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.
Suffering of Humans (Continued)
We are now speaking about the sufferings of human beings. This is interesting because, on the one hand, we want to achieve precious human rebirths, but on the other hand, we also want to become free of having human rebirths, to be free of the shortcomings of a human rebirth. As liberated beings – and we looked at what that might mean – either we would stay in some pure realm or, if we wanted to continue toward enlightenment, we would take rebirth as any type of form that would be beneficial to others. Particularly, though, we would want precious human rebirths so that we could help others along the way and also have the best opportunities to continue on the path toward becoming Buddhas.
We examined last time what it means to be a human, and we had to differentiate the difficult or troublesome aspects of being a human. But we are not just limited as human beings in terms of having to be a baby again, having to learn everything all over again, getting sick, getting old, meeting with things that we don’t like and all of these sorts of things. We also have good qualities that we are able to use to benefit others. The human rebirth is the most conducive basis for developing these qualities.
The special feature that we have that is always emphasized is our intelligence. With that intelligence, we are able to discriminate between what is helpful and what is harmful. We are able to exercise ethical self-control and to work on ourselves on the basis of this intelligence. We have just the right amount of suffering – not too much or too little – so that we actually are motivated to do something. As liberated beings, of course we wouldn’t have any suffering, but we would have this intelligence, and we would have the good qualities of compassion and so on.
So, we need to understand the dynamic that is involved with dealing with the sufferings of a human rebirth. On one hand, we want to continue having precious human rebirths to use as a stepping-stone, but we don’t want to be attached to the precious human rebirth. We don’t want to see it as the ultimate goal. We want to go beyond that to become liberated beings that can take advantage of a human type of rebirth without actually being subject to its limitations. We discussed that last time.
As for the particular sufferings of humans, we have gone through birth, old age, sickness, death, being parted from what we like, and meeting with what we do not like.
Suffering of Not Obtaining the Things We Wish For
Today, we are up to not obtaining the things that we wish for, even though we try to find them. This is dealing with frustration. Here, it is not just not obtaining what we like. A stronger word is used in Tibetan: what we wish for. We are not talking about wishing for liberation and enlightenment, things that require a tremendous amount of work to obtain and, therefore, a tremendous amount of patience. This is talking about things that we can never actually obtain.
What do we wish for? As I said, we are not talking about these ultimate goals that we need to wish for, even though they’ll require a tremendous amount of work to obtain.
Participant: Worldly dharmas.
Dr. Berzin: Well, worldly things. The worldly dharmas are the eight worldly feelings – feeling overjoyed when things go well, feeling depressed when things don’t go well, feeling overjoyed when we are praised, feeling depressed when we are abused or criticized, etc.
But this word “worldly” is interesting. My teacher Serkong Rinpoche always pointed out that one could milk (as in milking a cow) a lot of meaning out of the way the Tibetans translated the Sanskrit terms. The word for “worldly” in Tibetan is jigten ('jig-rten). Jig ('jig) means “to perish,” “to fall apart,” and ten (rten) means a “basis.” Worldly things, then, are things that have perishable bases, things that cannot possibly give one security. So, they are going to fall apart – like wealth, status, fame, friendships, our lives. All these things will fall apart. They won’t last.
Let’s take a moment to review what things we actually wish for, or want, in life. And let’s be honest, not just idealistic. Actually, it can be quite difficult to know. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations in which we don’t know what we want – but we want. That’s even more interesting. But let’s analyze first those things that we know that we want.
[meditation]
OK. What do any of you want?
Participant: Happiness.
Dr. Berzin: What else?
Participant: Good health.
Dr. Berzin: Do these things have perishable bases? Yes! Health always falls apart. And happiness – if we are talking about our usual worldly happiness – falls apart; it never lasts.
What else do we want?
Participant: A good job.
Dr. Berzin: Well, we lose good jobs as well, don’t we? They’re never stable. And even though we might think that a job is good, like any job, it will have its problems.
Participant: To find the meaning of life.
Dr. Berzin: To find the meaning of life. Ah! A philosophical question. Yes, that’s a deeper thing. What happens if you find the meaning of life? Then what? Will it make you happy?
Participant: It’s a kind of happiness.
Dr. Berzin: What do we mean by the meaning of life?
Participant: That’s my question.
Dr. Berzin: That’s a very good question. What is the meaning of life? Some great teachers say the meaning of life, the purpose or aim of it, is to find happiness. It’s true even for animals. It’s not just humans that want to find happiness. It’s a general axiom in Buddhism that everybody wants to be happy; nobody wants to be unhappy. So, if the meaning or aim of life is to be happy, then the question is, can we gain that happiness? If we can, what methods would we use? That brings in the Dharma because our usual methods don’t bring lasting happiness at all.
What else? On a worldly level, a lot of us would like to have love, to be appreciated, to have attention, to be paid attention to – all these sorts of things. What’s behind it?
Participant: Wanting to be happy.
Dr. Berzin: Wanting to be happy. Who wants to be happy? Me, the big solid “me.” I want to be loved. I want to be appreciated. Pay attention to me, me, me. Here I am. I want the good job. I want to know the meaning of life. “I want to know!” – me, the big “me.”
Why Do We Want What We Want?
This is quite interesting. When we talk about what I want, we’re actually talking about what ripens from karmic tendencies. It could be that I want to yell at you, to hug you, or whatever. But whatever it is that we want is based on the habits and the tendencies that we have built up. Why do we want what we want? “I never had somebody who really loved me as a child, and now, as an adult, I want somebody to love me” – or whatever.
Think about it: Why do we want what we want?
[meditation]
And is the big, solid “me” behind it?
[meditation]
What do you think?
Participant: What you like arises not only from karma but from a huge number of causes and conditions, such as your sexual orientation, your likes and dislikes, things that you feel have made you happy in the past and so on.
Dr. Berzin: But all of that comes from karmic tendencies.
Participant: So, it’s not just the big, solid “me.”
Dr. Berzin: Well, there are many, many different factors within karma, but the point is that “karma,” as a general umbrella, can account for all of them. It’s for various karmic reasons that we meet the people that we meet that will act as an influence on us. It’s for karmic reasons that we are born this gender or that gender, that we have this sexual orientation or that orientation, that we are born in this country or that country, that we are rich or poor – whatever.
Participant: That also brings up the matter of context. We want what we want because we live within a context, like a specific society.
Dr. Berzin: So, there is the influence of society. We live in a context, so what we want can be conditioned by advertising, for example, by what other people have and so on. It can be conditioned by the climate. We live in a cold climate, so we want a warm house. We live in a hot climate, so we want a cool house. There are many, many factors. But, again, whatever places and times we live in is due to the ripening of the aftermath of karma.
But what I want to get to is what I think is the most significant point here, which is that behind “I want” is the strong, solid “me”: I want this. To sum it up, what we could say is that what that “me” wants is security. And what we think will make that “me” secure is having love, attention, a good job, friends, knowing the meaning of life – “I know what my purpose is”. Whatever it is that we want, it’s to make that false “me” – the “me” that we imagine as solidly existing – secure. Can it ever be made secure? No. Therefore, we have the suffering of not obtaining the things we wish for, even though we try to find them. We bang our heads against the wall trying to make that “me” that can’t be made secure, secure. It can’t be made secure because it doesn’t even exist. Conventionally, we exist, but not as this big, solid “me” that exists in isolation from everything else and that has to have its own way and get what it wants, regardless of everything else. That “me” doesn’t exist. It’s an exaggeration.
Nonetheless, we are always trying, wanting to get something that we hope will make that “me” secure. What we wish for, thinking that it will make “me” secure, comes from past karmic habits. At least that’s my understanding.
You have a comment?
Participant: Yes. I wish to develop more love. I think this is obtainable, unless I say, “OK, there is no need.”
Dr. Berzin: Right. But I already said at the beginning that we are not talking about Dharma goals, which can be obtained, like wishing for liberation, wishing for enlightenment, wishing to be more loving, more patient. These are goals that, of course, we could want on the basis of me, me, me: I want to be like this. We inevitably will because we are still samsaric beings. But we can at least have some understanding that this is not the basis that we want it to be on and can try to have it more on a realistic basis.
We could get frustrated because it takes so long to become more loving. That’s a different type of frustration than the one that comes from wanting to find “my true love,” etc. That type of goal is always going to bring frustration because it is impossible to fulfill – which, of course, brings up the question of patience, doesn’t it? We want to have the patience to do the hard work that is involved in achieving positive spiritual goals. But to have patience with trying to find the prince or princess on the white horse, the perfect job, the perfect partner, the perfect situation – which are possible to find – is idiot patience, isn’t it? “Well, just be patient and keep on trying and trying.”
Anyway, think about what I’ve said.
Participant: The security that you’re talking about implies permanence – that we don’t want to recognize that things are going to change.
Dr. Berzin: We want something permanent. Well, the type of happiness that results from being parted forever from the disturbing emotions and karma – that lasts forever. It changes from moment to moment, but it lasts forever. However, we want a different type of happiness, one that we think will last forever but that can’t last forever. This becomes a little bit tricky, doesn’t it? Why should one type of happiness be permanent and the other not? Why should one be secure and the other not?
However, security stops being an issue. This, I think, is very important: If we realize the voidness of the impossible self – that it doesn’t refer to anything real – we realize that trying to find security for this impossible self is futile. Then we stop trying to find security for such a “me.” Does that mean that we then want to find security for the conventional “me”? I don’t think so. I think security is no longer an issue. Think about that.
That’s a lot to think about. Let’s take some moments to chew this over.
[meditation]
It sounds almost like a Taoist or a Zen thing: Once we stop looking for security, that’s when we’re secure. What do you think?
Participant: I think that once you don’t expect anything to be permanent and can accept that everything is impermanent, you can be very calm and cool about it.
Dr. Berzin: That is the solution in my favorite koan: “Death can come at anything time, so relax.” Why would we ever feel frustrated about anything?
Participant: Frustration comes from being obsessed about things turning out your way.
Dr. Berzin: Frustration comes from thinking that things should turn out the way that I want them to – this big, solid “me.” If we’ve understood the voidness of the impossible “me,” would we ever be frustrated about the hard work that is required to achieve liberation or enlightenment? No! We wouldn’t be frustrated. This suffering is talking about the suffering of being frustrated: “I want this, but I can’t get it! Ahh!” So, then we throw a temper tantrum.
Participant: “It’s such hard work.”
Dr. Berzin: “It’s such hard work. I don’t want to do it.”
Think about it.
[meditation]
I don’t mean to belittle the usual, everyday goals that we wish for. Let’s say we are out of work, we’ve lost our home, or something like. So, now we want to find work or a home. That’s perfectly reasonable. Do we feel frustration not having it? Well, that’s something we could work on. That doesn’t mean that we stop trying to find a job or a home. Remember, we are talking about overcoming the suffering that’s involved in these situations.
Participant: Sometimes it’s little things that are frustrating. I don’t find so much that the “me” is behind it. For example, if the computer fails to function like it should, then I can’t do the work that needs to get done. So, it’s frustrating.
Dr. Berzin: Are you saying that behind that frustration is not “I want it to work”? Well, you could say that it has to function for the company or something like that.
Let’s say my website is down. That means that people cannot access it. I think it’s beneficial for people to access it, so I would like for it to be back up and running. Would I feel frustrated that it’s not up?
Participant: I can’t do the work for others. I want to be able to work.
Dr. Berzin: I can’t do the work for others. But I’m talking about the emotion, the painful emotion, of feeling frustrated.
Participant: That is frustration.
Dr. Berzin: I don’t know that it would have to be frustration. “I can’t do this work for others now because the computer is down. My web master, who can fix it, has his cell phone turned off and is not answering email, so there is no way of contacting him.” Does one feel frustrated? I don’t know that one has to feel frustrated. I think that one could accept the reality of the situation and see what to do in the meantime. The Dharma solution for things is basically to accept reality. This is the reality. What do I expect? This is a machine: machines break.
Based on frustration, look at what happens: We yell at the machine. We curse at it. We punch the table out of frustration. I’m a little intelligent, so I don’t punch the computer; instead, I smash my fist on the table. But we don’t need to be frustrated. If we are frustrated, it’s because of the big “me”: I want it to be like this. Sure, we would like the computer to work. What to do? This is where we get the worldly dharmas, these childish things: feeling depressed and upset when things are not working well and feeling overjoyed when they start working well again. We just need to accept the situation and do what we can to change it. And if we can’t do something to change it, why worry? Why get upset? This is Shantideva’s advice. Very, very smart advice. Very wise advice.
So, that’s what we are aiming for. Obviously, we are not liberated beings yet, so of course, we will feel a little bit frustrated. But the point is not to wallow in that frustration and – initial scope training – when the impulse comes up to curse the computer and to smash our fists on the table, we refrain from doing that because we know it’s not going to help. It’s just silly. The computer doesn’t care. It’s not going to work any better if we call it nasty names.
Suffering of Having Tainted, Obtainer Aggregates
The last suffering of humans, which is actually a general type of suffering that Tsongkhapa adds to this list, is that “our tainted, obtainer aggregates” – namely, our mental and physical aggregates – “are of the functional nature of suffering.” “Tainted” is sometimes translated as “contaminated.” “Tainted” and “obtainer” are technical terms and are defined differently in the different Buddhist tenet systems. In general, however, “tainted” means that the type of aggregates that we have – our bodies, minds, emotions, and so on – derive from karmic potentials and the disturbing emotions. The aggregates come from these things, so they are subject to them. “Obtainer” means that they contain the obtainer attitudes, such as regarding the aggregates as “me” or “mine,” that will obtain more tainted aggregates for us in the future. And they are going to produce more suffering: I had the suffering of being a baby, and I will continue (if I live long enough) to have the suffering of being an old man and of dying.
Then we have these aggregates as being of “the functional nature of suffering.” There are many words in Tibetan for the nature of things, and each has a very specific meaning. Here, the word for “nature” means “functional nature” (rang-bzhin) – what it serves as, what its function is, what it does. And what do these tainted aggregates do? They bring suffering. Their functional nature is to bring the suffering of pain and unhappiness and the suffering of our ordinary happiness, the happiness that never lasts. Think about it. This is very interesting.
All-Pervasive Suffering
A simplistic way of saying it is that if I didn’t have a head, I wouldn’t get a headache – which is a sort of obnoxious way of saying it. So, because I have a head, I get headaches. Because the type of body that we have is very frail, if we stick a sharp object into it, it bleeds. If we bang it against something, it hurts and turns black and blue. It’s like a magnet: it just attracts problems.
Participant: So, this is speaking about the all-pervasive suffering, isn’t it?
Dr. Berzin: The all-pervasive suffering is the suffering that we continue to experience the first two types of suffering, the suffering of suffering and the suffering of change.
Participant: On the basis of these aggregates?
Dr. Berzin: Yes. So, this suffering of being a human refers to the all-pervasive suffering that we have to deal with, but the analysis here looks at it a little bit more in detail.
Because of the type of body we have, any food we put into it will satisfy for only a short time. We’re going to have to eat again. Think of the amount of time that we spend in our lives preparing food, eating food, and expelling the waste that comes from the food. What an incredibly inefficient thing. As it says in some of the teachings, this body is a perfect machine for making waste. That’s what we do: we feed this machine, and it produces liquid and solid waste.
Participant: And energy.
Dr. Berzin: And energy is given off the process. But just looking at it from the point of view of wanting to overcome our attachment to our bodies, we see that the body is just a machine for producing waste. And we are slaves to it. We are constantly having to throw things into it in order to produce more waste. It sounds like something Shantideva would say, doesn’t it?
Participant: Even the energy that is ultimately radiated as heat is another form of waste.
Dr. Berzin: The energy, the heat to keep the body going, is also wasted energy. What could it do? Could it be harnessed to produce electric light?
Participant: Hardly.
Dr. Berzin: Hardly. Remember, the point of these things, of this section, is to overcome our attachment to a human rebirth, not to glorify it.
Participant: That’s because there is another way of thinking about the human body, which is to think in terms of what can be accomplished on the basis of one.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Obviously, we need this body – also, on a tantra level. Without the energy system of the body, we would not be able to access the subtlest level of mind to get the most efficient understanding of voidness. So, we are talking about attachment – glorifying the body, thinking it’s an ultimately wonderful thing.
If you think about it, we are, as Shantideva says, slaves to our bodies. We have to take care of the body. We have to cloth it. We have to feed it. We have to put it to sleep. We have to protect it. And it gets old. It fails us. So, we can’t rely on it. We can’t even rely on our minds. As we get older, we forget things. We become less mindful.
Participant: Even when you’re younger, you can’t rely on your mind because of the negative emotions.
Dr. Berzin: Or because of attention deficiency, we can’t concentrate.
Participant: What about hormones?
Dr. Berzin: Hormones? Right, look at all of that – the menstrual cycle, puberty, menopause. There are all these wonderful things that come together with a human rebirth. Not very efficient, is it?
Participant: I am wondering if liberated beings who take rebirth in the human realm have to go through all of that as well.
Dr. Berzin: Would a liberated being, whether an arhat or a Buddha, who appears in a human realm have to go through all of this? We discussed this before. They would experience these things because those are the limitations of a human body. But they wouldn’t suffer. They wouldn’t feel unhappiness.
Participant: But they would have to go through being a baby.
Dr. Berzin: They have to go through being a baby and so on. Now, do we take literally these accounts that say that when Buddha was born, he took seven steps and said, “Here I am”? I don’t know. Obviously, some people would take that quite literally. Others would question that. But Buddhas can manifest in an infinite number of forms simultaneously. So, while a Buddha is a baby in one form, they could be an adult in another form. So, we shouldn’t think of it as being so linear – that they can only appear in one form or one gender at a time.
Different Types of Arhats
Can liberated beings also appear in more than one form? I think it depends on whether they’ve gained liberation on the Mahayana path – in which case, they would have developed through the bhumi levels of mind. On each of these bhumi levels – according to Prasangika, one attains liberation at the end of the seventh level – one is able to manifest one’s body in exponentially greater numbers of forms. So, such an arhat would be able to manifest in many forms simultaneously. Then the question is, would someone who has followed a Hinayana path, a Theravada path or whatever, and attained a so-called “tenet liberation” but who has not progressed through these stages be able to multiply their bodies?
Participant: Why should they?
Dr. Berzin: That’s a good question. Why should they? That’s true. Could they in theory do so? I have no idea. I doubt that that’s discussed.
Anyway, my thinking is that they would probably have to go through being a baby and so on. And in any case, arhats who come back to continue on the Mahayana path would still have the limitations of the human body – but without the suffering. I think. This is just my guess.
Participant: If the seventh bhumi of the Mahayana path is equivalent to becoming an arhat of the Hinayana path – full liberation – then why should they take rebirth in a human form at all? That would not be their goal, unless, of course, they change their minds and follow the Mahayana path.
Dr. Berzin: This needs some clarification. If a practitioner follows a Mahayana path from the start and, having unlabored bodhichitta, progresses through the bhumi levels of mind, they rid themselves of the emotional obscurations at the conclusion of the seventh bhumi and thus attain arhatship. If a practitioner without bodhichitta but with a Prasangika understanding of voidness attains arhatship (which means they have already become an arya) and then develops bodhichitta and that bodhichitta becomes unlabored, they start the Mahayana path with a seeing pathway mind and progress through the bhumis starting with the first bhumi. If a practitioner with neither bodhichitta nor a Prasangika understanding of voidness attains a so-called “tenet liberation” and becomes a tenet arhat and then develops bodhichitta, they would, when that bodhichitta becomes unlabored, attain the first pathway mind, a building-up pathway mind. Even though they would already have attained a joined state of shamatha and vipashyana, they would need to gain non-conceptual cognition of the Prasangika understanding of voidness to become an arya.
I don’t know if a tenet arhat can go to a pure land, but a Prasangika arhat who has not developed bodhichitta can continue in a pure land. And as we’ve discussed before, the only reason we would ever want to continue further on the spiritual path would be to become an enlightened being. We could do that either in a pure land or in a human realm. So, because we want to benefit others as much as possible now, we could come back and manifest with a precious human body. But that’s the interesting thing: it wouldn’t be a human body that is tainted. It would not derive from karmic potential and disturbing emotions. It wouldn’t be an obtainer one: it wouldn’t have any obtainer attitudes and so would not bring more samsaric rebirth.
Participant: It derived from compassion?
Dr. Berzin: It derived from compassion and will bring about further precious human rebirths, also based on compassion, until the attainment of enlightenment. Would that body have any limitations? It would have the physical limitations of the human body, so it would grow old and pass away. And it would have the physical limitations of the human brain – as a baby, the brain isn’t fully developed yet; as a person with Alzheimer’s, it’s not functioning properly anymore. Would they be subject to sickness? I don’t think they’d be subject to sickness.
Anyway, this is highly theoretical. Let’s try to stay more practical in terms of our understanding of this type of suffering, which basically has to do with the limitations of a human body and mind, the limitations of any type of samsaric body and mind. The body and mind form the basis for the problems. It is the all-pervasive suffering. On the basis of this type of body, we will continue to have unhappiness and pain and the type of happiness that doesn’t last.
So, your question is a natural question that follows: On this basis, what would it be like if we didn’t have those limitations? As I say, I think that we would still have the limitations of the physical elements. And as we’ve discussed, we would have the positive qualities of the human rebirth. Even as tenet arhats with a Theravada understanding of the selflessness of persons, we would have highly developed love, compassion, patience and all the rest of the ten far-reaching attitudes. The list of ten is a slightly different list, but there are ten far-reaching attitudes, or perfections, in Theravada as well.
Participant: If the arhats didn’t become sick, wouldn’t medical science have described that?
Dr. Berzin: Possibly. This gets into the question of whether there have ever been arhats and, if so, whether they have ever been examined by doctors.
But let’s try to stay focused on the point here, which is to overcome our attachment to the human body, to the human rebirth. We want it as a vehicle. It’s a vehicle for attaining liberation. And even if we become liberated, we can continue to use it as a vehicle for attaining enlightenment. However, we don’t glorify it. It’s not the most wonderful thing in the world. It has its limitations, so don’t make a big deal out of it. And don’t make a big deal out of other people’s bodies either: “Oh, I want to touch it. I want to have sex with it,” etc. We need to have a much more realistic view of the bodies of others and their minds. Anybody that we encounter is going to have disturbing emotions. They’re going to get angry, they’re going to get attached, they’re going to become jealous. So, know what we’re dealing with. Don’t glorify.
Let’s think about that.
And don’t expect the impossible from it.
[meditation]
And just as we don’t want to go to the extreme of having attachment to the body and glorifying it, we don’t want to go to the other extreme of being repulsed by it.
Participant: Asceticism.
Dr. Berzin: The extreme is not asceticism, but rather mortification of the body. It is what it is.
Participant: How do we know that we will definitely be happier when we get rid of feeling all emotions? How do we know that feeling nothing at all – not feeling any negative or any positive emotions – is definitely better? Now we at least have a kind of response to things.
Dr. Berzin: This is very good. Is it that we are we aiming to have no emotions at all – no positive emotions, no negative emotions – and is that better than having some positive or negative emotions? Again, we are talking about getting rid of disturbing emotions. We are not talking about getting rid of positive ones. Positive ones are there. They are very helpful for achieving spiritual goals and for helping others – positive emotions being love, compassion, patience, generosity, perseverance and all these things.
What are the disturbing ones? The disturbing emotions are greed, attachment, clinging, longing desire, anger, hatred, repulsion, jealousy, arrogance, and getting all depressed about things, getting overly excited so that we lose all control over what we do and even produce very uncomfortable situations for others.
Participant: So, would it mean that as long as the human body can generate positive emotions, the body serves as the basis of these emotions?
Dr. Berzin: Right. This is exactly the point. As long as a precious human body and mind are the best vehicle available to us for generating positive emotions, we want to take advantage of it – definitely. But we want to see the human rebirth as a stepping-stone for attaining liberation and enlightenment. As enlightened beings, we could manifest in human form. We could manifest in any form to benefit others.
Participant: Sorry, this leads to my other question. If in this life, we are focusing on attaining another precious human body in the next life, does that mean that we have no chance to get enlightened within one lifetime?
Dr. Berzin: What it means is that it’s really, really difficult to achieve liberation or enlightenment in this lifetime – although it’s possible. So, as an insurance policy, you might say, we want to make sure that we will at least be able to continue toward that goal in future lives. Realistically, it’s going to take a long time to attain liberation and enlightenment. It’s hard work. Overcoming anger, overcoming selfishness – these are not easy. But it is possible. And there will be one lifetime in which we do get rid of these things forever – if we work hard enough. It’s not inevitable, though. If we don’t put in the work, it will never happen. Buddhism doesn’t say that everybody will inevitably attain liberation and enlightenment. It says everybody is capable of it.
Participant: And at least you can make some progress.
Dr. Berzin: At least we can make some progress, even if we are not arhats. And the more progress we make, the happier we will be, actually, because we’ll produce fewer problems for ourselves. And even if terrible things happen, like getting cancer or something like that, mentally, at least, we won’t suffer as much.
So, we have provisional goals, and we have ultimate goals.
Participant: I think the Tibetans use this image: When you want to cross a stream, you use a boat, but you don’t carry it on your back when you have reached the other side.
Dr. Berzin: Right, unless you want to go over another stream. But, yes, we use a boat to cross a stream. But once we have gotten to the other shore, we leave the boat behind. We don’t continue to carry it with us. That is an image that’s used.
The precious human rebirth is called that: the boat to cross the stream of samsara. That image is used in poetry, stories, and so on. It’s the boat. It has both negative aspects and positive aspects. We want to use the positive ones to get rid of the negative ones. We want to use the body but without glorifying it – as I say, “the body beautiful” – and over-estimating what it’s capable of offering us. If we are always aiming for something impossible, based on having this idea of an impossibly existing, solid “me,” we’re always going to be frustrated.