We are going through the graded stages of the path. The graded stages are presented in many different ways, nevertheless, this is common material that we find in all the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism that derive from the Indian tradition. Here, we have a graduated way of organizing this material, which describes how we develop ourselves spiritually through one insight or realization after another, all the way up to the point of enlightenment.
Developing Ourselves Spiritually According to the Three Scopes of Motivation
The way that that spiritual development is organized is according to three stages of motivation – this derives from the teachings of Atisha, one of the great Indian masters, who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet the second time. What we want to do is to expand the scope of our aim. When we speak about motivation (kun-slong, motivating aim), we’re talking about (1) what are we aiming for and (2) the emotion that drives us toward that aim.
The Initial Scope
First, we want to ensure that we continue to have better rebirths in all our lifetimes. That’s the initial scope motivation. What drives us in that direction is the dread of not being able to have the opportunity to continue working on the spiritual path. Actually, each of these levels of motivation is within the context of the vastest motivation, Mahayana, with which we aim for enlightenment.
On this initial scope, we want to ensure that we continue having precious human rebirths because – within the sutra context – it’s going to require three zillion eons of building up positive force in order to be able to overcome the obscurations and the obstacles that prevent not just our liberation but, also, our enlightenment. It will require a tremendous amount of positive force to clear away these obstacles and to build up enough positive energy to get our whole system to make something like a quantum leap to a level where we could operate freely, unburdened by the various limitations that these obscurations create – whether we’re talking about the disturbing emotions or we’re talking about the periscope, limited type of understanding that we have, which is based on our minds making appearances of truly established existence as if things existed independently, in boxes, and which prevents us from seeing the interrelatedness of everything.
So, on this initial scope, we want to build up enough positive force by putting a safe direction in our lives and, also, by refraining from negative behavior, destructive behavior, so that we can continue going in the direction of liberation and enlightenment, the direction indicated by Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Going in that direction is what will enable us to continue to have precious human rebirths, to build up more positive force, and to reach these goals.
The Intermediate Scope
On the intermediate level, we work to gain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth – samsara. This means overcoming the obscurations that prevent liberation. This refers to the emotional obscurations – the disturbing emotions and the unawareness that is behind these disturbing emotions – and to the karmic behavior, whether constructive or destructive, that is built up within the context of this unawareness, or naivety. We want to overcome these so that we will then be in a better position – better able – to work further toward enlightenment.
There’s no way that we can really benefit others as much as is possible if we are still under the control of naivety, greed, attachment, selfishness, anger, hostility, jealousy, arrogance, indecisive wavering, and so on. We have to get rid of that unawareness. We also have to get rid of acting under the influence of that unawareness; otherwise, we will continue acting compulsively because of karma, thus building up more karmic aftermath, and then activating that aftermath, causing us to continue having uncontrollably recurring rebirths. We have to get rid of all of that so that we will be in a better position to help others work further to reach enlightenment.
This intermediate scope is also within the context of the more advanced scope of motivation and aim, that of Mahayana.
The Advanced Scope
Then we strive to reach enlightenment. That’s the advanced level of motivation, the vastest level of motivation, in which we aim to get rid of the obscurations that prevent omniscience, which are the habits of grasping for truly established existence. The habits of this unawareness cause our minds to make things appear in impossible ways, as if they existed truly established by themselves, encapsulated in plastic.
When the way that we perceive the world is limited and colored by this deceptive appearance-making, then we are prevented from being able to see the interconnectedness of everything, particularly in terms of cause and effect. Because of that, we are unable to really analyze very clearly all the causal factors that influence and have influenced each individual being’s being in their current situation. Additionally, we are unable to know the effects of anything that we teach them in terms of how not only this person but also everybody else they interact with will be influenced in the future. So, we need to overcome all of that, which means, on this advanced scope, taking that discriminating awareness based on concentration and ethical discipline that we’ve developed already and coupling it with bodhichitta – the aim to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all – which is based on love, compassion, and the exceptional resolve to take responsibility ourselves to bring them to enlightenment, even if we have to do it all alone.
The Relationship with the Spiritual Teacher
So we have this graduated path of development. Although it normally is presented on the basis of the healthy relationship with the spiritual teacher, we haven’t presented it that way, since, often, that is misunderstood. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many others who present this material suggest that the explanation of the relation with the teacher should come at the end. Nonetheless, this relationship is very, very fundamental: it is the root of the path. This means that it is the relationship from which we draw the strength and inspiration to go on the path – so, not just guidance but inspiration and strength. That is derived from the special relationship with the spiritual teacher who actually moves us, who inspires us. That inspiration is based on the teacher’s qualities – which we have examined very, very fully – which includes the teacher’s way of teaching and interacting. It also includes their kindness in actually guiding and taking care of us, even if that means they have to be very harsh and strict with us in order for us to learn.
Based on having a strong conviction in the good qualities of the teacher and a full appreciation for the kindness of that teacher – their way of devoting themselves to helping others and us – we develop a very deep and profound respect. That respect is something that we show not just to the teacher; we show it to ourselves, our spiritual path, and to everything that we do by way of working to benefit others. That means showing respect by the way we keep ourselves, by the way that we keep our meditation facilities, and by the way that we keep our study facilities – keeping them clean, neat, and so on.
Showing respect usually gets translated into one expression or gesture of respect, which is prostration, but respect is a much larger state of mind that affects not just our attitude: it affects our behavior as well. There are many detailed criteria for the ways in which one shows respect to one’s whole spiritual practice, and, often, the focus of that respect is the spiritual teacher. Having respect for the teacher and for the teachings then becomes translated into having respect for ourselves, for what we are doing, and so on, which, particularly in a Western context, I think, is very important for overcoming low self-esteem, which basically means not taking ourselves or what we’re doing seriously.
So we have this presentation of the graduated stages of the path, graduated levels of mind – or “pathways of mind,” as I like to explain them – that will lead us through these various stages of continuing better rebirths and gaining liberation to the ultimate goal, enlightenment.
The Precious Human Rebirth
The way that we have presented this first has been in terms of the precious human rebirths that we have. We need to recognize the various qualities of such a rebirth and appreciate that we actually have them. We need to appreciate how rare such a rebirth is, how difficult it is to obtain – especially considering its causes – as well as to appreciate what we can do with the precious human rebirth, which is to use it as a foundation or basis for attaining these spiritual goals so we can go further. It’s the best medium, the best vehicle, for helping others until we are actually an enlightened being.
We come to understand the fact – one that is not very easy to take seriously – that this precious human rebirth is going to end. Death will come for sure, we don’t know when, and nothing is going to be of help at the time of death except for the preventive measures we have taken to avoid things getting worse in the future. Unless we’ve taken preventive measures to try at least to minimize being under the effect of the negative karmic potentials, which get activated as negative throwing karma at the time of death, we will be thrown into worse states of rebirth – a very sad situation in which we would be unable to improve ourselves and to build up further positive force. We would then just have to wait until we’ve depleted the negative karmic force that had caused our subtlest energy, in a sense, to generate the bodies of these types of life forms that are sources of great suffering.
The Joyless Realms
We started to look at the worst types of rebirths that could follow this life if we haven’t taken these preventive measures. We’ve looked at the hell rebirths, as it were – rebirths in the joyless realms as trapped beings – and went through the various types of sufferings that are there. We saw the major causes for these hot and cold hells, occasional hells and neighboring hells as being a type of mind ruled by anger, hatred, and closed-mindedness and a type of behavior motivated by such a mind, which cause a tremendous amount of harm and cruelty to be inflicted on others in assorted types of ways. As a result of generating all of that, we are born into situations in which we are overwhelmed by intense fear and anger – anger at being there, anger with what’s going on with us, and so on – which is what characterizes this type of hellish rebirth. So, the level of unhappiness and pain we experience is the extreme of what can be experienced – more extreme than what can be experienced by humans, for example.
The Clutching Ghosts
Last time, we looked at the situation of being reborn as a clutching ghost, sometimes called “hungry ghost,” which is the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit word (preta). This is a type of rebirth in which we are, basically, always frustrated. We are never able to enjoy anything, to make use of anything. We aren’t able to enjoy the heat of the sun; we’re not able to enjoy the coolness of the wind. Everything just causes us tremendous pain. We’re not able to enjoy food or drink. We are constricted, we’re clutching. We’re always trying to get something – trying to get food, trying to get some sort of comfort – but, whatever it is, it just turns into an experience of extreme pain and frustration, for example, eating something that then turns into acid in our stomachs.
We’ve seen that this type of rebirth – the state of mind, the type of body, and the rebirth state itself that supports that state of mind and that type of body – is the result of being very stingy, miserly; not wanting to share, not wanting to give to others; wanting to hold on to things that we have ourselves and being unwilling even to use them ourselves; being very cheap – always wanting to have the cheapest and poorest quality thing because we don’t want to spend the money. This also could be holding on to our knowledge – not wanting to share it. As a result, we are extremely deprived, even more so than when we were depriving ourselves while we were alive.
We then looked at the various sufferings of that rebirth state.
Today, we will be dealing with the animal rebirth. I sometimes like to translate the Tibetan and Sanskrit words for the beings in this realm, usually translated as “animals” (dud-’gro, Skt. tiryak), much more literally. The literal translation is “things that move bent over,” which means things that creep. That’s why I sometimes like to call them “creeping creatures.” So, rather than imagining a cute, little puppy dog or a deer – Bambi, or something like that – we should imagine something like a beetle or a cockroach, some sort of thing that creeps along the ground. Obviously, this type of rebirth also includes birds and fish, which don’t creep; nevertheless, the mental picture that we want to have when we start to think of this type of rebirth should be something quite awful, not something cute and cuddly.
The Sufferings of the Animals
There are many descriptions of the sufferings of animals. The general problems are that they are stupid and ignorant; they have problems with heat and cold, with hunger and thirst; they are eaten by each other and are exploited and used for work by others. We can think of these problems one by one.
Being Eaten by Each Other
These creatures are eaten by each other. Whether they are eaten by humans or not is not the point. We’re not discussing vegetarianism in this context. Even if every human being were vegetarian, it wouldn’t prevent the animals from eating each other. That is what happens in the wild. Whether we’re talking about insects, fish, or mammals, animals are eaten by each other and, in many cases, eaten alive. This is really quite horrible.
Humans not only hunt and raise animals for food, we kill them for fun as well – hunting and fishing them for sport. We also have exterminators, people who go around killing insects because they are eating our crops, infesting our houses, and things like that. One has to realize that these insects, as annoying as they might be to our livelihoods, are not intent on causing us harm. They are not motivated by the wish to hurt us. They are just doing what they do, which is trying to eat and live. That is descriptive of this state: that even though they are just trying to survive, they are punished and exterminated. That is really quite an awful situation, isn’t it?
I think that, perhaps, the sufferings of the animals are a little bit easier to relate to than the sufferings of the hell creatures or the clutching ghosts. So, why don’t we think of their sufferings in terms of how awful it must be, for instance, to be hunted? As we’re just walking around, some larger creature just sneaks up behind us and bites off half of our body and then chews us up – as happens with small fish in the sea when they’re eaten by larger fish. Can you imagine living like that? That would be quite awful. Or we are just going around trying to live, but because larger creatures see us as being complete pests, they try to step on or smash us whenever they see us. Think what that state of life would be like. Think how we really wouldn’t want that to happen and how we would do anything to avoid that. That’s the whole point: we want to avoid that. So, let’s think about that.
If we find that difficult to relate to, we can imagine being a Jew during the Second World War or a Hutu or Tutsi during the Rwanda Civil War, being hunted down and exterminated simply because of our race or tribe. But it could be the same thing in terms of our life forms, couldn’t it?
[meditation]
What makes these meditations even stronger is to think of the causes for an animal rebirth. There are several causes, but the major one is acting under the strong influence of animal instincts. So, for instance, if anything bothers us, we just growl and snap like a dog. Or in terms of desire – any time we have any sort of desire, particularly sexual desire, we just jump out and try to satisfy it.
As a remedy for that, we can imagine being a female dog in heat on the streets of India, constantly being attacked and jumped upon – in a sense, continually being raped by all the male dogs in the neighborhood. One doesn’t see this so much in the West, but in India, ones sees this a lot. The poor, female dogs in heat are just constantly attacked. Is our behavior similar to these dogs that go around sniffing each other’s behinds and so on? Is that really the type of thing that we want – for our behavior to cause us to experience something similar ourselves in the future? Thinking about these sorts of things makes these animal rebirths a little bit more relevant.
Being Stupid and Ignorant
The next general problem is being stupid and ignorant. As a creature that crawls along the ground, our ability to benefit ourselves in any but the most primitive fashion is very, very limited. “Even if we’re born as monkeys or parrots and can be trained to perform a few amusing tricks, we can never be taught to meditate on compassion. Of course, studies have shown that many animals have a certain level of compassion instinctively, but the point is that they are not capable of making that compassion stronger through training.
Think about that. What can an animal be trained to do? As dolphins or seals, we can learn to jump through hoops or balance balls on our heads. Then, afterwards, we’ll be thrown a fish, or something like that. What are we using our precious human rebirths for? Just to learn to do some tricks? We can kick a ball into a net. We can do a good trick. Is that it? Is that the best usage of a precious human rebirth? What do we gain from that? We might gain money, fame, etc., but what is it, in the end, that we’ve learned to do? It’s something that’s basically no different from a seal learning to balance a ball on its nose. So, as the quote says, we would have a very limited ability to develop our kindness, compassion, etc. and, so, to benefit ourselves in the long term.
So, let’s think about this. Am I using my precious human rebirth just to learn how to do some amusing tricks? Am I doing something worthwhile with it? And don’t think of amusing tricks as being just athletic things. They could be amusing tricks with the computer or at our work. Is this any different from learning to do an animal trick?
[meditation]
Can Animals Build Up Positive Force?
Participant: I was thinking about the dogs that lead blind people, search for bombs, and things like that.
Dr. Berzin: Sure, there are some possibilities in an animal rebirth actually to do something positive, but these are very rare.
But remember, the force of the positive potential that’s built up from such an action is dependent on the motivation. Here, the motivation is to get a bone, some sort of food reward. It’s not necessarily that a dog has the idea to benefit the other person. The seeing-eye dog, maybe, is a different case. A seeing-eye dog certainly develops a bond with the person. Dogs do have a sense of taking care of others; they’re loyal and so on. So, maybe, a seeing-eye dog is an exception. But a bomb-sniffing dog, I think, does it for the reward that it gets.
Participant: I don’t think it would do its job if it knew it was searching for bombs.
Dr. Berzin: Right. The dog wouldn’t do it if it knew that if it made a slight mistake, it would get blown up.
Participant: Birds really do a lot to raise their young.
Dr. Berzin: Yes, animals certainly exhibit motherly love. They do have this aspect of taking care of others. That is an instinctive type of thing. Certainly, we focus on motherly love when we meditate on the kindness of others.
Participant: It’s sort of altruistic.
Dr. Berzin: Is that altruistic? Is that behavior based on a conscious motivation, or is it based on instinct? Well, it’s probably instinctive – survival of the species, etc. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that it is a constructive act. There is the wish to protect and benefit the young. However, it doesn’t extend much more beyond that. Wanting to take care of one’s young wouldn’t be a criterion for wanting to be reborn as an animal.
Participant: I was thinking about what you said about doing tricks. I came to the conclusion that everything we do is a trick to get some sort of reward. The exception would be doings things with a conscious motivation to benefit more than just this life.
Dr. Berzin: That’s very good. If we do what we do just to get some sort of “fish,” some kind of reward – whether it’s money, praise, love, or fame – it’s like we’re doing a trick. So, from this point of view, we can say that anything that’s done for this lifetime alone is basically a trick. Doing something with a strong motivation to benefit our future lives, to benefit others, not wanting to get anything in return, is not a trick. Although, if the goal is only to benefit a future life, that also is a trick. In that case, we want to get the reward not in this life but in a future life. Remember, improving future lives is just the basis, the foundation for being able to work further on the spiritual path toward liberation and enlightenment. Those are the actual goals.
It’s interesting to look: Is what we do just a trick to get a reward? What value does it have? Well, we can work in an office, doing a bureaucratic job. Is that a trick?
Participant: It’s to perform a function.
Dr. Berzin: So, it makes a difference whether we’re working just to get the reward of a salary or working to benefit society in some way, doesn’t it?
Participant: But there are animals that work just for the benefit of their colony, like ants and bees. They work only for the larger group, not for themselves.
Dr. Berzin: That’s very true. There are social animals that are part of a swarm or a colony that work just for their group. Are they building up positive force for better rebirths by doing that?
Participant: When I compare myself with bees, I’m ashamed.
Dr. Berzin: Well, it’s very interesting. A self-cherishing attitude – working only for oneself and not at all for the benefit of others – is based on having a strong sense of a “me” and grasping for a solid “me.” What we seem to be doing here, with this example, is labeling that “me” on the swarm or the colony rather than on the individual. Bees are certainly going to defend the colony as if it were one single organism, in a sense. I think that what we have here is an example of a larger basis for labeling “me.” The individual is just a part of the larger swarm. I don’t think that is what we would generally call an altruistic type of attitude. At least, this is the first thought that comes to my mind. What do you think?
Participant: There can be a group of humans that cares for and does everything for each other, but when another group of humans comes along, they kill each other.
Dr. Berzin: Right. There are also gangs, for instance. People within a gang, a criminal youth group, will support each other, but their whole attitude toward anyone outside the gang is very hostile. The same is true of families, nations, and ethnic groups as well.
We’re talking here about the instinct for survival. The instinct for survival is not really an altruistic one, even if that instinct to survive and to protect is extended beyond the individual person to include the group. I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about an altruistic motivation from a Buddhist point of view. That doesn’t diminish the value of being kind to the people in your family, but that instinct doesn’t really get into the realm of a spiritual practice.
Equanimity and Altruism
Participant: It’s missing equanimity.
Dr. Berzin: We need equanimity. In the Buddhist practice, an altruistic attitude and behavior are extended beyond those to whom we are attached. So, I think we have to differentiate here between what’s done out of a basic instinct for survival, whether self-survival or survival of the species, and what’s done out of altruism.
Participant: It’s survival of the self.
Dr. Berzin: It’s survival of an extended self.
Participant: But it benefits the others.
Dr. Berzin: I’m not denying that it benefits others within the group. I’m just asking, is that really what we’re talking about when we talk about making best use of a precious human rebirth? We can do more than an ant – just working for the ant colony and taking care of the eggs. We can do a lot more than that. But, yes, His Holiness always points out the examples of the ants and the bees as social creatures.
Participant: To me, it seems very closed-minded, even if one is thinking about helping the whole colony of ants. It’s like my ant colony is the universe and that nothing else in the world matters. That’s OK because one is doing something for others, but it’s really very limited.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s limited in terms of how much and what kind of benefit it can bring. Working just for the benefit of our family, clan, or street gang is similarly limited.
Participant: But in those cases, you’re working mostly for the benefit of humans.
Dr. Berzin: But thinking that animals were created just for us to use and exploit is also limited. That is why we are aiming for Mahayana, which requires that we first have equanimity. That’s why equanimity is given as the first step for any of the bodhichitta meditations – actually, for any of the meditations on love, compassion, etc. that we do in the Buddhist training. Equanimity needs to be extended to everybody – without discrimination. That’s the Mahayana one: equanimity without discrimination.
Hinayana Equanimity and Mahayana Equanimity
The one that is common to both Hinayana and Mahayana (btang-snyoms tsam, mere equanimity) is an equanimity that is extended to everybody by getting rid of attraction, repulsion, and indifference – so, overcoming being driven by these disturbing emotions. That’s why it’s common to all forms of Buddhism. In all the Buddhist traditions, we want to get rid of the disturbing emotions. With Mahayana equanimity (btang-snyoms, equanimity), we want to overcome feelings of some being close to us and some being distant from us. Those feelings don’t arise on the basis of disturbing emotions; instead, they arise on the basis of thinking, “I can only help this many and not the rest. These are the ones that are close to me, so I’ll help them; I won’t help the ones that I don’t know.” It’s not that we’re indifferent to them or that we want to ignore them; it’s just that we don’t feel so related to them.
Participant: So, it’s in relation to persons then?
Dr. Berzin: It’s not just in relation to persons. It’s also in relation to other beings: “I can relate to dogs and cats, but I can’t relate to cockroaches and beetles.”
Mahayana equanimity is based on realizing that everybody is equal in the sense that everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy. Nobody is close or far in that regard. The equanimity that’s shared in common with Hinayana and Mahayana is based on overcoming the disturbing emotions, feeling that some are repulsive, some are attractive, and some are worthless – that “they’re a nothing, so I can ignore them.” Mahayana equanimity is focused on everybody being equal in the sense of “everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy; therefore, everybody deserves to be happy, and, therefore, all are equally proper objects for my love, my compassion, and my help.” Hinayana equanimity is based on “sometimes you’ve been my friend, sometimes you’ve been my enemy, sometimes you’ve been a stranger; therefore, there’s no reason to feel attraction to one, repulsion toward another, and indifference toward yet another.” So, the approach to equanimity is slightly different in these two forms of Buddhism.
Participant: We have thought through all these points and come to understand that everybody is suffering and everybody wants to be happy. Then, in this context, we can also understand that, even if this person is my enemy, he doesn’t want suffering.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If we’re thinking in terms of Mahayana equanimity, which is that everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy, we then extend that state of mind to include our enemies as well. So, the approach is based on seeing everybody as being equal in wanting to be happy. That helps us to overcome feelings of partiality with which we would exclude our enemies from the sphere of those whom we’ll help. The Hinayana form of equanimity is based on “why should I feel repelled by my enemies? In a different lifetime, they could have been my friends.” So, Hinayana equanimity is aimed at overcoming anger and rejection; Mahayana equanimity is aimed at overcoming feelings of partiality, which would cause us not to include certain ones within the scope of everybody being equal. So, they’re slightly different.
But let’s get back to our animal discussion. The point there – to come back to your question – is that what we want to be able to do with the precious human rebirth is more than what we would be able to do with an animal rebirth. We also don’t want just to build up the causes for an animal rebirth, which would be to act primarily on our animal instincts. I would consider the instinct to preserve the species, one’s family, one’s colony, one’s gang, and so on, as basically an animal instinct. That’s not something that specifically characterizes us as human beings. So, although that is a more positive animal instinct than the instinct to growl at and to attack anything we don’t like or to jump on anyone we’re sexually attracted to, still, it’s an animal instinct.
What characterizes the human rebirth is discriminating awareness (shes-rab). We can discriminate between what’s helpful and what’s harmful. We don’t have to act on our animal instincts; we have choices. Now, of course, an animal can be trained to balance a bone on its nose, and it can be trained not to eat it, in other words, control the instinct to eat it. But how are animals trained to do that? Are they using the type of discriminating awareness we’re talking about here, namely, understanding what’s helpful and what’s harmful?
Is the Negative Karma of Killing as Heavy for Animals as It Is for Humans?
Participant: Animals are driven by instincts, whereas humans are driven by more than just animal instincts. We act on the basis of ego, discriminating awareness, choice, etc. So, when an animal kills another animal and a human being kills another human being, is the negative karma that’s created equally negative?
Dr. Berzin: Well, killing is killing, so the action is the same – taking the life of another. The difference would have to be analyzed in terms of the motivation – what both the motivating aim and the motivating emotion are. If the aim is to be able to feed oneself or one’s young – for example, a lion killing an antelope in order to feed its babies or even just to eat it itself – that’s one thing. Certainly, the lion would have to feel hostility toward the antelope in order to kill it, but I don’t think it’s as strong as the anger that is felt by somebody who commits murder or who kills somebody in a war. That’s slightly different.
What about humans who hunted animals in, let’s say, the Stone Age, before there was agriculture? In that case, they hunted in order to eat. It’s not the same as hunting another human being to eat, is it?
Participant: Some people hunted other people to eat them.
Dr. Berzin: There were some tribes that hunted other humans, but I don’t think that was based so much on hunger. I think that was based more on the idea that by killing your enemies and eating them – eating their hearts, for example – you gained their courage, or something like that. It wasn’t based on not being able to get enough food.
Participant: But wars have been fought over resources. That’s not so different from what animals do.
Participant: I think there’s a difference because humans have the ability to choose.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Animals basically don’t have the ability to choose. I think that’s part of it. Also, humans kill for fun. Well, some animals do also. A cat will catch a mouse just to torture and kill it, not necessarily to eat it. Cats do torture smaller creatures. So, there is an instinctive thing there.
One really needs to examine all these things. In any case, the conclusion is that we really wouldn’t want to be reborn as an animal. This is the whole point, isn’t it?
Participant: If a human kills an ant, will the karmic consequences be less heavy than if he kills another human?
Dr. Berzin: Yes. The karmic consequences of killing an ant or an animal are less severe than the karmic consequences of killing a human being. Also, killing a criminal is less heavy than killing Mahatma Gandhi, for example. That has to do with the number of positive things a being has done. Given the fact that a being is a beginningless mental continuum, it has experienced every rebirth form. However, when a being is reborn in a particular lifetime as, say, an ant, it cannot do as much so-called good as a human being can. That doesn’t justify killing the ant any more than the smaller amount of positive actions committed by a criminal justifies killing a criminal. We’re just talking about the heaviness of the karmic consequences, the variables here being how many positive things a being is doing in general and how many positive things a being has done for you. So, killing your parents or your teacher is much heavier than killing a stranger. There are many variables that affect the heaviness of karmic consequences.
Being Hot, Cold, Hungry, and Thirsty
Getting back to the sufferings of animals, there’s also suffering from heat and cold. When it comes to heat, we can imagine being an animal with a thick, shaggy coat of hair – let’s say, a polar bear – that’s in a cage in the sun all day long; or a dog with heavy fur that’s tied to a tree and left out in the sun; or an earthworm that’s drying up on the concrete after a rain, getting baked by the sun.
When it comes to cold, we can imagine being, say, a cow: unless somebody puts us in the barn, we just have to stand in the snow or freezing rain. We have no ability to put on a warm coat or to build a fire.
In terms of hunger and thirst, only some animals are fed well and live comfortably in a kind person’s house. Most creatures have to spend all their waking hours hunting for food. Even if we’re somebody’s pet, if we’ve been left locked in the house without having been fed or given anything to drink, what can we do except sit there and cry? That’s a very heavy image, isn’t it? There’s nothing we can do except sit there and cry and hope that the people will come home soon.
Being Exploited and Locked Up
We can also be exploited, exploited for our labor, our speed, our strength – for example, for pulling a cart. We can be exploited for our entertaining habits and looks. We can be exploited for our flesh, exploited for our eggs or exploited for our pelts. Imagine being a chicken locked up in one of those chicken prisons, unable able to move, and being force-fed and forced to lay eggs. In the end, we’re just slaughtered to make dog food. Imagine what kind of life that’s like. We can also imagine having to spend our entire lives confined in a cage like prisoners for the amusement of someone who has us as pets and not ever being able to be with others of our kind. That’s quite awful, isn’t it?
None of these are fun types of rebirth, and we would certainly want to avoid them.
As is said, the cause for this type of rebirth is being driven by our animal drives, blindly overindulging in sexual misconduct, like just jumping on anyone, and exercising no self-control. Basically, it’s having no self-control when it comes to our animal instincts.
The Final Meditation on the Animal Realm
Perhaps we can do just one last meditation on this. Then we can be finished with the worst states of rebirth and go on. The meditation is one that we find in some of the texts. Imagine the quality of our lives if we were sheep (sheep are usually used as examples in the Tibetan texts, though we could also imagine being chickens) that have been raised basically for food. We then see ourselves being led to slaughter, looking up at the slaughterer who has the knife in his hand and having our throats slit. Our whole lives were spent being fed so that somebody could cut our throats and put us into a meat grinder to be made into dog food – half of which will be thrown away if the dog doesn’t want to eat it. Imagine having given the whole of our lives to become dog food or a hamburger that is just thrown away because it was given to a child that didn’t like it. That’s a lovely thought, isn’t it?
Participant: I think it’s even heavier that all this is done by humans.
Dr. Berzin: That’s a completely separate meditation for a different point. The point here is that we don’t want to build up the causes to be that sheep or cow that that hamburger is made out of. You see, that’s an example of mental wandering – that when doing a meditation intended for getting one type of insight, we get other types of insights instead. There’s no doubt that it’s beneficial to consider the humans who do it, etc., but we want to stay focused on the point here, which is to think how horrible it would be to be that sheep or cow and to avoid the causes. So, let’s try to stay focused on that.
[meditation]
Also, we might shift our focus here to the causes and look, as you were saying, at those who raise and kill animals just to make them into dog food or who just in general exploit others, using them as they would animals. That, in a sense, builds up the causes to be exploited and used themselves. So that’s a further focus, a second step.
Participant: Treating animals very poorly and teasing them could also be a reason to be reborn as an animal.
Dr. Berzin: Certainly. They say that even calling others the name of an animal can be a cause for being reborn as that kind of animal. That’s one of the classic examples that’s given.
Let’s think about whether or not we exploit and use others for whatever – for our work, our entertainment, our amusement. Do we use them as we would animals?
It’s particularly interesting to think of this in terms of relationships. Do we treat our partners like pets, keeping them for our amusement, basically? We can “pet the dog” when we feel insecure and lonely, but the rest of the time, we just sort of leave them out – like locking the dog in the house. When we come home, we want them to play with us so we will be amused, and when we are tired of them, we lock them out – figuratively, of course: we shut them out emotionally.