others in more immediate ways, even though those ways might be limited.
So, there are these two options.
I think this is quite important to understand if we are working to attain liberation. If we don’t know what our options are once we become liberated, our idea of what we are working toward is a little bit vague. “I am working toward something, but I don’t know what will happen when I actually achieve it.” Then, of course, we have to be convinced that it is possible to achieve liberation. That is something that we have discussed before in terms of the fundamental purity of the mind – that the mind is not innately stained by ignorance, unawareness, disturbing emotions, karmic potentials, and so on. These are fleeting things that can be removed, forever.
Any questions?
Participant: I read that after resting for some time, these arhats are aroused by the Buddhas and encouraged to pursue the bodhisattva path.
Dr. Berzin: So, after an arhat in a pure land has rested for a while… and I don’t know what that means. Does that mean just sort of hanging out? Does it mean sleeping? What does it mean? In any case, they take a break. But again, what do they actually do during their break? That’s not clear. They meditate, OK, but not all the time. Then, they are aroused by the Buddhas and encouraged to follow the Mahayana path. We certainly read about that in certain texts. I don’t know how pushy a Buddha would be in that regard. It would seem a little bit out of character for a Buddha to be pushy. Buddhas don’t have to “do” anything. Just by their very way of being, they assert an enlightening influence that spontaneously accomplishes all purposes, to use the jargon.
Also, there are many pure lands. So, what pure lands do the arhats go to? Do they go to same pure lands that arya bodhisattvas go to, like Tushita Pure Land, Sukhavati Pure Land and these sorts of places? I don’t know. I have never come across any explanation of that. The arya bodhisattvas receiving teachings from Sambhogakaya Buddhas in pure lands are not necessarily arhats. But since there are quite a number of Buddha-fields, pure lands, arhats could be in the same ones as arya bodhisattvas, in which case, they could be on the sidelines, so to speak, when a Buddha is teaching and maybe be inspired to go. Are there arya bodhisattvas in the pure lands where arhats go? I don’t know. Are Buddhas in the pure lands where they go? Well, Buddhas can certainly emanate in those pure lands. I have no idea how that actually works. I have never heard it explained or even discussed.
Participant: Have arhats completely purified their karma?
Dr. Berzin: Arhats have completely gotten rid of their karmic potentials, both positive and negative.
Participant: The only thing I can say is what they are not doing: they’re not doing any harm while they are there.
Dr. Berzin: That’s true. They’re not suffering, and they’re not building up more causes for suffering or for rebirth. They’re not doing anything like that. But then, as I said, what are they doing? They don’t have to eat. They don’t have ordinary bodies. They’re made of light. What do they do?
Participant: You said they have two options. And one of them is to come to this realm.
Dr. Berzin: Right, they could stay in a pure land, or they could come to our realm.
Participant: You said that maybe they could help others better when they come to our realm.
Dr. Berzin: That’s what I said. But I think that needs a little bit of clarification. There are two options… not options, really, but variants or preferences.
One is to stay in a pure land – working all the way to enlightenment is more efficiently achieved in a pure land. We don’t have distractions. We don’t have to go through being a baby and all of that. We don’t have to eat or sleep. We don’t have to make any money or do anything to support ourselves. So, that’s more efficient. So, we could think, “I have such strong compassion that I want to gain enlightenment as efficiently as possible because then I’ll be able to really help others.” But during that time, what are we doing to help others? We’re not doing anything, really, that directly benefits others.
The other variant would be to go to a human realm, in which case we’d be thinking, “Well, it may take me longer to reach enlightenment if I manifest in a human realm, but at least I can do some good while I am there. My compassion is of the type that I have to do something now, even if what I do is limited. So, even though it would be more efficient to stay in a pure land, I can’t stand the suffering of others.”
So, it depends on our disposition, on what we like. There are those who would choose one variant and those who would choose the other.
Which Option Would We Choose and Why?
Actually, it’s very interesting. Why don’t we take a moment to think about that. What variant would we choose? If we were liberated beings, would we want to stay in a pure land? Well, there are three choices here. Would we want to stay in a pure land and just be at peace forever, or would we sort of get bored and want to work toward enlightenment? If we wanted to work toward enlightenment – so, thinking of others – would we want to stay in a pure land and work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no hindrances? Or would we prefer to come back on earth or wherever there are beings who are open to the teachings so that we could benefit them, even though our help would be limited and it would take us longer to reach enlightenment?
What would you choose? And then examine why.
[meditation]
Participant: If my goal is to have peace for myself alone and I achieve it, why should I do anything? I wouldn’t get bored. That’s a kind of suffering. I would be fine.
Dr. Berzin: That’s a good point: boredom is a state of suffering. So, since we wouldn’t have suffering, we wouldn’t get bored. We would be quite content to just stay at peace.
Participant: Do you think I would see other people suffering?
Dr. Berzin: I think we would see others suffering because we have extrasensory powers. We also have the ability to know past and future lives, at least to a certain extent. Then the question is, do we have to look to see the suffering? Probably not. We are able to see it, but that doesn’t mean that we have to see it.
Participant: If you see it, would you be disturbed by it?
Dr. Berzin: No, we wouldn’t be disturbed by it. However, we could be moved by it to try to do something. But that would entail doing the various meditations on love and compassion.
On the Theravada path, for example, there is definitely mediation on love and compassion and the far-reaching attitudes. You have a set of these ten so-called far-reaching attitudes on the Hinayana path as well. It’s just that the motivation is not to achieve enlightenment: the motivation is to achieve liberation. So, if these are necessary even on the Hinayana path, would we just forget about the suffering of others? This is an interesting question. We could.
Participant: I can’t imagine that because, even as human beings with all these faults and so on, we are moved by somebody who is suffering. So, I can’t imagine that an arhat would not be moved.
Dr. Berzin: I would tend to agree, although, in theory, one could be indifferent. But I also find that hard to imagine.
I think how much we are moved depends a lot on how much we ourselves are suffering. When we are experiencing gross suffering, we really want peace. But as we progress on the pathway to arhatship, we are going to have less and less suffering. It’s not that we are going to be experiencing gross suffering all the way up to the end. So, in the more advanced stages leading up to liberation where we are not experiencing any gross suffering, the idea of just staying in a peaceful state might not be as appealing. When we are really suffering, it is much more appealing. Without experiencing suffering ourselves, it’s hard to imagine helping others who are suffering.
However, they do say it’s not at all inevitable that all arhats will develop bodhichitta and work toward enlightenment. It’s not inevitable. All of them can, but that doesn’t mean all them will.
Participant: One’s idea of helping others can also change.
Dr. Berzin: Even as arhats, certainly. Arhats are individuals, so they would have their own points of view. What’s also involved is what karmic connections we make with others.
When we are following a Mahayana path, one of the things that we do when we are doing something positive – which could be teaching, of course, but also just reading or doing our prayers and practices – is to imagine that everybody is doing it together it with us. We’re sort of like the chant leader. Or when we are teaching or helping someone, we don’t imagine that we are just teaching or helping the person in front of us; we imagine that there are countless beings around us and that we are teaching or helping them at the same time. We are always aiming to benefit everybody. So, what is the point of that?
The point of doing that – aside from expanding our minds – is to build up karmic connections with everybody so that we are able to benefit more beings more and more. Think about it: If somebody like ourselves were to give a lecture, how many people would come? Not very many. When someone like His Holiness the Dalai Lama gives a talk, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people come. Why? Establishing a connection with all beings, then, is part of the Mahayana path. So, each arhat will have made connections with different beings. Even Buddhas will, for various reasons, have closer connections to some than to others.
Participant: I thought about what you said about the option of coming back to this realm. I was thinking that that option makes sense if I were really able to be detached from suffering and desire. To be here in that way, as opposed to being here and getting into relationships that would cause disturbing emotions to arise – not just in myself but in others – makes sense. So, if I can imagine being able to be here without the suffering and attachment, I can imagine choosing this option.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If coming back to this realm as arhats meant we would experience all the sufferings of samsara – the attachments, the disturbing emotions, and so on – that option wouldn’t make as much sense.
Participant: Is it impossible for arhats to fall back?
Dr. Berzin: Yes, it is impossible.
Participant: They’ve gone beyond.
Dr. Berzin: Right, they’ve achieved a true stopping. They have eliminated this stuff forever.
How Much Can We Benefit Ourselves and Others by Going into Retreat?
This question about what we would do if or when we become liberated beings has relevance not just in terms of theory; it is also relevant now, in terms of our regular, everyday practice. For example, there are some Dharma practitioners who think, “I want to go off to a cave and be like Milarepa,” and this sort of stuff. But one has to look at doing something like that very seriously. There are very few people who are really ready and able to devote themselves to a lifetime meditation retreat. It takes a very, very special person to be able to do that – living in complete isolation, having just one’s own enthusiasm to keep one going, living on practically nothing, enduring all the hardships that are involved. Very, very few people would be willing or able to do that.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama always points out that we need to look at ourselves honestly. If we are not able to go into lifetime retreat – and hardy anyone is able to go into lifetime retreat, he says – then we need to involve ourselves in some sort of social way to help others while we are working on the spiritual path. The way that each of us would work to benefit others could be very, very different. It could be working in a helping profession of some sort, working in a store, or working to help others in another way.
Participant: From a conventional Western perspective, it’s very difficult to look at somebody who dedicates his life to meditation and to see how is he benefiting other people directly. That’s the feedback I get from most people when the topic is brought up: “What is he doing there in the cave? How is he helping anyone?” Then, again, I come back to the thing of “if he’s not helping anyone directly, at least he’s not harming anyone,” which is one of the only arguments in favor of going on retreat that I can think of. I think it’s hard to go away into a cave, only because the feedback generally is that one should do something to help people here and now. I think there’s a lot of pressure for us to do that.
Dr. Berzin: You say that the best that one could say is that at least they’re not hurting anybody. But then, I would add that somebody who’s in a coma would not be hurting anybody either. That doesn’t make being in a coma preferable.
You also said that there could be a lot of societal pressure not to go into retreat. People might think, “You shouldn’t go into a cave. You should stay here and try to help others as much as you can.” The counterargument is that, even though you might not be helping others directly if you are in a cave meditating, you will be helping them indirectly because you will achieve a higher, more developed state, which will enable you to help them in a future life. However, for most Westerners who don’t really believe in future lives, that’s not a very convincing argument.
Participant: Even if you don’t do it for a full lifetime but do it for half a lifetime, you would, ideally, be improving your skills.
Dr. Berzin: So, what about people who go into these three-year retreats? There is a growing number of Westerners who do three-year retreats. And certainly, there are a lot of Tibetans who do them. What’s the benefit of that? Again, one has to look at one’s motivation for going into a three-year retreat. That could certainly vary. It could be a pure Mahayana, bodhichitta motivation, or it could be a very worldly type of motivation. It could be just, “I can’t deal with my life, so I will go off into a three-year retreat.”
Then, obviously, what one does during the retreat will vary. One could spend three years in mental wandering. Just because one is in retreat, doesn’t guarantee that what one does is terribly effective, even if one is a monk or a nun. Being a monk or a nun doesn’t necessarily mean that one is devoting 100% of one’s time to meditation and practice. Certainly not. And as His Holiness the Dalai Lama said the other day in San Jose, California, just reciting rituals in a monastery is not really practicing the Dharma. He said that the vast majority of those in monasteries are not really practicing the Dharma in terms of working on transforming themselves. They might be upholding the rituals, but where is the inner transformation?
Do we need to be in isolation in order to bring about inner transformation, or can we do it in our daily lives if we are really sincere and hard-working? Good question.
Striking a Balance between Working on Ourselves and Working for Others
Participant: This is basically what Thich Nhat Hanh did and said to the monks in the time of the Vietnam War. He said, “Don’t just meditate; go out and help the people.” But then when they were out, he told them, “Don’t just let yourselves become crazy out there in that world of war; go back to the monastery and meditate.”
Dr. Berzin: So, he told them to do both things.
Participant: To do both, though not at the same time, obviously.
Dr. Berzin: So, after they had been out for a while, he advised them to go back to the monasteries and work on meditation so that they didn’t become out of balance and disturbed.
This is also what His Holiness the Dalai Lama says. He says that we need to have a balance between working in some sort of socially beneficial way – whether we are directly working with people or working to help them from our computer at home doesn’t matter – and working on ourselves.
Participant: I think that it really depends on the person.
Dr. Berzin: Definitely, it depends on the individual.
Participant: For one individual, it is more beneficial to go into retreat; for another, it is more beneficial to do social work. But I think both are necessary. I think that it is great if somebody is inclined to do retreat.
Dr. Berzin: I agree completely. And it’s also really worthwhile to support those who are able to do these long retreats and do them sincerely.
Participant: People I’ve listened to who spoke with meditators who had come out from a long retreat were very impressed. I think retreat makes a wholesome impression on a lot of people.
Dr. Berzin: Many who have done long-term retreats have had quite good results. When they have come out, they have been a great help and inspiration to others. Definitely. But as I said, just because we go into a retreat, doesn’t necessary mean that we’re going to get results. If we are not really working properly in the retreat, we’re not going to get much benefit from it.
Participant: There are also people who do social work who get burned out. Also, some are not so helpful.
Dr. Berzin: That’s absolutely true.
Participant: They develop crazy ideas.
Dr. Berzin: They develop crazy ideas, like “I’m the greatest. I’m the savior. I’m the saint.”
Participant: Why are we talking about social work on the intermediate scope?
Dr. Berzin: That’s a very good question. We are talking about that because, at the beginning, I introduced the topic of there being two ways of working on the lam-rim stages. One way is to start from the beginning without knowing what’s coming next. We develop the motivations and an understanding of their importance sequentially. The other way is to go back over these different levels from the perspective of the advanced scope of working to attain enlightenment for the benefit of others.
So, now the question is, while we are working to gain liberation, are we also involved in working for others in any way? In the lam-rim, there isn’t any mention of that. That’s very true. What I am doing in today’s class is bringing in this other perspective. I would agree with you that we shouldn’t dwell on it, though we seem to have gone off in this direction. However, I think that it’s worth thinking about when considering how we would work toward liberation. How do we do that? What would be a strong motivation for doing that? What I am saying is that I think that the motivation of “I just want to get out of suffering because it’s so horrible” is not at all as strong a motivation for attaining liberation as “I want to gain liberation because I can’t effectively help others if I’m not liberated.”
Suffering of Humans (Continued)
Let’s go back to the actual topic here, which has to do with the sufferings of a human rebirth. We don’t have much time, but we don’t have to go into tremendous detail about the next two, which are the sufferings of sickness and death.
Suffering of Sickness
I’m sure that everybody has been sick at one time or another, but heavy sickness like cancer is really horrible. We all know that. There is the physical pain. There is the mental pain. And there is the limitation: there is very little that we can actually do when we are undergoing chemo, for instance. We can think of both physical sickness and mental sickness. I don’t think we need to limit ourselves here just to physical sickness. These things are awful, and we all know that.
So, what is the cause of sickness? This is interesting. From the point of view of Tibetan medicine, it’s an imbalance of the various systems within the body known as phlegm, bile, and wind. There is a direct correlation between these systems and the disturbing emotions. When strong disturbing emotions arise, they affect the systems within the body and cause them to get out of balance. And it’s very, very difficult for these systems ever to be in balance. It’s not that we want a balance of the disturbing emotions; the point is that each disturbing emotion is going to bring on an imbalance in one or another of these systems. It’s only by getting rid of all the disturbing emotions and the unawareness that’s behind them that we can eliminate all mental and physical sickness.
This is the discussion of the suffering of sickness. As I said, we could discuss the sufferings of sickness in more detail, but I think we all know them already.
Suffering of Death
I think that one of the main points about the suffering of death is that we have to leave everything behind. We won’t be able to see our friends anymore. If we’re involved in doing some beneficial work, we won’t be able to finish it. This is quite awful. And even if we want to die because we are experiencing some terrible, painful cancer, we still have the suffering of not knowing what’s going to come next. Even if we think, “Well, I think there’s going to be a big nothing,” we don’t really know. I think this is very frightening for almost everybody, unless they have the conviction that there is some kind of life after death. And even if we have conviction that there is rebirth and so on, how can we be so certain that we are going to be human beings with precious human rebirths? There is no guarantee. This is suffering. Isn’t it?
Participant: Isn’t that our situation all the time – that we don’t know what is going to come next?
Dr. Berzin: This is part of the uncertainty of samsara. But I think it’s even stronger at the time of death because that’s going to be a real change.
Participant: It’s much more radical.
Dr. Berzin: It’s much more radical than, “How am I going to feel this evening?”
Is There a Point When We Will No Longer Fall Back to Worse Rebirth States?
Participant: Is there a point in our development when we know that we won’t take rebirth in the lower states?
Dr. Berzin: Yes, when we have achieved a certain stage of the second pathway mind.
There are the five paths, five pathway minds. We enter the first one when we have developed either unlabored renunciation, which we develop when we are working toward liberation, or unlabored bodhichitta, which we develop when we are working toward enlightenment. On the first path, the path of building up (the path of accumulation), we are basically building up the skills to attain simultaneous shamatha and vipashyana focused on the 16 aspects of the four noble truths. When we have achieved that, we have achieved the second pathway mind, the path of application, or “path of preparation,” as it’s sometimes translated. On this level, we have conceptual combined shamatha and vipashyana. We then apply that conceptual combined shamatha and vipashyana over and over again until we gain non-conceptual joined shamatha and vipashyana on the 16 aspects of the four noble truths, at which point, we achieve the third pathway mind, the seeing pathway mind, and become aryas.
Also, the second one, the applying pathway mind, has four stages: joined shamatha and vipashyana on the 16 aspects while awake, while dreaming, etc. (there’s a whole description of these four). When we have gotten to the third of those four, we’ve gotten to a point where there is no danger of ever falling back to a worse rebirth state. So, there is a point, definitely.
Let’s just spend a few moments thinking about these sufferings of sickness and death and how great it would be not to have those.
[meditation]
Again, if we are arhats and we come back to work in this realm, we will die from the rebirths that we take, but we won’t experience any uncertainty, fear, or anything like that because we know that we can continue to come back.
[meditation]
As I say, we can approach this type of meditation in two ways. One is to think about how horrible sickness and death are – just as birth and old age are – and that we certainly don’t want to experience these things. That would be the so-called ordinary way of developing this intermediate scope. The other way is to use the intermediate scope as a stepping-stone to the advanced scope and to keep the advanced scope in mind. So, again, we see how horrible it is to have sickness and death, but, here, it’s because these things prevent us from helping others. If we’re working to help others, we certainly don’t want to get cancer. We certainly don’t want to get Alzheimer’s. What could we do then? So, there are these two ways of approaching this type of meditation.
According to the different tenet systems, the obstacles that prevent liberation and the obstacles that prevent enlightenment are defined differently. Some of them say that we work on getting rid of both of them at the same time. Others say that we first work on getting rid of the ones that obstruct or prevent liberation and that then we work on the ones that prevent enlightenment. That’s interesting to examine: Would we want to work on both of them at the same time, or would we want to work first on the ones that prevent liberation and then on those that prevent enlightenment? It’s interesting because there are different presentations according to the different tenet systems. But that, perhaps, is for another time.
Having a Long-Term Perspective of Progress on the Path
I think I should add here that, generally, when going through the lam-rim for the first time, most people are not going to work on the initial scope not knowing what the intermediate scope is. Nor are they going to wait until they have “mastered” the initial scope before moving on to the intermediate scope. Very few people have the opportunity to do it like that because so many books are available and they can read the whole thing. What’s more usual is to work a little bit on the initial scope, then a little bit on the intermediate scope, and then a little bit on the advanced scope. But even if we are doing this in a fairly sincere way, it’s not really deep; it’s not heartfelt. So, we have to go back.
This is a very crucial point because a lot of people will say, “Well, I have done the lam-rim. I have learned it. Now let’s go on to the more interesting stuff: tantra.” But they have no foundation. They haven’t developed the necessary qualities. There are many, many mistakes that are made and dangers that come when trying to practice tantra without that foundation. So, one has to go back over the lam-rim again and again.
And when we go back through the stages and see what we want to achieve – to achieve enlightenment to benefit others – we also see that we have to ensure that we will have precious human rebirths every lifetime because it’s going to take an awfully long time to reach our goal. So, we have to ensure that we’re going to get liberated. If we’re not liberated, how can we help others? We’ll get attached. We’ll get angry. We’ll get Alzheimer’s, cancer, and all these sorts of things.
So, I think that one needs to look at the development of the lam-rim, these stages of motivation, from a very long-term perspective. It’s not a one-shot deal. It’s not that we go through it once, and that’s it. “Oh, I’ve heard that already. I don’t want to hear it again.” But as we go through it again and again, always keep in mind the advanced scope aim. That, I think, makes achieving the goals of the initial and the intermediate scopes more of an imperative.