Lam-rim 61: Suffering of Not Obtaining What We Wish for & of the Aggregates

Review

We are going through the stages for developing ourselves spiritually in order to reach the goals as specified in the Buddhist teachings. These goals are, on the initial level, to make sure that we continue to have precious human rebirths in order to be able to continue on our spiritual path and, on the intermediate level, to work for liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth altogether and, then, on the advanced level, to achieve the enlightened state of a Buddha.

We have seen that we can go through this sequence in two ways. One way is not having any idea what comes next in the sequence and developing ourselves step by step, expanding our scope of motivation as we progress. But once we have a general idea of what we ultimately want to aim for, which is the enlightened state of a Buddha, we go back through the earlier stages, seeing how they are stepping-stones for achieving that final goal. We have been emphasizing this second way since most people have at least read about these graded stages and have a general idea of the range of motivations that we want to develop. 

If we want to be able to benefit everyone – so, to reach the enlightened state of a Buddha – we obviously need to continue having precious human rebirths. As animals or even worse, we certainly wouldn’t be able to help ourselves, let alone anyone else. Even with precious human rebirths, we are severely limited by both the body and mind of such a rebirth. We still have disturbing emotions, and we still are subject to the winds of karma that blow us here and there and that bring about all sorts of problems and difficulties. We need to overcome that if we really want to be able to help others. We need to become liberated.

So, we need to develop our motivation beyond that initial one, to overcome our concern just for ourselves and to realize that in order to be able to help others, we especially need to know behavioral cause and effect – namely, what the effect of what we teach others would be, what the background of everybody is, why they are in their present situations, etc. What we need to overcome are not just the emotional obscurations that prevent our liberation but also the cognitive ones that prevent our being able to see the interconnectedness of everything. In other words, we need to gain omniscience so that we really know how best to help others. 

Initial Scope

We started the initial scope speaking about the precious human rebirths that we have. A precious human rebirth is not just any human rebirth; it’s something much rarer. We are not only free from the worst states in which would be prevented from developing spiritually, we are also free of negative views and attitudes such as being close-minded and hostile to the Dharma. Instead, we are open to it, which is quite rare, actually. Also, our lives are enriched with factors that make it possible to follow the Buddhist spiritual path. Teachings are available, there are teachers, there are people who support the teachings, and so on. So, this is quite extraordinary. 

We saw that the primary cause for such a rebirth is ethical self-discipline – specifically, refraining from destructive behavior – supplemented by the far-reaching attitudes of generosity, patience, enthusiastic or joyful perseverance, mental stability (in other words, concentration), and discriminating awareness. These are very, very important to practice together, using ethical self-discipline as the foundation, and then to supplement these practices with very sincere prayers to always have precious human rebirths and to meet with the teachings and the fully qualified spiritual teachers. 

The precious human rebirth is very rare and difficult to attain. It will definitely be lost at some point in terms of death and impermanence. Death will come for sure to absolutely everybody. It’s never certain when it will happen: we could drop dead at any moment, be hit by a truck, or whatever. The only thing that is going to be of any help at the time of death are the strong habits of preventive measures that we have taken to avoid worse rebirths – in other words, the habits that we’ve built up with the Dharma. 

“Dharma” literally means, “preventive measures.” It’s what prevents us from falling. It’s quite interesting. We have someone from China visiting us today. The Chinese word for Dharma is fa, which means “law.” I think we can understand “law,” in a sense, not so much as a strict set of rules but as something that prevents us from experiencing disaster, from making a lot of troubles for ourselves and for society. It’s quite interesting to see how these very central terms in Buddhism are translated into different languages. In any case, “Dharma” derives from the Sanskrit root, dhr, which means “to hold back.” So, it holds us back; it prevents us from downfalls.

Then we saw what could follow after we pass away if we haven’t taken these preventive measures. What could follow is one of the worst states of rebirth. So, we looked at the trapped beings in the joyless realms, the so-called hell beings. Then we looked at the clutching ghosts. It’s interesting, the term for these beings was translated into Chinese as egui (餓鬼, 饿鬼), which means “hungry ghosts.” It has to do with the ancestor spirits – that if they were not given various offerings, they would go hungry, which would be very terrible. This is, perhaps, one classification of ghosts, but in the Indian Buddhist context, there are many, many different types of ghosts and spirits. What they have in common is that they are clutching. Their minds are very tight, their throats are tight, their stomachs are huge, they can never get any satisfaction, never find enough food or water or anything like that. 

Then we looked at the creeping creatures, the animals. That would be quite awful as well – being hunted, being eaten alive by other animals, being exploited by humans, and so on. So, we think about these sufferings and how awful it would be to experience them. Whether we take literally where the hells are located is irrelevant. We think in terms of how a mind, specifically our minds, could experience that type of suffering and how awful that would be.

We develop a healthy sense of fear of that. It is not a neurotic sense of fear, feeling that we are helpless and that the situation is hopeless. Instead, it’s fear in the sense that “I really don’t want this, but I see that there is a way out.” That gives us more confidence actually, and a bit more of a push or drive to avoid such rebirths and the suffering that we would experience there. This way out is to see the direction, the safe direction, that is offered by the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha. 

We saw that although we can understand Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha on a relative level in terms of the teachings, on the deepest level, what the Buddhas and the Arya Sangha refer to is what the Buddhas and Arya Sangha have attained. The actual, deepest Dharma Gem is that state in which all the disturbing emotions, karma, ignorance, etc. have been completely removed, stopped forever. It’s called the true stopping, or true cessation. The states of mind, the understandings, that act as pathways for bringing that stopping about and that result from it are known as the true paths. These have to occur on the mental continuum of someone. They occur in full on the mental continuum, the mind-stream of a Buddha. Buddhas have them in full. The Arya Sangha are those who have them in part. This is the direction that we want to go in, in order to avoid that suffering. 

We saw that the first thing we need to do in order to avoid the suffering of the lower realms is to refrain from destructive behavior. That involved the whole big discussion of karma. We went through that quite extensively. We saw that karma (las) refers to the impulses that compel us to act, speak, or think in certain ways based on previous habits and tendencies that we have built up – tendencies, for example, to get into situations in which things happen that are similar to what we have done to others and, in general, to experience unhappiness or our fleeting type of happiness, which never satisfies, never lasts, and is unstable.

Intermediate Scope

Then we went on to the intermediate level – so, having this strong determination to put this safe direction in our lives and to avoid destructive behavior. That’s certainly what we need to do, not just to have precious human rebirths but to benefit others. When it comes to working to benefit others, we definitely need to exercise self-control not to act on the feeling to think, speak, or act destructively. So, if the feeling comes up to yell at others or to do something even nastier to them, we don’t act on it. 

Now, on the intermediate level, we are thinking about the shortcomings of the better states of rebirth that we might attain. We first looked at this in terms of the shortcomings of any type of samsaric rebirth, namely, the six general shortcomings or sufferings of samsara: 

  • Having no certainty of what situation we will be born in 
  • Having no satisfaction – we’re never satisfied, never have enough 
  • Having to forsake our bodies repeatedly 
  • Having to fit into new rebirths repeatedly 
  • Having to change our status repeatedly from high to low 
  • Having no friends that can actually go with us or share in what we experience – we each have our own, individual karmas; the winds of karma blow everybody in separate directions. 
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