Review
We are going through the graded stages of the path by which we develop ourselves progressively to achieve more and more advanced levels of spiritual motivations, aiming, first, to attain better rebirths, then, to attain liberation from all rebirths, and, finally, to attain the fully enlightened state of a Buddha.
Initial Scope
We started with the precious human rebirth, recognizing it, seeing what its causes and benefits are, how rare it is, and how easily it can be lost. It will definitely be lost when we die, and there is no guarantee what will follow. Everything depends on the karmic potentials that we have built up. If we look at the ways in which we have been acting, speaking, and thinking throughout our lives, we certainly will find that we have been under the influence of disturbing emotions and have acted destructively far more frequently than we have acted constructively. What could await us, then, is one of the worst types of rebirth.
We looked at what rebirth would be like in these realms – as a being in the so-called hell realms, these joyless realms, where the beings are trapped and where it’s very difficult to get out; as a hungry ghost, or clutching ghost; and as an animal.
Meaning of “Preta”
By the way, I looked up the term “preta,” so-called ghost in Hinduism. Preta in Sanskrit literally means what “has gone forth.” It refers to the ghost of a departed person before the funeral ceremony is given. If such a person is not given a proper funeral ceremony, they would continue to exist in a ghost-like realm. These beings can be benevolent and helpful to others, or they can cause problems to others. I think that is probably where the Chinese developed this idea of a hungry ghost. According to that idea, even if all the proper funeral ceremonies are performed, one still has to continue to make food offerings to the spirit of the deceased, especially one’s ancestors.
I don’t know if, originally, in early Buddhism, the concept of preta was like that. In any case, the realm of the pretas soon became known as one of the worst rebirth states in Buddhism. The Tibetans interpreted “preta” as “clutching ghost.” Their necks and their minds are tight, literally tied up. Because of their miserliness (that wasn’t part of the original Hindu concept), they are not able to enjoy anything, to get any food or drink, or anything like that. Also, there is a great deal of paranoia in that state.
I always find it quite interesting to look at these concepts in their Hindu form. It gives us a wider picture of how they were developed and used in Buddhism. It doesn’t mean to say that Hinduism necessarily had the idea first. It’s hard to say who had the idea first. In any case, that’s the pretas.
Then we spoke about the fear that we would develop looking at these worst states of rebirth. It’s not a fear that is paralyzing, one that makes us feel helpless and hopeless. Instead, it’s a healthy fear, one that gets us moving. It’s like being afraid of being hit by a car. It’s not that we are petrified; it’s that we are careful. We watch out. Similarly, we watch out to see if there is a way to avoid having these worst types of rebirth. And just as when we are afraid of being hit by a car we can have an external source, like a traffic light, to help us to avoid that and also an internal traffic light, as it were, we have the Three Jewels of Refuge, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha Gems, as external and internal sources to help us avoid worse rebirths.
Externally, we have the teachings of the Buddhas and what they have realized, which are the true stoppings of all disturbing emotions, tendencies, karma, etc. and the true pathway minds that bring those true stoppings about. The Buddhas have these in full, and the Arya Sangha have them in part. The true stoppings and true pathway minds are, of course, represented by the Buddhas themselves, their teachings, and the Arya Sangha. They would be like the external traffic light. The internal traffic light would be these states that we ourselves will attain in the future. We would attain them, first, in part by, like the Arya Sangha, then, in full, like the Buddhas.
So, going in this direction is what will help us to avoid the worst states of rebirth. Initially, though, what we have to do to avoid them is to refrain from destructive behavior. That brought on the whole discussion of karma.
Intermediate Scope
Then we started the intermediate scope of motivation. Here, we see that even getting a better rebirth as a human or one of the gods is of no ultimate benefit. It is not a final goal, although it’s better than a worse rebirth state. Within these better rebirth states, though, a precious human rebirth is what we would want to aim for as a stepping-stone. In other words, we want to continue having precious human rebirths all the way up to liberation and, eventually, enlightenment.
We looked at the general sufferings of samsara, the sufferings of any type of rebirth situation that we might have. Then we’ve looked at the sufferings specific to humans and started to look at the sufferings specific to the gods. We finished our discussion of the gods on the plane of sensory objects of desire, the so-called desire realm. Today, I’d like to finish the discussion of the sufferings of the gods and talk about the gods on the plane of ethereal forms (gzugs-khams) and the plane of formless beings (gzugs-med khams), usually called the “form realm” and the “formless realm.”
Suffering of the Form Realm Gods
The gods on the plane of ethereal forms live above Mount Meru. This is according to the abhidharma picture of geography. They have so-called light bodies. Their bodies are forms of physical phenomena made of subtle elements – so, not the gross elements that our bodies are made of. They are forms of physical phenomena having the functional nature of mind (yid-kyi rang-bzhin gyi gzugs), sometimes called “mental bodies” (yid-lus). So, they are like the bodies of arhats in pure lands. Their functional nature (rang-bzhin), how they function, is similar to that of the forms of physical phenomena that can only be known by the mind. So, it’s basically referring to some sort of subtle elements.
The beings on the plane of sensory objects of desire have desire for sense objects, specifically food, drink, and the physical sensations of sex. That’s the main characteristic of all the beings within the desire realm, from those in the hell realms to those in the god realms. The beings on the plane of ethereal forms don’t have desire for sense objects; however, they do have desire for and attachment to the objects that appear in their states of meditative absorption.
Although they are divided into male and female, they have no sex organs, and thus they do not have sex. The women are distinguished from the men by having higher voices. They don’t have either a nose consciousness or a tongue consciousness. Because of that, they don’t smell or eat – they live on the food of samadhi. Not having desire for food, drink, and sex is what distinguishes them from the beings in the desire realm.
The Four States of Mental Stability (Dhyanas)
There are 17 classes of gods on the plane of ethereal forms. They are divided into four general classes according to four states or levels of mental stability (dhyanas) in which they are absorbed during their meditations.
The dhyanas are described very much in both Hindu and Buddhist meditation texts. From the Mahayana point of view, it’s not really advisable to pursue these states in one’s meditation because of how easily one can develop attachment to and desire for them. These dhyanas are very deep states of mental absorption that one attains after one has achieved shamatha (a stilled and settled state of mind). They are even deeper and more focused than shamatha. Well, it’s not that they’re more focused: they’re more refined. One could pursue them, but as I say, because of the danger of getting attached to them and also because of the disastrous result of getting attached – which is to be reborn in one of these realms – Mahayana doesn’t encourage it. One just needs to attain shamatha, which is technically known as the “indispensable preliminary stage of first state of mental constancy” (bsam-gtan dang-po’i nyer-bsdogs mi-lcogs-med). With this, one goes on to attain a state of joined shamatha and vipashyana. The attainment of shamatha is prerequisite to attain a state of vipashyana, which, in Mahayana, is always a joined state with shamatha.
Participant: Would there be access concentration just before the first dhyana?
Dr. Berzin: “Access concentration”? I’m not familiar with this term. But although the attainment of this indispensable preliminary stage of first state of mental constancy is not yet the attainment of an actual state of the first dhyana, it is already a form realm mind, even if one attains it with a desire realm body. “Indispensible” means it is indispensable to the attainment of extrasensory and extraphysical powers.
The Gods of the First Dhyana
The realm where the first general class of gods live, those of the first level of mental stability, is known as the Brahma Realm, named after the great god Brahma in the Indian pantheon. We won’t go into the divisions of these 17; that’s not so necessary. These gods, as well as those of the higher levels, have no nose consciousness and no tongue consciousness, so they don’t taste or smell anything. However, they do have eye, ear, and body consciousnesses. And as I said, they don’t eat anything. They live on samadhi, absorbed concentration. They have no physical or mental suffering.
So, what type of suffering is left to them?
Participant: Greed.
Dr. Berzin: Greed is a disturbing emotion. They have greed: they want to stay in their absorption more and more.
What are the three kinds of suffering? Suffering of suffering, suffering of change, and all-pervasive suffering. They don’t have the suffering of suffering, either on a mental or on a physical level. They don’t have any pain; they don’t have any physical unhappiness, no feelings of unhappiness accompanying a physical sensation. Nor do they have any mental unhappiness. However, they are not free of the suffering of change. Whatever happiness that they have is going to come to an end; it’s not going to last. They also have the all-pervasive suffering, because they still haven’t gotten rid of the tainted obtainer aggregates containing disturbing emotions and karmic potentials that will drive further rebirth.
They also don’t have anger. This is quite interesting. I don’t know why they don’t have anger. I suppose anger is associated with the suffering of suffering. When you have pain or are really unhappy, you are impatient to get rid of it. Also, when you have, anger, you exaggerate the negative qualities of the thing that you find unpleasant, which makes you want to get rid of it even more strongly. So, I can imagine that, because they have no physical or mental suffering, they would never get angry.
Think about that. What would it be like? Is your anger somehow associated with some sort of mental or physical discomfort?
Participant: No, when I feel threatened.
Dr. Berzin: That’s a mental discomfort.
Participant: Or when my comfort is threatened.
Dr. Berzin: So, fear, basically – you’re afraid that you are going to lose your comfort. Then you get angry at… just anything, actually. Think about it.
[meditation]
Does the fact that they don’t have any suffering of suffering mean that nothing unpleasant happens to these gods? Remember, one of the general sufferings of samsara is the suffering of things happening to us that we don’t want to have happen. But, no, things can happen to these gods that they wouldn’t want to have happen, but they don’t experience physical or mental suffering because of it; therefore, they don’t get angry. They don’t get angry just in general because of their mental stability.
[meditation]
That would be pretty nice. However, the problem here is that these gods think that they have become liberated. They haven’t. They’re just in a temporary time-out from some unpleasant aspects of samsara. But we can see how it could be very seductive. And because of the great hope that it’s possible to become free of suffering, we would put all one’s hope in this situation. When we come into a happy situation, we want it to last so much that we have a great deal of hope that now everything will go perfectly. But, of course, at some point, it all crashes down because we still have the suffering of change. That’s a classic example of samsara. And these gods have a bad case of it. Like that, one tries to understand the suffering of this type of rebirth.
Participant: If you have such a subtle body, one that’s just light or something…
Dr. Berzin: Light is just a metaphor. Their bodies are made of subtle elements.
Participant: But then it wouldn’t be possible to harm them.
Dr. Berzin: Right, we couldn’t harm them. And they don’t fight with anybody because they have no anger. Besides, the lower realm gods, the desire realm gods, can’t reach them. They can’t even see them. The only ones in the desire realms who could see them would be those who’ve developed some sort of advanced awareness, like ESP, in their meditation. And they certainly wouldn’t do that with harmful intent. In any case, I think that they couldn’t actually reach them, even though they might be able to see them.
Not having any physical or mental suffering is something that even we, as desire realm beings, would experience if we achieved the first dhyana in our meditation.
The Gods of the Second, Third, and Fourth Dhyanas
From the second dhyana on up, there is no eye, ear, or body consciousness. There is no sense consciousness at all on these levels, so these gods have no feelings of physical happiness. They still have mental consciousness, which takes subtle forms of physical phenomena as their objects of cognition, and the gods on the second dhyana still have feelings of mental happiness.
From the third dhyana upwards, there are no feelings of mental happiness either. The gods there just experience an undisturbed, peaceful state of mind. It’s a serene, blissful state that is not in the category of physical or mental happiness.
From the fourth dhyana upwards, this disappears as well. Instead, there is just a complete numbness of feeling without any trace of happiness or unhappiness.
As we can see, the mind gets more and more subtle. The question is, would we want that?
Participant: Not the numb one.
Dr. Berzin: Not the numb one, but you’d like the serene one?
Participant: Well, I wouldn’t mind.
Dr. Berzin: So, you’d be willing to give up mental happiness?
Participant: Well, maybe I’d like the one where there’s mental happiness.
Dr. Berzin: So, then, you’d be willing to give up physical happiness.
Participant: Well, yes.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah?
Anyway, it’s interesting to think of these ways in which one could, in a sense… I was going to say “transcend” these various levels of happiness and unhappiness, but it’s not really that we transcend them. It’s more that our minds become so subtle that we don’t experience any of these things. Would we want that? I don’t know.
Here is an interesting point – it comes from abhidharma: As we saw, none of the form realm gods have nose or tongue consciousness, and the gods of the second, third, and fourth levels of mental stability have no eye, ear or body consciousness either. But the gods of these three dhyana levels do have the eye, ear, and body cognitive sensors of the level of subtlety corresponding to their state. And there are ethereal sights, sounds, and physical sensations of their respective states of existence that they can see, hear and feel. What does that mean?
In order to have cognition (shes-pa), we have to have three things: consciousness, objects of consciousness, and cognitive sensors, like the cells of the eyes and so on. Each of these three will be of a certain level of subtlety. In terms of eye, ear and body cognitive sensors, there are several levels of subtlety of them, depending on the level of subtlety of the elements comprising them. There are desire realm sensors, but also first, second, third and fourth dhyana sensors.
So, on all four realms, there are sights, because they have form, there are sounds (I guess they can talk to each other), and there are physical sensations. A lot of the time, they are absorbed in meditation, but not exclusively; they do other things as well. So, they have these objects of cognition and the cognitive sensors on each of these levels, but on the second, third, and fourth levels, they don’t have eye, ear, or body consciousness (this is what it says in abhidharma). But they have access to consciousness on the first dhyana, so they can use the eye, ear and body consciousnesses of the first dhyana together with their own sensory apparatus in order to see, hear, and feel physical sensations on their level.
Participant: So, they don’t have those types of consciousness on their own levels.
Dr. Berzin: No, they have to use a lower level of consciousness.
They move between the dhyanas. So, they would have to come down to a grosser level of mind in order to be able to use their sensory apparatus to see and hear things. In order to see, hear, or feel anything, they have to come out of the deeper levels of absorption.
So, what does this imply?
Participant: Change.
Dr. Berzin: It also implies that they are not very functional in these deeper states of absorption. The more deeply absorbed they are, the less functional they are and the less able they are to communicate with anybody – even to see anybody. They are turned more and more inward.
Participant: Let’s say there are five of these gods sitting around together, and all are in the third or fourth dhyana. Would they be able to hear or see each other?
Dr. Berzin: If they’re in meditation, they don’t hear or see each other.
Participant: But sometimes some of them come out of it and go down to the first dhyana. It reminds me of people going online and seeing that there is someone else online.
Dr. Berzin: What it reminds me of is a group of people coming together at a drug party and being so spaced out that they’re totally unaware of the others around them. It’s only when they come down from their high that they can notice the other people. They can’t really communicate with other people unless they come down. That’s an example that maybe some people can relate to.
Let’s think about this type of existence and ask ourselves whether it’s something that we would find appealing. Probably an analogy would be people taking heavy drugs to kill all pain. Not feeling any pain can be very seductive. But, of course, there’s still the suffering of change. It’s not going to last, and it’s not going to satisfy – we’re always going to want more. Plus, it doesn’t get rid of the problem at all. And even if the drug gives us a lot of pleasure, physical pleasure or mental pleasure, the more stoned we get, the more we just go into a numb, zombie-like trance. So, even that pleasure leaves. It doesn’t last. These gods have this problem as well.
Also, like the desire realm gods, these gods can see what type of rebirth will follow. Another problem, too, both here and in the formless realms is that, being so deeply absorbed, they become very stupid. Their minds become very dull. That’s particularly so in the formless realms when they are focused on things like nothingness. That’s not voidness; it’s just nothing.
So, try to imagine what these states are like and how, although they might be seductive, this situation, too, is just samsara.
[meditation]
And remember: no food, no drink, no sex.
Participant: You really don’t need them anymore.
Dr. Berzin: I suppose, when on some drugs, one also experiences that.
[meditation]
Any comments? I think this is one of the reasons why Mahayana says not even to go in that direction in our meditation: it’s too seductive.
Participant: They make it very clear that it’s a dead-end.
Dr. Berzin: That’s the real factor – that these are dead-ends.
Suffering of the Formless Realm Gods
The gods of the plane of formless beings, the formless realm gods, are divided among four heavens according to the type of meditation in which they are deeply absorbed. There’s the Heaven of the Infinity of Space. Subtler than that is the Heaven of the Infinity of Consciousness. Still subtler is the Heaven of Nothingness. Subtlest of all is the Heaven of Neither Recognition nor Non-Recognition. I have an old translation here. “Recognition” is actually “distinguishing.” One doesn’t distinguish anything. It isn’t that we are not distinguishing something when we could; it’s that our aggregate of distinguishing is temporarily not functioning. This level of mind is even subtler than experiencing nothing. When we are experiencing nothing, we are at least distinguishing nothing from something. So, these gods are really dull. These are supremely spaced-out states of mind.
The gods here have no attachment to any forms of physical phenomena, not even to forms of physical phenomena that could appear to mental consciousness, because no gross or subtle forms of physical phenomena exist on this plane of existence. The gods in the form realm are still attached to and have desire for the subtle forms that they can see, hear, and physically feel, and those that they can focus on in their meditations. But here, there are no subtle forms at all, so they have no attachment to such things. They do, however, have attachment to the levels of absorption that they experience. They have no sense cognition because they don’t have physical cognitive sensors. So, unlike the form realm gods who have no sense consciousness from the second dhyana up but who can have sense cognition using a lower level of consciousness, the formless realm gods have no sense consciousness at all.
When we are reborn as a formless realm god, we don’t need to pass through a bardo state. We enter the formless realm with full awareness of our condition as we transition from one state to the next. We still have a body, but it’s an extremely subtle body. According to the sutra presentation, the basis of the consciousness of a formless realm being is the life force, what’s called the “life power.” In anuttarayoga tantra, it’s called the subtlest life-sustaining wind or energy.
Our entire rebirth as a god of the formless realm is spent in a zombie-like meditation of complete absorption on space or on nothing and the like. We neither realize nor learn anything. But we still have attachment and the ignorance with which we mistakenly regard this meditation to be liberation This is a grave mistake, because when our lives are about to end, we see that, after this, we are going to fall to a lower realm and then realize that we had mistakenly thought that we had attained liberation. What happens then is that we might think that there is no such thing as liberation from suffering. It is said that as a result of having that distorted view, we will fall to one of the lowest hells. If, after that, we happen to take rebirth as a human, we will, because of the eons we had spent in mistaken meditation, be reborn as a very stupid person and be prone to sleepiness all the time. So, think about that.
[meditation]
I think that, regardless of whether or not we are accomplished meditators and have attained these formless absorptions in our meditations, if we are, in our ordinary lives, a spaced-out person, prone to just sitting there, staring at the wall, thinking of absolutely nothing, we face the very serious consequences of becoming very stupid, dull, and sleepy all the time. What we want to develop, especially now that we have precious human rebirths, is our intelligence – our ability to distinguish and discriminate what’s helpful, what’s harmful, what’s reality and what’s not.
[meditation]
I think a lesson to learn from this is: when we find ourselves starting to get spaced out, we need to snap out of it as quickly as possible.
[meditation]
The Determination to Be Free from Suffering: Renunciation
Renunciation Is Compassion Aimed at Oneself
Renunciation, which I translate as “the determination to be free,” is, at this intermediate level, a state of mind in which we desire to be liberated from all suffering. Compassion is the state of mind in which we desire all others to be liberated from all suffering. Renunciation is the same state of mind as compassion; it’s just aimed at ourselves rather than aimed at others.
What’s interesting about this?
Participant: Could you repeat, please?
Dr. Berzin: Renunciation is the state of mind of wishing ourselves to be parted from suffering and the causes of suffering. The causes of suffering come next in the lam-rim. We are now thinking about the suffering. If that state of mind is aimed at ourselves and our own suffering, it’s renunciation, the determination to be free. If it is aimed at others, it’s compassion, the determination for them to be free.
So, what can we deduce from that?
Participant: It might be good to give up self-centeredness.
Dr. Berzin: That’s true. However, the self-centered attitude gets into the causes of suffering.
What I am looking at now is the quality of the mind, the “flavor” of the mind. What does compassion have? What’s the flavor of compassion?
Participant: Love.
Dr. Berzin: Love – the wish for others to have happiness. Compassion is a warm state of mind, an empathetic state of mind.
So, what does that quality imply about the state of mind of being determined to be free ourselves? It implies that it’s not a punishing state of mind. It is, instead, a state of mind of truly wishing to be of benefit to ourselves. That has quite a different quality from, “I’m bad, so I have to renounce all this stuff. Otherwise, I’ll be punished.” Very different, isn’t it? We are being kind to ourselves by having this determination to be free, just as we are kind to others by having compassion for them. What this state of mind also implies is that we are going to do something about our suffering.
Participant: One could say that renunciation is compassion for ourselves.
Dr. Berzin: Renunciation is compassion for ourselves. Yes, if we understand what compassion means. It’s not just, “Oh, you poor thing.” That gives a very different flavor. Also, the term “determination to be free” implies having the belief that there is a solution to our suffering – namely, that liberation is possible. So, it shouldn’t be confused with the term “despair” – wishing to be free but having no underlying belief that there is a way out. So, just as compassion for others isn’t just feeling sorry others – feeling badly about their suffering, but thinking that there is nothing that can be done – compassion for ourselves isn’t feeling sorry for ourselves: “I have all this suffering, and I wish I could be free of it. But tough luck.” Instead, there is hope.
I think we should digest each of these steps.
[meditation]
What I think we especially have to get over is feeling that renunciation is a type of self-punishment.
[meditation]
You see, from having thought about suffering, we have distinguished that all these forms of suffering – the suffering of pain, the suffering of change, and the all-pervasive suffering – are things that we don’t want. We’ve distinguished that very clearly – distinguished and discriminated. Remember, discriminating awareness just adds certainty to distinguishing. So, with discriminating awareness we distinguish: “This is not what I want. I want to be free of that; I want to be happy.” Therefore, renunciation is showing kindness to ourselves. We are distinguishing what would be best for ourselves.
Where we trip up, though, is that we don’t really believe that we would be better off if we were liberated from all of this. The only way to really become convinced that we would be better off is to meditate more and more on suffering – and not just in theory, but to think of our own experiences of it. The older we are, obviously, the more experiences we have.
Participant: So, we need to meditate on suffering.
Dr. Berzin: Yes, and to recognize that this is not what we want.
Participant: In order to be able to meditate on suffering and to be able to stand it, you have to be convinced that there is a way out.
Dr. Berzin: In order to meditate on suffering, we have to be convinced that there is a way out, which goes back to refuge – which goes back to believing and understanding that the mind is basically pure and that suffering can be removed.
That’s why I often say that, at first, we go through all the stages of the lam-rim in a very introductory way. Then we have to go back because, at the beginning, there is no way that we can understand the natural purity of the mind. To understand that, we have to understand voidness, Buddha-nature and all these other things. So, first, we just get the general idea. We get the “flavor” of three scopes, of bodhichitta and so on, which we do mostly on the basis of “Well, my teachers think like that. Look what they have achieved. Look at the type of person they are. I’m inspired by that. I’d like to become like that.” But then we have to go back and analyze the earlier practices more and more deeply, using what we’ve learned from the more advanced practices, and make our understanding of those earlier practices more definite. Nothing is going to be really sincere until we are sincerely convinced that there is a way out of suffering, that liberation is possible. That’s actually not very easy at all – to be really convinced of that. If we are convinced, then why suffer? Why not go for it? Even though it is going to be very difficult. Let’s not kid ourselves.
So, we are being kind to ourselves, and we understand that there is a way out.
Renunciation Is Not Just Following Austere, Ascetic Practices
Next point: Moreover, following ascetic practices of austerity – just denying everything and being a very grim type of person – does not necessarily reflect a renounced mind. This is the Tibetan example: Sitting in a cave, wearing rags, and eating nettles while being obsessed with the wish that others consider us great meditators doesn’t indicate renunciation at all.
What’s to be abandoned is compulsive attraction to worldly pleasures in this and future lives, not necessarily pleasure itself. It’s the attachment to pleasure that we have to renounce. There is nothing wrong with pleasure, nothing wrong with happiness, except that, of course, it doesn’t last and so on. It’s when we overestimate it and think that it will last (so, incorrect consideration) that we have problems. Happiness is just happiness; it’s a neutral state, neither constructive nor destructive.
Renouncing the Eight Worldly Dharmas
So, what is essential, then, is to detach ourselves from the eight transitory things in life, the eight worldly dharmas:
- Praise and criticism – getting so excited when we are praised (“Oh, I am so happy when I am praised. This is so great!”) and getting so depressed when we are criticized or blamed.
- Hearing good news and bad news – I often extend that to hearing pleasant sounds and unpleasant sounds, like traffic noise, loud techno music and so on when we are trying to go to sleep.
- Gain and loss – our stocks go up or they go down, this type of thing.
- Things going well and things going poorly – which could include, of course, health problems, it could include relationship problems, it could include anything.
Of course, how we deal with these eight transitory things in life and our worldly feelings toward them – getting so excited because we exaggerate the good ones, and getting so depressed because we exaggerate the bad ones – is a very big topic.
Anyway, these are the things that what we have to renounce.
Participant: I think I have another translation. Isn’t there one pair with pain and happiness?
Dr. Berzin: Not in the list that I have. However, that could be part of things going well and not going well.
We don’t have to limit things to these eight. We can extend them. The whole point is that, in general, when it comes to good things, we get very excited and become attached to them, and when it comes to bad things, we get very depressed and become averse to them. That’s what we need to renounce. Things are going to happen. And again, we think: Do we want to become like one of these form or formless realm gods – to be totally numb and indifferent to everything and not feel anything? That’s a very interesting question: Do we not want to have any feelings at all? This is what some people sometimes criticize Buddhism for.
Say somebody dies. Would a Buddha feel sad? Well, no. Would a Buddha feel happy that the person died? No. Would a Buddha feel nothing? Well, no. A Buddha would feel compassion for those who are sad. So, there is feeling there – to use “feeling” in the loose, Western sense of the word. And there is still rejoicing when things go well. For example, we win the lottery: we rejoice that we can now benefit a lot of people. That’s a different type of happiness, I think. We have to be careful not to go to the extreme of wanting to dull all feelings and to become like one of these form or formless realm gods.
Participant: Or to lose interest in everything.
Dr. Berzin: That’s right. This is what happens with these gods. They have no interest in anything except their own absorptions.
Participant: I am wondering, one of the four brahmaviharas is equanimity. I don’t know the English word, but there is something that appears to be equanimity but isn’t; instead, it’s just a state of not bothering.
Dr. Berzin: In the four brahmaviharas, the four Brahma abodes (“the four immeasurables” is another term for them), there is immeasurable equanimity. Immeasurable equanimity is understood in many different ways in different traditions, but one thing that it is not is a state of not caring about anything. It’s certainly not that.
Let’s move on. I’d like to finish this list.
Renunciation Is Not Escapism
Furthermore, renunciation does not mean escapism. Renouncing our obsession with worldly pleasure and strongly wishing to be liberated from the suffering it brings doesn’t mean that we run away from our problems; on the contrary, we confront them directly. It’s only when we become aware of the causes of our suffering that we can find the true solution to the predicament of samsara. We can’t run away from it.
Renunciation Is Not a Short-Lived, Impetuous Determination
It also is not a short-lived, all excited determination to be free. A short-lived and all excited determination is what we might feel out of frustration when some worldly thing doesn’t work out, like being robbed, getting hurt, failing at work, and so on. Because of this traumatic experience, we all of a sudden become very enthusiastic and think, “Now I’m going to be free!” and start to work really hard with the Dharma. But it’s impetuous. We’re just acting on the spur of the moment. It’s superficial. And it doesn’t last. We have to be very careful not to go to that extreme because of some shock that we might have had. It’s only when we see that uncontrollably recurring existence is fraught with nothing but problems that we want to be free of all these problems forever and become determined to break the continuity of it.
And even when the “crests,” the high points, of samsara come along, we are unimpressed by them – “Nothing special,” to quote young Serkong Rinpoche. We win the lottery – nothing special! We see that it only brings suffering – the tax we’ll have to pay on it, the people who will want to be our friends just to get our money, the amount of time that we’ll have to spend with investment counselors figuring out what to do with the money (counselors who will probably just want to rip us off or to take advantage of us in some way), and so on. It’s just suffering. Speak to those who have inherited a lot of money! There are a lot of problems that come along with that.
Renunciation Is Not a Short-Lived, Spur-of-the-Moment Realization of Impermanence
The last point here: Likewise, it is not a short-lived, spur-of-the-moment realization of impermanence, such as someone might have at the time of death when they see that they have to part from family, friends and wealth, and then they get all depressed. This kind of realization of impermanence is superficial; it doesn’t come from having thought about it deeply. It is only because of the trauma of having a close friend die, being suddenly faced with terminal illness, or something like that, that we develop an understanding of impermanence. But then, if things get better, we forget about it.
So, these are things that we have to watch out for – these superficial realizations that come on all of a sudden and make us all enthusiastic about the Dharma. But it doesn’t last because it’s not based on deep reflection.
Let’s think about that.
Participant: But those kinds of things might help us develop a feeling for the Dharma.
Dr. Berzin: Yes, when these things happen. But don’t think it’s the real thing. In other words, supplement it with something deeper, something that can be sustained. To use the analogy of a long-distance race: If we use all our energy in the very beginning because we are so enthusiastic about running, we’ll get too tired after a short time and won’t be able to finish. We need to be steady and stable.
It’s very, very common, I must say, for people, especially young people who are at an idealistic, impressionable age (usually in their twenties), to fall in love with the Dharma and to become little Milarepas. They become very determined in their practice – sitting in perfect meditation and so on – and, usually, become terribly strict. These people often burn out after a while. Then they just give up because their practice is not stable; it’s not based on deep reflection. So, one shouldn’t be overly idealistic. Certainly, one has to have conviction that to practice like Milarepa is possible, but not romanticize it.
Again, I’m brought back to my favorite koan: “Death can come at anytime. Relax.”
[meditation]
Another example is people who are going to do ngondro, these preliminary practices. They say, “I’m going to do a thousand a day.” Maybe they can keep it up for a certain period of time, but after a while, they find it’s too much. It’s better to do a more reasonable amount each day so that one can keep it up for the whole hundred thousand. That doesn’t mean that one can’t work oneself up to doing a thousand a day. One can. There are people who do even more than that a day, but not beginners.
[meditation]
That actually finishes this large section on suffering. Next time, we’ll start the section on the causes of suffering, the disturbing emotions, which is another big section. We will look at the whole list of them as they’re outlined in the Buddhist teachings and try to understand how they cause our problems, our suffering.