Given during a formal lecture with some members of the temple
by Khenpo Tashi
The Purpose
In the past, when the listeners hear these kinds of teachings, they feel, “oh!!” with their minds changing. That is the purpose of these kinds of teachings (the Four Mind Turnings). But for you, I don’t know. Do you feel that? Do you see your mind changing? Do you feel that you should do something after hearing these teachings?
The four mind turnings are like a key. At least, apply it to yourself. That is important. How much does it help to change your mind? How much does it encourage you to practice Dharma?
If there is no change, then, the teaching you have listened to or received remains in the book. One’s mind and the teaching remain separate.
The Topic of Samsara
Now, going to the topic. This topic, in fact, does not need explaining it all. You know this already! You have been suffering. You have enough of the sufferings. You suffer sickness. You are afraid of loss, of something that will harm you, of hunger, of not having enough, of cold, of heat, of dirt.
Everything that you don’t want, you want to eliminate. Every day and night we are preoccupied with this. But our works removing them are never finished! Up to now, the sufferings just keep coming! Up to now, we are still afraid, still working hard to drive them away.
For some, they are nearing the end of their life. One thing they don’t want is coming. For others, when they hear the news, something bad is happening again. A new disease from the US or from Africa is coming. Something terrible is coming again! Our mind is like a zoo. That is why, I don’t really need to explain about Samsara.
We should say, “Yah, this Samsara I know! What is the solution? What is the way out of this Samsara? I have gotten enough suffering.” You must think like this. But, what is pitiful is that we don’t know that the place that we are staying is really a place of suffering.
Lack of Conviction in the Buddha
Normally, one problem is, we don’t believe enough in the Buddha’s teachings. We are Buddhists but our belief is still not enough. I don’t mean ‘blind belief’. I mean, reasoned explanation for the Buddha’s teachings.
The Buddha’s teachings are really reliable, reasonable, fully applicable, up to now. But we are not certain about the Buddha’s teachings for ourselves.
Endless Past Lives
As for the meaning of Samsara and escape from Samsara, we must think, “How long really are our past lives?” If we count, how many past lives have we had to have all sentient beings as our mothers?
Count, count, count those past lives. It is said that if one past life is the size of a juniper, all these junipers can fill up this whole earth, but still that number of junipers is not enough to count all of our past lives.
That is why, we normally say, “beginningless past lives”.
Then, how much negative Karma have we gathered in each of those past lives? Say, we heard that this Buddhist practice can clean so much negative Karma. Then, we practice diligently for one day, and we stop tomorrow, expecting that tomorrow, we will already gain some change or extraordinary power.
But we find that we don’t see any change. Then, we doubt. There seems to be a contradiction there between that Buddhist practice and its result, right?
We must try to think about the long, long, long past lives we had. Then, we will have less doubts in the Buddhist practice that we are doing.
Buddhism As Profound Antidote
Don’t think that Buddhism is very simple. It is profound. Why profound and special? It is a way to eliminate Samsara and achieve Liberation. But to achieve Liberation and eliminate Samsara’s cause, our bad Karma, we cannot do this within a short time. That is not enough time.
Normally, the antidote must be much stronger than what it is trying to remove. Buddha’s teaching is profound because to remove the cause of Samsara is not easy at all. Samsara’s causes, our negative Karma, are very strong.
Because Buddhism is stronger than Samsara’s causes, that is why the antidote, Buddhism, is said to be strong, profound, special and vast.
Another classic example of our beginningless lives is that, if ever we picked up and gathered all the insect bodies that we have had in previous lives, these tiny, tiny bodies will pile up to be like Mt Meru, a very big mountain.
If we count those bodies of large animals, whales, human bodies, hungry ghost bodies, hell beings, demi-god bodies that we had before, probably it will add up to double or triple size of that mountain.
Hindrance: Wanting Instant Results
We have been born so many times in Samsara! This tells us to be steady with Buddhist practice. Otherwise, if we just do some practice and we already feel satisfied, thinking, “maybe this is enough”, then that is not in accord with the Buddha’s teachings.
One thing is because we want instant results. But proper Buddhist result is not easy to achieve, due to these many negative Karma as hindrances or obstacles.
Then, if we ever engage in (Buddhist) practice, we can barely do them right, due to the many distractions from our worldly or secular thinking and actions. Thus, the quality of our practice is normally only ordinary or so-so. This is simply due to the limitless lives we had in Samsara, and the great amount of negative Karma that we have kept with us.
Samsara: The Three Sufferings At A Glance
Suffering of Suffering
This is everyday suffering. Everyday we are busy, for the reason that we want to protect ourselves from this kind of suffering. These are all the forms of pains – mental, emotional and physical – that we experience continuously.
Suffering of Change
Healthy today, sickness tomorrow. Today we are alive, tomorrow we don’t know. Today we are comfortable, tomorrow we don’t know. Between morning and afternoon is also unpredictable. For example, earthquake. An hour before the earthquake, everybody is just enjoying, drinking coffee, playing their cellphones, talking. Then, the big problem comes.
Suffering of Conditioned Existence
Last time, I mentioned about our own five aggregates*. We have these, so we always suffer. We always have to take care of these. They are very changeable. They are easy to get problems. These aggregates are produced by our negative Karmas.
That is why, we say, Samsara is within ourselves, found in these five aggregates of ours.
Then, sickness, old age and death. I will just mention these three quickly, because you already know these. For these, only high practitioners can escape these. For us, we are stuck with them.
Final Reminder
Please don’t think of these as just some number or lesson or topic. We really have these sufferings. Think of them deeply, that we encounter all these kinds of sufferings. Daily, think, “How much problems do I have, even within one day?” That is the way to make full use of this topic – Dangers of Samsara.
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*five aggregates – form, feeling, thoughts, formations and consciousness, which makes up the individual