10. The Wheel of Life

[WFGS pp.164–72]

THE WHEEL OF LIFE

This is an explanation of what we ourselves are experiencing and not something that is only happening to others. The drawing of the Wheel of Life explains the sufferings of the different realms of samsara. Here we meditate from cause to result. The creator of samsara and suffering is ignorance and each being’s suffering is created by their own experience, so we meditate from ignorance to death. Suffering is ignorance and cessation brings peace. Each samsaric rebirth has its twelve links of dependent origination, locking us in samsara; only liberation or enlightenment can sever them.

1. IGNORANCE

The first of the twelve links of dependent origination is ignorance. To get out of samsara we must destroy both levels of ignorance: ignorance of absolute truth and ignorance of karma. Knowing the evolution of karma stops us from creating negative karma.

When we are ignorant of karma, we naturally create nonvirtuous actions due to our negative motivation, which causes suffering and specifically the suffering of rebirth in the three lower realms. When we are ignorant of the absolute truth, we create the cause of the suffering of the upper realms. Ignorance of karma leads to the creation of negative actions, the ten nonvirtues, which causes rebirths that lack the chance to practice or understand the Dharma. In these rebirths, we continuously create more negative karma since we are still ignorant of the absolute truth, and, creating even more negative karma, our ignorance increases.

Without fully seeing the faults of ignorance, we only develop more ignorance. Creating negative karma increasingly obscures the mind, making us more and more ignorant of the absolute truth and causing us to create more and more negative karma. That is how ignorance is the principal cause of all suffering. Therefore, the most direct method to quickly get out of samsara is to realize the absolute true nature of reality.

Because understanding emptiness releases us quickly from samsara, it’s so important. All suffering is rooted in the ignorance of absolute truth, therefore understanding emptiness, which is the complete opposite of this, directly helps to remove ignorance. When we understand the absolute truth, when we have realized emptiness, we will no longer create negative karma. It’s definite that then we will not be reborn in the three lower realms of suffering.

Ignorance of the absolute truth is like the poison that threatens our life and understanding the absolute truth is like an antidote to the poison. Not taking the antidote and just eating food doesn’t help to lengthen our life, yet we can’t live on the antidote alone without depending on food. So, the effect of poison is like the effect of ignorance of the absolute truth, creating good karma is like eating food, and understanding emptiness is like the antidote. Although creating positive karma helps, it’s not a direct method. While taking the antidote, we should also know that food is the most important thing that supports life, so completely forgetting to eat while taking the antidote is a big mistake; our life can be neither long nor happy.

When we realize emptiness, we always see the importance of following karma; that creating positive karma and not creating negative karma is the most important thing. If we were to be careless of our karma, thinking there is no need because we understand emptiness, that just proves we have no understanding of the absolute truth at all. If we did understand the absolute truth of person, mind, existence and karma, we would also have full confidence in dependent origination—how all things arise in dependence on causes and conditions—at the same time and therefore care very much about creating positive karma and avoiding negative karma. Understanding emptiness at a profound level means understanding the infallibility of emptiness and cause and effect, how they are noncontradictory; it means we will never betray cause and effect.

Thinking that karma doesn’t exist is the wrong understanding of emptiness. The right realization of emptiness—the absolute truth—sees that karma definitely exists and that all things depend on causes and conditions to exist. With the absolute truth of emptiness, we clearly see the relative truth of cause and effect. The ultimate truth of emptiness and the relative truth of karma, of cause and effect, are complementary. Unless we see this, our understanding of emptiness is imperfect. When we do see it, however, our understanding and realization of relative truth increases and we have more confidence in the infallibility of karma, understanding that positive karma brings a positive result and negative karma brings a negative one. This helps a great deal to develop the realization of the absolute truth.

Just as a bird needs both wings to fly and can’t fly with only one, in the same way both realizations are so important to escape from suffering. We must have full confidence in karma and the realization of the absolute truth. Without both, we can’t escape from samsara. Both are vital: the understanding of the relative truth of dependent origination and the realization of its absolute true nature, the emptiness of the inherent existence of all phenomena including the I. Therefore, the more we can study the subject of karma, the more it will help us to realize the absolute truth.

Why do dependent origination and emptiness help each other? For example, even though the emptiness of a table and the emptiness of a book may be identical, the objects of that emptiness are different. We need to understand that the object lacks intrinsic existence and yet that doesn’t mean it’s completely nonexistent,. If we believe that nothing exists, then we fall into nihilism. That negates karma, dependent origination, meaning there is no reason for creating positive actions or avoiding negative ones.

Believing that everything is nonexistent, that there is no karma, no nirvana and no samsara leads to carelessly creating negative karma and becoming even more ignorant, which in turn leads to creating even more negative karma. Therefore, it’s vital to always consider karma. Although the interdependence of emptiness and karma is not an easy subject, it helps in so many ways to purify our obscurations. It’s always important to meditate on karma.

At this moment, we are all together here in Kopan, coming from many different places, talking about a subject that is new for most of us, the Dharma. This is something we’ve never heard about before, either in our earlier life or in our dreams. It’s a subject that is opposite to whatever we thought about before. There is something that has caused this coming together here at Kopan—our karma. Why do things happen like this without us having any idea of it beforehand? Why did we happen to come from the West without any notion of what we were doing? The reason is karma.

Without fully realizing the suffering of samsara, we can’t escape it. To do this, we must have a fully renounced mind. To not get hurt by a fire we must recognize its nature—that it’s hot and that it burns—and in the same way we must recognize the nature of samsara. As we renounce touching fire, we must renounce samsara. It’s very useful to meditate on samsara in both the ways shown, although what I’ve said is very condensed. Meditation can help stop us thinking that samsaric happiness is true happiness.

2. KARMIC FORMATION

The second of the twelve links is karmic formations. (Du che means by gathering delusions; lä means karma). Lä, or karma, refers to the actions of body, speech and mind. Actually, actions of body and speech come from the mind and also affect the mind, leaving imprints upon it.

Besides positive and negative karma, there is variable and invariable karma. Positive invariable karma brings a rebirth in the upper realms.

With variable karma, say a person has created karma to be both a dog and a pig. By taking a pig rebirth, although the person is reborn in the form of a pig, it is possible to experience the potential of the karma of a dog, because they are of the same “caste,” meaning both are in animal form. It is also possible for human beings to complete two results by taking one form—this can happen when a person has created the karma to take two different human forms, and takes one, completing the ability of both. This is the opposite of invariable karma.

Invariable karma is what we normally think of as karma, how the results of karma are definite. It’s possible for human and animals to experience this, but there are some stages where this result can’t happen, such as in the form realm. In the form realm, there are four different stages attained originally through craving to experience samadhi. This means that because the meditator attains these different stages through craving the rapturous ecstasy of samadhi, if they create the karma to experience the third stage, for example, that potential can’t be finished in the second.

Negative karma brings a lower rebirth, but it can also cause suffering in the upper realms.

Neutral karma doesn’t bring results such as suffering and happiness. However, we should check up whether a neutral feeling is the result of a neutral action or not.

3. CONSCIOUSNESS

Karmic formation generates consciousness, the third link. Consciousness and mind are synonyms. Within the twelve links, this is the link created by the second link, karmic formations, where the consciousness joins the next life. Of the five aggregates, one is form and the other four are mental.

The actions of body, speech and mind are created by ignorance. When an action is created, it leaves an impression on the consciousness, like planting a seed in a field. Ignorance causes action, which in turn affects the consciousness and leaves a karmic imprint. If there were no consciousness, none of the rest could happen—the results, for example, or the experience of different things in different lives. Just as the monkey jumps from tree to tree, so consciousness goes from life to life. There is consciousness that is the result and consciousness that is the cause.

4. NAME AND FORM

A house depends on walls and a roof. If one of the walls is missing, it can’t be considered a house. In the same way, without the five aggregates, we can’t exist. The form aggregate—our body—can’t come into being without previous karma. The father and mother produce the form, which is the vehicle for our mind in the womb.

Pung po (skandha in Sanskrit) means “group” or “heap,” something that depends on a group. For example, consciousness depends on a continuity, just as it does on time. If it’s form, each atom depends on the group or the parts. Skandha means group or aggregates.

5. SIX SENSE ORGANS

Name and form generate the six sense organs, represented by an empty house with six openings, five windows and a door. The sense organs can’t operate without an object, which will happen with the next link, contact. There is an inner sense organ and an outer one. For example, whereas the ear is the outer sense organ of hearing, there also needs to be a more subtle inner sense organ that connects the object (the sound in the ear) with the mind. It’s the same with the tongue, eye, nose and consciousness. The inner eye organ is within the outer physical eyeball, which registers the external stimulus of vision and connects it to the mind.

The sense organs of this life cease at death and don’t continue, whereas the consciousness continues. As we die, the various aspects of the consciousness absorb, and so we progressively lose our sight, hearing and so forth.

Why are there no feelings at death? Because the base, the vehicle, of the senses is absorbed, and therefore the senses are also absorbed. Why is it that when something dangerous happens to the physical form, it affects the senses and makes them unusable? Because the sense base is damaged, through disease, for example.

It’s also true that when we concentrate on one part of the body, we lose awareness of the other parts. This is due to the fact that the vehicle of the mind, the wind, moves to the part of the body where the mind is concentrating and so it’s no longer concentrating on any other part. Usually, when we look at an object, because we are focusing our attention on the sight, we become less aware of the sounds around us. Or if we are listening to something, we are less aware of seeing anything. When we listen, the ear sense organ operates and the wind energy flows to it, taking the focus off the visual sense. Sometimes, we don’t know that we feel hungry until somebody talks about food and then our stomach feels hungry. This is true of any of the sense organs. Looking at a flower, the visual sense organ within the eyeball, through the wind energy, makes us aware of the color and shape of that flower. In that way, we can discriminate the flower.

6. CONTACT

From the six sense organs comes contact. There are six types of contact, one for each sense and for the mental sense power. It is defined as one of the six sense bases meeting and experiencing the object through its own capacity. Contact is the link between having the sense base and developing a feeling about that object, which is the next link.

Contact can be a mental experience, such as the mind thinking of permanent or impermanent things, or of the absolute truth. There are many existent things that are the object of the mind.

7. FEELINGS

There are three kinds of feeling: pleasurable, painful and neutral. The neutral feeling is the same as the feeling of indifference. With the equilibrium meditation, when there is the feeling of equilibrium for all sentient beings, there is a neutral feeling for all sentient beings. But when we have the concept of friend and enemy, a different feeling arises: pleasure, happiness and attachment for the friend, and suffering, dislike and hatred for the enemy.

From our contact with the object, the feelings that are generated bring all the negative minds. Unless we use the methods to overcome our negative feelings, when we feel pleasurable or painful feelings, happiness and attachment naturally arise on one hand and unhappiness and anger arise on the other hand. Therefore, we should always examine the feelings we have about an object. We need to understand that there is no self-existent suffering or self-existent happiness due to the object. For instance, when we see a person who has a nice shape, we become attached and we enjoy looking at it, find pleasure in it, and experience temporal samsaric happiness. This feeling arises from the eye sense making contact with the visual sense object. But our eye sense is not one with that person’s body and that body is not one or interrelated with our eye sense organ; they are over there and we are here.

Feelings and contact are very closely related because, although contact might seem like some physical action, it’s a mental activity. There’s no actual physical contact between our eye and the body we are looking at. The contact here means the visual experience we have of encountering the sight of the body.

It’s the same thing with food. The contact is not in the food or on the tongue. As the food touches the tongue, the tongue sense organ registers its taste; that is the contact. And immediately, there is the feeling of pleasure (if it’s delicious) or displeasure (if it tastes bad). The taste of the food and the pleasure or displeasure it brings doesn’t come from the food; it arises in dependence of the food, but it is a mental construct.

Our attachment sees the object as a self-existent beautiful object, seeing it in the nature of beauty, and then the pleasurable feeling arises, something that is only our own conception, our own creation. So, the happiness of a pleasurable feeling is the mere creation of our own mind. The beauty of the person is the creation of our mind. They are neither intrinsically beautiful nor intrinsically ugly. It’s our mind that sees them as that. Just as the happy feeling is a mere mental projection, the beauty is also a mental projection.

We can see this when we change our attitude to a friend we thought of as beautiful. If we get really angry with them or tired of them, what seemed to be beautiful before now seems unbeautiful. The pleasure we get by seeing them that seemed to come from their side now no longer happens and we have quite an unpleasant feeling when we see them. Although they haven’t changed in appearance, due to our negative minds of pride, anger and jealousy, we see them as an undesirable object. The change that our feelings have undergone doesn’t depend on the object changing. Our feelings can change within a minute. Pleasure can become anger; happiness can become suffering. Because the pleasure or misery we feel when we make contact with an object are mere projections of our mind, we can see suffering and happiness are creations of our mind.

We usually believe that the beauty of an object comes from the object’s side and is self-existent. There is no such beauty existing from the object’s side. If that beauty were truly existing, it would be independent of the viewer. That beauty should be one with the object. For example, if we consider a person’s body as beautiful, every atom of that body should be seen in beauty: the nose, the bones, the flesh and every part should be seen in beauty. But they are not. Were we to dissect their body into small pieces, we wouldn’t see every part as beautiful. Beauty is not one with the entire body nor with any of the parts of the body. Because the parts themselves are not beautiful, the whole group put together can’t be; no such beauty exists only from the object’s side. Either the beauty should exist without depending on the group or it should be one with it. But without depending on that body, the beauty can’t be found. It never exists only from the object’s side. Therefore, we can’t find beauty on the object. The beauty has to depend on the person looking at it.

How does that beauty exist for us? It’s only our mental projection. We conceive it as beautiful, based on preconceived notions of beauty or something that triggers a sense of beauty, but it all comes from our own mind. The image we define as beautiful is only our mental creation; somebody else could find it quite the opposite. But we create it and think it is intrinsic and we believe in it.

It’s senseless to be attached to the beauty that we create with our own mind, attached to a mental concept. We are attached to our own creation, to our own mental projections and reflections. In fact, one of the main reasons we become attached is that it is our mental projection. But we don’t recognize it as such. Therefore, problems always arise between the subject and the object; attachment brings problems. Because of the fundamentally wrong concept that beauty exists only from the other person’s side without depending on our mental creation at all, attachment arises. If we can be conscious that it’s our own mind’s creation alone, attachment won’t arise.

If we think, we can see that it’s very easy to see somebody with a title as being that title. With a king, we see the king and not the person who is merely titled king. The title seems to have some form of self-existence. King, minister, judge, doctor, lawyer, president and so on—the mind is attached to the title, as if it exists by itself. We become attached to the solidly appearing title. We spend much time trying to become that title, studying hard, incurring many expenses, and maybe in the end we won’t even get it. And even though we might receive the degree or the job with the title in the end, where is the title we have received? After all this time and energy spent, this title that we have received is completely the opposite of the title we have been looking for.

The actual title—sweeper, king, president and so on—is merely words, which is only a creation of the mind. That doesn’t mean that the mind and body of the person called “president” become one with the president. We see the title as self-existent, not as a creation of mind; it is as a title that exists by itself, independent of the name, independent of the mind creating it; we see it as something solid and concrete. This is the opposite of the real title, which doesn’t exist in that way at all.

Just as the title “president” is a mere mental projection, the man receiving the title “president” is also only a mere name, a mental projection. It’s the same thing with beauty. If beauty existed only from the object’s side without depending on the mind of the person looking, then the object should be seen as beautiful by everyone. But what we see as beautiful is not seen as beautiful by all other beings. It’s seen in different ways by different people. Even when a person or object is recognized as a most beautiful thing by one, others see it as ugly and don’t like it. Can that object be both ugly and beautiful?

Because all living beings see things differently, this proves that such names are merely mental projections, created by the viewer, and are only their way of viewing it. They are attached to their own mental creation. “Good” or “bad” depends on the person. Because it’s only a mental creation, a name, there’s no reason to be attached to that beauty.

The reason for explaining this in detail is only to clearly show the wrong conceptions and faults of attachment.

8. CRAVING

Contact and feeling generate craving. This is shown by a man drinking wine. Just as the man’s thirst is never satisfied, so the person deluded by greed is never satisfied and craves more things. A person drinks, becomes drunk and fights for no real reason. We know this happens as it has happened many times before. Even nondrinkers fight, drunk with ignorance. People bring wine to a festival. If there is no wine, there is no festival.

At the end of our life, we crave a human body, leaving this imprint. But we may have to live our next life as an animal, a dog, for example. At the time of this death as a dog, the imprint for the human rebirth causes craving for a human rebirth to arise, and we may be reborn human again.

In the texts, there are three kinds of craving listed: craving for sense pleasures, craving for freedom from fear and craving for existence. Each of the three kinds of craving causes suffering.

9. GRASPING

The mind remembers the enjoyment of a past taste and is attached to it, wanting more. This is grasping.

The self-existent I is the misconception that the I is independent, free from the aggregates. This can’t be. The I has to depend on the body and mind, or on the mind alone. (We make two divisions, body and mind, without talking about the problem of the five aggregates.) Because of these two, the I exists. But the I can’t exist without the mind. This is the I that is beginningless. Until we are enlightened, there will always be a body; at enlightenment we become the pure I.

The self-existent I means an I independent of the aggregates of body and mind. Life is the relationship between body and mind. When these separate, uncontrolled death occurs. The I goes on and experiences death, followed by rebirth, under the control of karma and delusions. As long as mind exists, there is the I. If the mind were to cease, so would the I. This I we know in this life, with this name and this body and all these thoughts, will die with the body, but the consciousness will continue and with it will be this sense of I, arising out of the very subtle mind that takes another life.

There are four kinds of grasping: grasping at sense pleasures, grasping at the wrong view of denying what exists, grasping at the wrong view of holding our own beliefs as superior and grasping at the wrong view of the sense of a self-existent I. Each of the four kinds of grasping causes suffering.

10. BECOMING

Craving, grasping and becoming arise just before the result. We may have to wait eons before a particular group arises at death, and we may have to work off stronger karmas first. For example, humans crave human rebirth but may have to take rebirth in other realms before this is possible. The dying human creates craving, grasping and becoming karmas for a human rebirth. But if they have great negative karma, these three imprints are delayed until just before the next human rebirth. In the meantime, they may have to spend eons in the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms before these imprints ripen, to be followed by the next human rebirth. Becoming is said to be in the nature of the ripening aspect, which means that whereas craving and grasping were imprints, becoming is where the link actualizes into an actual birth.

Alternatively, a person may be attached to peacocks, for instance, and wish they were a peacock, thereby planting the seed for rebirth as a peacock in a future lifetime. At the time of death, the imprint left by the ignorance wanting to become a peacock gets stronger due to karma. As it becomes stronger, due to craving and grasping at the time of death, the person is ready to become a peacock.

11. BIRTH

Past lives leave imprints on the consciousness as a result of the control of karma and delusions, resulting in the aggregates for that physical body. The imprint, which is like a seed, is made stronger by craving and grasping at death, just as elements such as water, heat and so forth make the plant seed stronger and give it greater potential. The seed starting to sprout is equivalent to becoming.

In past times, humans have also been born from eggs and from heat. Many animals are born from heat. Humans can also take spontaneous rebirth, as can hungry ghosts. The rebirths in the god, demigod and hell realms are spontaneous.

12. AGING AND DEATH

[The last link is aging and death. Birth triggers aging but also ensures death. Aging is defined as the aggregates, under the control of karma and delusions, decaying without choice.

We are all in the process of getting old and dying. Within the twelve links of dependent origination, after birth, there is only aging and death. Death is certain; in fact, it is the only certainty in this life. At death, we are separated from our body. That is the simplest definition of death: the separation of mind from body.]

FUTURE KARMIC RESULTS

Consider a person who spends their life killing animals, such as a hunter, a butcher or a soldier. Even though they might look rich, like they are not suffering and are enjoying themselves, it’s definite that they will experience the result of their negative karma in the future unless they try to stop the result before it arises. Unless they try to purify themselves, even the enlightened beings can’t prevent their suffering, even if it has to be experienced for thousands of great eons. This is because the power of the sentient beings’ karma and the power of the enlightened beings are equal. Karma is very strong, so each person has to make their own effort—it can never be cut off by an enlightened being or by God. Unless they do so themselves, they will have to experience many horrible results.

It’s definite that a being who creates so much negative karma yet seems to be enjoying their work does this for only a few years, and it’s definite that in the future their suffering will be greater than their happiness. When we see somebody enjoying wealth and luxury created by nonvirtue, we can’t then conclude that there is no karma. This is a wrong concept, a concept that doesn’t understand the evolution of karma, that doesn’t understand the Dharma. It’s a misconception that can cheat us out of creating positive actions and be influenced by a negative person, destroying our chance of happiness, wasting this and many other future lives.

We may create much good karma in our early life, purifying the mind a great deal, but then follow negative influences so that it becomes obscured again. We can’t trust such a negative life even though it might be enjoyable. It’s so short. We shouldn’t think because we have few apparent problems now that there is no karma or that there will be no suffering results despite having done many negative actions. Our present enjoyments are the positive result of past virtuous actions, but they will only last for a few months or years. Even a hundred years is nothing compared to the vast amount of time we will suffer because of our current negativity.

Nagarjuna’s quotation from Heart of Dependent Arising [WFGS p. 170] gives a complete idea of the evolution of karma and is very useful to know:

The first, eighth, and ninth are delusions,
The second and tenth are karma.
The remaining seven are sufferings.¹

The first, eighth and ninth links of the twelve links refer to ignorance, craving and grasping. The second and tenth are the karmic actions within the twelve links: karmic formation and becoming. All the others are the suffering results: consciousness, name and form, the six sense bases, contact, feeling, birth and aging and death.

The twelve links are involved in each samsaric rebirth. At the present moment, we are experiencing the result of the twelve links of this human life. What has finished for this life? The three causes—ignorance, craving and grasping—and two actions—karmic formation and becoming. Now we are experiencing the seven results. What still has to happen? Death. We are waiting for that. When this occurs, one set of the twelve links will be complete. But there are countless other sets of links happening at the same time. Every action we do triggers another set.

Each samsaric being is in the circle of these twelve links. This can be finished in two or three consecutive lives, but not in one life, or it can be finished over a longer period of time. For example, there can be eons between the cause and the result. We have yet to experience the results of the countless terrible negative karmas we created many eons ago.

How can the twelve links be completed in two lives? Here is an example. In our earlier life, we created the karma to be reborn as a monkey but for the rest of the lifetime we live purely, keeping our vows, purifying our negativities, decreasing our attachment and creating much good karma. This karma is stronger than the monkey karma at the time of death. We desire to be reborn in the upper realms and we have created the positive conditions for another human rebirth. Each time we desired this, this imprint became stronger and stronger, which manifests at the time of death as craving for a human body and grasping to take a human rebirth again. The grasping makes the seed of becoming human stronger. Now, both the two actions and three causes have been completed in this life. Ignorance creates karmic formation—this time creating very positive karma—leaving imprints on the consciousness which leads to craving and grasping as we die, which creates becoming, where we take another human rebirth. These five links are finished at the time of death.

Now, there are seven results left, to be experienced in our next life. Because the becoming link for a human rebirth becomes stronger, right after the time in the intermediate state we take birth as a human being rather than in another realm. This is how the twelve links of the future human life are completed.

But in that previous life, we had created the karma to be reborn a monkey, which is still there as an imprint on our mindstream. The ignorance created the karmic formation that left the imprint, which has remained on the mindstream but which hasn’t yet ripened. But of the twelve links, one cause, ignorance, and one action, karmic formation, have been completed.  The other action, becoming, and the two other causes, craving and grasping, will be completed in a second life unless we either create heavier karma than the monkey karma in this life or we purify that monkey karma and take another upper rebirth. Unless that happens, then in the third life our monkey karma will ripen and we will have to experience a monkey rebirth and complete the seven results then.

Between completing ignorance and karmic formation and craving, grasping and becoming, and the seven results, there may be many eons. In countless previous lives, our ignorance has created many negative karmic formations, but we have still not experienced the craving, grasping and becoming related to them.

Within even one day of this life we are making preparations for another rebirth in the hell realm, in the hungry ghost realm and the animal realm due to the negative actions we habitually do. Our ignorance creates so many karmic formations in this life, with infinitely more nonvirtuous than virtuous. Each one triggers a different twelve links, propelling us toward that kind of rebirth. Hopefully, we are also creating a lot of positive karma propelling us toward another human rebirth.

We might feel pity for the prisoners we read about who are trapped in terrible prisons, but really we are much more imprisoned. There is almost no way to become free from these myriad sets of twelve links that we are constantly creating. Each time we create a set of twelve links, we are further ensnared in the chain. The net we are caught in is our ignorance and the fish that is caught is our future samsaric rebirth. A fish has no choice when it lands in a net; it must end up as somebody’s meal. Whenever we start a set of twelve links, we are that fish waiting to be fried; the seven sets of suffering results are inevitable. The prison of the twelve links is far worse than any material prison. That kind of prison is like being in a house, but samsara is a real prison, a karmic prison. Because it has more to do with the mind, it’s very difficult. Because the karmic prison is created by the mind, it must be eliminated by the mind.

At least in a material prison we can still practice the Dharma. Jailed for whatever reason, we can still meditate and teach the Dharma to other people. But in the samsaric prison of the lower realms, we can’t even have samsaric enjoyments.

We end up in a material prison because we have been caught breaking the law, but this has happened because our mind is habituated to creating nonvirtuous actions. We must endure the material prison because we are trapped in the karmic prison of the twelve links that were started in some previous lifetime. Even in this lifetime, we are creating so many negative karmas that will result in rebirth in the lower realms as well as some positive karmas for an upper rebirth. Constantly starting so many sets of the twelve links, we are really caught in so many other different prisons that we have yet to experience the results for. Unable to escape all these prisons, we have no choice but to spiral through one suffering rebirth after another.

If we were free from the twelve links, we wouldn’t have the suffering body that others could imprison and torture, or the suffering mind. Therefore, the work of getting out of the actual prison created by ignorance is more important than the work of getting out of the ordinary material prison.

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Notes

¹ Quoted in Steps on the Path to Enlightenment, vol. 2, p. 346. [Return to text]