5. The Suffering of the Lower Realms

INTRODUCTION TO THE SUFFERING OF THE LOWER REALMS:

[WFGS pp. 110–18]

The fully renounced mind is essential to the practice of the path, but there are many other realizations that we must gain before our mind is free from attachment, hatred and ignorance and all the other delusions. Compassion is the desire to release other beings from suffering. The ordinary compassion we normally experience is partial, usually directed at friends and those who are close to us. It usually only arises in relation to some overt suffering that somebody is experiencing, some lack of a samsaric pleasure or need. This compassion is limited and is not compassion in the Dharma sense. When somebody is free from this kind of suffering, they only experience more suffering. As opposed to this, the goal of great compassion is to release every sentient being right now from the suffering that they experience due to greed, hatred and ignorance. Great compassion is a pure positive motivation. Milarepa and other great yogis themselves looked poor, ugly and so forth, and people felt compassion for them, but the yogis themselves felt much greater compassion for those ignorant beings.

The buddhas return as ordinary beings and show the suffering of old age and death in order to show us the path, and also to show us the meaninglessness of this worldly life. By emulating having a worldly life and then renouncing it, these great beings show us the purpose of giving up temporal comforts in order to attain enlightenment; they are an example to all sentient beings of how to practice the Dharma and experience its results.

It is very important to follow the laws of karma, to create positive karma and avoid negative karma. If we have no greed, hatred or ignorance, we’ll have no fear. In other words, we’ll have no fear if we have realized the workings of karma to their fullest extent.

Samsara doesn’t refer to a place or an action, like cutting off your hair and taking the robes of a monk. The mind that is under the control of karma and delusions is in samsara. That ignorant mind is also the creator of samsara. This suffering body we have is in samsara. We practice the Dharma with the aim of no longer being under the control of karma and delusions, with the goal of avoiding samsaric actions and ceasing samsara.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha took a human form and led the life of a prince. He then married and renounced worldly life and practiced strict ascetism for six years. After his enlightenment, he gave teachings on the path to beings on various levels of existence. When he manifested passing away, it was in order to teach impermanence to sentient beings. This is the only reason. The actual time of death is indefinite. Even though Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was born as prince in the highest caste of Indian society, it didn’t matter; his life was still lived in the shadow of impermanence. His entire life was only an example for us and for all sentient beings, and his death was also an example meant to demonstrate impermanence to us. Actually, for the Buddha there was no reason to take birth as a prince, lead that life, get married, and then give it all up to seek the truth, make a life of retreat and pass away. Because he was already enlightened, the twelve deeds of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha were only an example for us, as was his attainment of enlightenment.

As a prince, Shakyamuni ventured outside the palace and saw an aged man, a sick person, a dead person, and an ascetic. As a result of these cooperative conditions coming together, he realized what suffering is. He also realized that suffering is continual but that there is a method to eliminate it, and that this method is to control the negative mind through the attainment of the realization of the truth and of the different levels of the path, of which the highest goal is enlightenment. The prince then left home to do retreat. The purpose of all of this was to demonstrate the path to other beings.

When Guru Shakyamuni Buddha spent six years doing the practices of an ascetic, his body became very thin and stiff, like a tree. He passed through many difficulties—including the difficulty of ants making a nest in his ear—all to show us how and why we should practice Dharma, why suffering exists and what causes it.

Before attaining enlightenment, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha took the form of the maras, or evil beings, and manifested a violent fight between himself and them. A million maras fought him with various weapons huge as mountains, and all around them there was a thick fog and lightning. Because the Buddha’s attainment of enlightenment would lead to his complete control over these forces, they didn’t want this to occur, so the great force of maras attempted to destroy him. They came in the form of beautiful, naked women, tempting him with their physical forms but they were unable to break his concentration. They tried many different methods to distract him, but they were unsuccessful. The arrows and weapons they shot at him were transformed into flowers by the power of his concentrated mind and his infinite love and compassion. Later, these same beings received teachings from Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and deeply regretted their previous actions.

By this example, we see that all suffering is only a creation of the mind. Just as it is created by the mind, it can be controlled by the mind. The maras, which are really the delusions, tempted Guru Shakyamuni Buddha in order to demonstrate this to sentient beings. All suffering can be controlled by the mind without the need for a single movement. All the power of the universe is unequal to the power of the Buddha’s great love and the realizations he achieved as a result of controlling his own negative mind. It’s not necessary to control the maras by external means, for they can’t disturb us unless our mind lets them.

It’s insufficient to think that the Mahayana refers just to the teachings of the Buddha. The Mahayana is actually the practice of those teachings done in the mind of the person who has heard them. The mind must be positive. We should think that we have received this perfect human rebirth, which is highly meaningful, especially right at this minute, as we have the chance to listen to the teachings on the nature of suffering, the nature of happiness and the cause of both.

Because we desire happiness, we should desire to use this highly meaningful perfect human rebirth to attain higher realizations. We must work diligently now, because this perfect human rebirth is very difficult to find and it is also extremely fragile, like a water bubble in the wind.

If our life ended at this moment, it’s much more likely that we would be reborn in the three lower suffering realms. But even rebirth in the three upper realms is still rebirth in samsara. We should think that although we must release ourselves from this, that alone is not enough. Because we are exactly equal to all living beings, we must work for their sakes and help them to be free from their suffering. And while we have a guide to show us the teachings, we have the chance to help other sentient beings. But now we have no power, so we must achieve enlightenment in order to be able to do this. We receive anything that we desire from other sentient beings. They are the source. Therefore, to bring this about, we must complete the realizations by listening to the teachings and practicing on the graduated path.

In order to realize the truth of the suffering of the three lower realms, we must fully see the sufferings that exist there. However, at the moment we have no power to perceive these things directly, and therefore we should try to experience those realms through our practice, using the examples shown in the teachings. In this way we can gain the power to see this suffering clearly in our minds.

Even at this moment, most beings are suffering in the three lower realms, especially in the hell realm. Their suffering has not been created by God or fixed by some other being. It’s only a creation of those suffering beings’ minds, just as in a dream we may sometimes suffer in a fire, or from all kinds of fearful persons or demons fighting and terrifying us. In the same way that these fearful dreams and visions are the creation of our deluded mind, the suffering and the realms of the hell beings and so forth are the creation of those beings’ ignorant minds.

However, the hell realm is not the same as a dream, but the karmic creation of the ignorant mind. This is similar to the way that one place can be seen differently by two different people, one seeing a clean place while the other person sees a dirty place. Or how with one container of liquid, a human may see a cup of water while a god sees nectar and a hungry ghost sees pus. Although the object is the same, the view varies according to the level of mind and the karma the being has created. As the mind reaches higher levels, the enjoyments and the visions change, and the awareness and happiness that we experience increases more and more.

Each living beings’ samsara is a creation of that mind; each living being’s enlightenment is also a mental creation. In a dim room lit by a small candle with a flickering flame, a person may see what they think is a fearful moving animal or demon and become afraid, perhaps throwing something at it. This problem is only the creation of that person’s mind. The person with a calm, relaxed mind, on the other hand, will see what is actually there clearly. All experiences are created by the mind, and similarly the suffering of the hell being is merely the creation of the suffering being’s mind. Therefore, whether we experience suffering in a suffering realm or the perfect peace of enlightenment depends upon how we develop our mind.

Shantideva says,

[5:7] Who intentionally created
All the weapons for those in hell?
Who created the burning iron ground?
From where did all the women (in hell) ensue?

The Buddha says,

No one has arranged the thousands of ways of suffering but one’s own evil mind.

If we are even afraid of paintings of the three lower realms that depict the subjects suffering in different ways, why shouldn’t we fear the actual suffering? If we are afraid of even the trivial physical sufferings that we sometimes experience, why shouldn’t we fear the greater sufferings that exist in the lower realms? The only reason we aren’t terrified is because we can’t remember the beginningless times we suffered in those realms before, due to the intervention of death and rebirth, and to ignorance. We’ve even forgotten the sufferings from the earlier parts of our life, so of course we don’t remember the suffering of those countless past lives when we were born as these sentient beings. That means we haven’t yet achieved the complete cessation of suffering. We need the practice of the Dharma to stop the cause of suffering.

The main purpose of meditation on the hell realm or the hungry ghost realm is to give us a clearer idea. In the case of the animal realm, the realm we can see, we should put ourselves in the place of the animals and look at their sufferings. Think about the pigs killed in India, for example. They are put in a sack and stuck in the heart with sharpened bamboo poles, and they scream horribly. Fish are sliced up while they are still alive, maggots are fried alive to be used like popped rice as a Chinese delicacy at big parties. These beings are also sentient beings with mind. Animals have much less freedom than we do. We treat them like they are vegetables, but whoever has a mind has suffering.

We have to renounce all attachment by seeing its faults rather than running to it, which is what brings samsaric suffering. We have to realize that samsaric happiness is in the nature of suffering. Until we do this, it will be absolutely impossible to escape from samsara.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha always tried to show the nature of suffering. He used the example of flowers to show the nature of impermanence, that samsaric happiness is in the nature of suffering, to encourage us to not deceive ourselves by being attached to things. It’s very important to have a deep understanding of suffering. In order to succeed in our Mahayana practice quickly, it’s vital that we develop bodhicitta supported by great compassion and great loving kindness. Without the understanding of the true nature of the suffering that other beings experience, there’s no way to generate great compassion or great loving kindness, and therefore there’s no way to generate bodhicitta and become a bodhisattva.

First, we should gain a deep understanding of our own experience of samsaric suffering and feel that this suffering is unbearable. Then, as we feel this, we should also consider the suffering of others and think that their suffering is equally unbearable. As a result of this, feeling terrified of our own future suffering, we can then develop great compassion for other beings.

When we realize our own suffering is unbearable, we naturally develop aversion for creating the causes of suffering, such as attachment, hatred and ignorance. Even a king can be a suffering person. People had compassion for Milarepa based purely on seeing his external form—his poor clothes and so forth—without understanding the level of realizations he had in his mind. Many people practice austerities in order to further develop their Dharma practice and purify their delusions. The partial compassion we feel for those in pain that excludes those in seemingly good situations is incorrect compassion.

We shouldn’t feel that somebody is suffering only because they are lazy, that they aren’t working hard enough. Not only should we feel that the pain of sentient beings is unbearable, but we should also feel that the fact that they possess the negative minds of greed, hatred and ignorance is unbearable as well. The best result we can have from this practice is to feel that it’s unbearable that sentient beings possess negative minds.

To develop bodhicitta, we must first understand that our own negative mind is suffering, feeling this to be unbearable. Once we feel this, it will be that much easier to feel the same in relation to the suffering of other sentient beings. Without it, it’s impossible to feel compassion for others. The clearer we are able to ascertain our own suffering, the clearer in turn we will be able to ascertain the suffering of others. For example, if we were to eat some food that made us sick, we would naturally try to stop the next person from experiencing the same trouble. Because we have experienced it already, we recognize it, and if we see another person doing the same thing, as a result of our own experience, we will understand how much the other person could suffer.

Seeing other beings’ suffering doesn’t mean seeing only the gross results. Since we don’t remember our own experiences of the lower realms, when we meditate like this, we can see more clearly how other beings are suffering. The more we see their suffering, the stronger will be the great compassion, great loving kindness and bodhicitta that we develop.

The main purpose of meditating on suffering is to create energy. When we meditate on suffering, we feel fear, although the purpose of the meditation is to actually stop the fear of the three lower realms and the fear of death. If we are afraid at the time of death, of death and of the three lower realms, that will only cause more suffering and will not help our situation at all. However, experiencing fear now by trying to see the subject more and more clearly, we will certainly develop the determination to control our mind in order to stop future samsaric suffering and to attain enlightenment.

In order to surmount the mental difficulties of greed, hatred and ignorance, we need the energy-fuel that will help us to overcome all these disturbances and strongly develop our practice. Usually, we are afraid because we might lose some worldly possession, something we are attached to. This is negative fear and does us no good. Positive fear is less common. Positive fear is the kind of fear that will lead us out of our ignorance and out of future suffering.

Continuing to create negative karma has no end. Problems in samsara have no end. But this meditation gives us the understanding of karma and stops the negative mind from arising, which in turn stops the creation of negative actions and suffering results. The purification of past negative karmas and prevention of future ones will end the continuity of ignorance and suffering and end our cycling through the six realms of death and rebirth. Therefore, we should keep meditating on this until we have overcome our problems and ceased our suffering, in fact until we have reached enlightenment. Then, there is no longer any need.

It has been proven that this meditation helps a great deal; it’s like the best medicine. We should always keep in mind that we could easily be reborn into one of these lower realms.

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[4:23–24] So if, when having found leisure such as this,
I do not attune myself to what is wholesome,
There could be no greater deception,
And there could be no greater folly.

And if, having understood this,
I still foolishly continue to be slothful,
When the hour of death arrives,
Tremendous grief will rear its head.

Shantideva means that even though we have the ability as a human being to see the difference between positive and negative karma and to understand the terrible suffering of the three lower realms, our lazy mind can still lead us back to the hell realm as if on purpose. We should investigate to see why we can still even contemplate creating negative karma when such fearful suffering awaits. Nothing can cause more harm than the negative mind; it’s far more dangerous than the most fearsome external objects, such as snakes, scorpions and so forth. Although formless, it has the power to inflict the most awful pain. This internal danger is far greater than any external danger, alive or not. And conversely, without this internal thorn, we can’t be harmed by external thorns.

Generally speaking, we want to develop full confidence before our death that we won’t be reborn in the three lower realms of suffering. However, if we don’t understand how terrible those sufferings are, we will never develop fear of them and we won’t be strongly inspired to only create positive karma. Meditation on these topics shows us how great the suffering of these realms is. By giving us confidence in our understanding of karma, it protects us from creating negative karma and therefore from rebirth in the suffering realms. And, as we have neither the power to remember our past sufferings nor the power to see those of the future, we must depend on the teachings of the Buddha to show us.

THE HELL REALM

[WFGS pp 110–114]

Hell is created only by our own negative mind, not by God, our parents, or anyone else. Everything that we perceive is actually a creation of our own mind. This is true for humans, animals, insects and so forth. For instance, different people may perceive the same painting as good or bad, as beautiful or ugly, and yet the object is the same. This is because different karma is ripening for each of us, so we all see things differently. As our negative mind arises, our view changes. A friend who is loved may begin to annoy us, we get angry, and then we no longer see that friend as beautiful or desirable.

The bodhisattva has a well-trained, positive mind. With their great love, they even see the beings who harm them physically or verbally as beautiful. They see these beings as kind, as beneficial, as precious jewels. They see the harmful being with equanimity. To the bodhisattva, they are equally as precious as the one who helps them by giving them food and offerings. This view is not self-existent or intuitive, it’s only a creation of the bodhisattva’s holy mind, and has been brought about as a result of the thought transformation practice. Before such training, the bodhisattva, too, had an ordinary view. But as the mind develops, the view changes and the problems between the subject and object diminish.

In contrast, with our present negative mind, we not only hate the enemy that harms us but also their friends, relatives, possessions and so forth, even though these things have nothing to do with the enemy’s body or mind. We see their things as ugly, although they are not necessarily so in and of themselves. However, if we can do as the bodhisattva does, through mental development we can bring perfect peace to our own mind.

In the hell realm the mind creates its own form, similar to the way it does in the intermediate state. The hell being has a huge body covered with skin the texture of balloon rubber that is incredibly sensitive and feels the greatest suffering at any touch. This is a karmic result, just as what we experience in our life is a karmic result, such as living in uncomfortable, dangerous places.

THE HUNGRY GHOST REALM

[WFGS pp. 114–15]

Beings of the hungry ghost realm experience three types of obscurations. The first is the inner obscuration, which means that their karma is such that it takes them hundreds of years to find water, although they are very thirsty, and when they do find it, they have to sip it through mouths that are as tiny as the eye of a needle. In their mouths, the water usually dries to poison before it reaches the stomach. If it does reach the stomach it burns, like drops of petrol on red-hot ground. The inner obscuration is such that whenever hungry ghosts find something that would ordinarily relieve their suffering, it only brings greater misery.

The second obscuration is the obscuration of food and drink. This means that when a hungry ghost sees food and runs toward it, it changes, bringing them great disappointment.

The outer obscuration is such that they are chased away from food and drink by protectors.

When we think about these realms, we should visualize beyond the words. This has a positive effect on the mind. Understanding the suffering of these realms inspires great energy to avoid negative karma and will cause our negative mind to arise less easily.

Some places where hungry ghosts reside can be seen but not others. Some Tibetan lamas of the past could see these beings on the roads or in the monasteries, and when they did so they made offerings of food and prayers. In some places in India hungry ghosts can be seen in the form of a moving light at night, but nobody can ever get close to them. Hungry ghosts can see us but most of us can’t see them. To the hungry ghosts, we look very strong and powerful.

Some hungry ghosts have a human shape but suffer a great deal because they have tiny legs and skinny necks. They are so miserly that they fight over a piece of spit like dogs over a scrap of food, and when they get it, they hold onto it for eons.

THE ANIMAL REALM

[WFGS pp. 115–18]

Now consider the feelings of a being suffering in the animal realm. An animal’s place is not definite; they live all over, in the ocean, on the earth, in the air.

Animals are dumb and ignorant. Although these are the general sufferings of the beings in the animal realms, for each animal there are also specific sufferings. For example, in winter when it is very cold, we keep warm with as many clothes as we like. We have comfortable beds, warm bodies, a room inside a warm house, doors that close, a fireplace and hot food and tea. There is so much we can do to try to keep warm. Most animals, however, have no house; instead they are exposed to the wind without choice, and to rain, hail and snow. In addition, they live with incredible fear. A strong wind can destroy a bird’s nest and kill her babies, for example, and for most animals there is a big danger of being killed by others. They are forced to hunt and search for their own food. They can’t speak of their suffering and they have no money to pay to stop it.

We should investigate the details of the specific sufferings that each animal experiences.

In addition to these, animals experience the suffering of having no choice or freedom. Think of a cow with a rope tied around its neck being led to the slaughter and killed for money. For us, a small amount of skin loss or a slight headache can be a problem. But compare these to the things that happen to an animal. Animals can’t express their problems, have no medicine and generally experience great suffering.

There are all sorts of ways that animals are slaughtered. Some are cooked alive in oil; others are pulled from the sea with a hook in their mouths. Others are suffocated or sliced like vegetables while still alive. Maggots are fried alive. In some places, people cut off a piece of a turtle to eat, wait until it grows back and then cut it off again. A human being going off to fight in a war can be compared to an animal.