Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind
Page 6
All experience passes: such is the suffering of change.
To think about it deeply brings great sadness welling up.
O beings! You who live in the three cities of existence!
Do not crave the pleasures of saṃsāra;
Accomplish your enlightenment!
9. To body, speech, and mind there correspond
The desire, the form, and formless realms.
In these three cities: manifest, half-manifest, unmanifest,
Beings are tormented by three kinds of suffering:
Of pain, of change, and suffering in the making.
With respect to objects of the senses,
The unfolding of the mind, the intellect, and consciousness33
Produces an unceasing cycle of both pain and pleasure.
10. The consciousness of the universal ground,
The intellect, the five sense consciousnesses
Unfold successively in gradual steps.
From this derives the causal process
Leading to the sorrows of existence.
The root is ignorance: the deluded pairing
Of the apprehender and the apprehended,
Which, through habit, hardens
Into objects, senses, and perceiving mind.
Thus from clinging to an “I” and “mine” saṃsāra is contrived.34
11. The nature of the mind is dharmakāya,
The changeless actual nature.
Because of ignorance and clinging,
And through the habit of imputed nature,
The nature of the mind mistakenly appears
As the impure dependent nature.
Self and other, mind and object, dual appearances—
Are all perceived as separate entities.
From this there come unbidden countless sufferings.
But when the changeless nature of the mind is understood,
Through meditation on the unmistaken actual nature,
The fields of pure dependent nature are attained,
Where one finds respite from the city of saṃsāra.35
12. Alas for the pains of those who tread
With weariness the pathways of existence—
Saṃsāra, vast and shoreless, hard indeed to measure!
Wherever they are born, beings find no happiness at all—
Instead, the fruits unbearable of their nonvirtuous ways.
Their perceptions are all wrong:
The various experiences of the six migrations
Are like the visions of a dream.
They appear and yet are nonexistent.
Beings fail to understand this; thus their pains are boundless.
Listen, for a while,
According to the scriptures, I will speak of them.
13. In the Reviving Hell, upon a ground of burning iron,
Beings meet and fight with weapons to the death.
And then there comes a voice that cries, “Come back to life!”
And they must suffer once again.
Know that this they undergo until their karma’s spent.
14. To calculate their life span, fifty human years
Are as one day in the divine realm of the four Great Kings.
One month is thirty of these days; twelve months make up one year.
Five hundred of these years
Is as one day in the Reviving Hell.
And here the days are added one by one until
Five hundred years have passed—
The time of pain these beings must endure.
The span of life is thus computed,
So the sūtra stipulates,
As ten million human years
Multiplied by one hundred, two and sixty thousand.
15. In Black Line Hell are beings cut apart with burning saws.
Joined together they’re again made whole
And once again they are dismembered:
Great are the pains they undergo.
In the Heaven of the Thirty-Three,
One day is equal to a hundred human years.
And in that heaven, a thousand years
Is but a single day in Black Line Hell,
Whose denizens must live a thousand years.
This corresponds, the Teacher said,
To one million, two hundred six and ninety thousand years and twelve—
All multiplied again by ten million human years.
16. Between cliffs and mountains shaped like horses,
Camels, tigers, lions, and the rest,
The beings in the Crushing Hell are smashed to dust.
And when the mountains separate,
They come to life just as before
But then are pulverized with clubs in valleys made of steel.
Their bodies are completely crushed;
Their blood flows down in streams.
Two hundred human years are as one day
In the heaven of the yāma gods called Free of Conflict,
Two thousand of whose years, so it is said,
Are counted as one day spent in the Crushing Hell,
Where beings endure two thousand of their years.
This comes to ten million times
Three hundred, eight and sixty thousand human years.
17. In the hell called Screaming, the beings wail and cry
As in the blazing fires they burn.
They suffer, boiled in molten steel.
Four hundred human years are as one day
In the heaven called the Joyous, where
Four thousand years are as one day in Screaming Hell,
Where beings are tortured for four thousand years.
One hundred and eighty trillion human years are thus computed,
And to this are superadded nine hundred, four and forty billion years.
18. In Great Screaming, beings are roasted in a blazing fire,
In houses made of incandescent iron,
Where they are bludgeoned by the Lord of Death.
Eight hundred human years are as one day
In the celestial realm Delight in Magical Creations,
Eight thousand of whose years are as one day
In the Great Screaming Hell, where beings must suffer
For eight thousand of their years, which is, in human terms,
Three quadrillion, five hundred, two and fifty trillion,
Six hundred and sixty billion years.
19. In the Hell of Heat, in houses made of burning iron,
Beings have brains and bodies torn and smashed
By spikes and hammers. They burn inside and out
With tongues of blazing fire.
One thousand and six hundred human years
Are equal to a day spent in the heaven called
Mastery of Others’ Emanations, where sixteen thousand years
Are equal to a single day spent in the Hell of Heat,
Where beings must live for sixteen thousand of their years.
This means eighty-four million and one trillion and
Six thousand five hundred and thirty human years,
All multiplied again ten millionfold.
20. In Great Heat, beings are trapped in buildings,
Double-walled, all made of blazing iron.
There they are impaled on tridents with prongs
That pierce through their heads and shoulders.
They’re wrapped in blankets made of burning metal,
Boiled in molten copper.
And in this torment they must live
For half an intermediate kalpa,
Which in human terms exceeds all counting.
One such kalpa is made up of four small kalpas:
Formation, and duration, destruction, and the void.
One great kalpa is made up of eighty intermediate kalpas.36
21. In the Hell of Torment Unsurpassed,
Beings are trapped in buildings made of blazing metal.
Other than their cries and screams,
From the all-engulfing blaze.
Their vital strength is in the middle of the fire
As if adhering to the heart of blazing flame.
This they must endure for one intermediate kalpa.
And since there is no greater suffering than this,
It is described as Torment Unsurpassed without reprieve.
22. The fiery heat and corresponding pains
In each of these hell realms, in order given,
Grow seven times more intense.
And beings have to suffer it until their karma’s spent.
23. The beings who endure the lesser hells
Are isolated or else live in groups both great and small.
They live in various places: mountains, trees, the sky, rocks, fire, or water,
Where they are tormented by a corresponding pain,
And thus these are described as lesser hells.
24. But they are wrong who think that this reflects
A brevity of life or smallness of the gatherings.
For it is said that one who, born in scorpion form
Embedded in a rock, lived long,
While in the lesser hells five hundred beings,
In the form of śrāvakas,
Fought and struck each other with weapons
At the hour of their meals.
25. The sixteen neighboring hells
Are found around the rim of Torment Unsurpassed.
First the trench of burning embers, then the swamp of rotting corpses,
The plain of razors, then the fordless stream of burning ash:
A group of four in all the four directions.
26. When of Torment Unsurpassed the doors appear to open,
Beings escape and rush toward what seems a shady trench.
But then they sink up to their knees in fiery embers.
They cross. Their flesh is burned; their white bones show.
And then they’re healed to suffer all again.
27. They hurry then to what appears a cooling marsh,
But there they sink into a stinking swamp of rotting dead,
Where worms with jaws of gold or steel or copper bite them.
28. And then they see a pleasant plain,
But as they run there, burning razors
Slice their flesh in pieces.
They hasten into pleasant-seeming woods
But are destroyed in groves of sword blades
That lash and flail in winds their deeds have wrought.
29. And then, upon the summit of a pleasant hill,
They see the former object of their passion calling them.
And as they hasten there, sharp metal scalpels cut them;
Flesh and blood drips down.
And when they reach the summit, vultures mash their brains.
They then think that their lovers call them from below.
As they descend, the upward-turning scalpels wound them yet again.
Then, when they have come down,
Those men or women take them in their fiery arms
And with their sharpened fangs cause dreadful pain.
They’re then devoured by packs of dogs and wolves.
30. They see a cool and flowing stream and run there in delight.
In they leap, but sink up to their waists
In fiery ash that burns their flesh and bones.
Upon the banks they see the sentries of the Lord of Death.
This pain they must endure for many a thousand years.
31. Who would not be terrified by hellish torment such as this?
In such existences the pain is past all measuring.
Therefore know and understand!
Find the ways, I beg you, to escape from it!
32. There are eight cold hells where beings are tormented.
In glaciers and dark places of great freezing cold,
Beings are lashed by swirling snowstorms.
They are covered with blisters, bursting blisters.
Their teeth are chattering in the cold;
They cry and they lament.
Their flesh splits open like utpala flowers,
Then like lotuses and then great lotuses,
And in the wounds are worms with jaws of burning iron
That burrow in their flesh, consuming it.
And thus they live until their karma is exhausted.
33. Regarding the life span in these infernal states,
Imagine a large basket filled with sesame,
In all two hundred bushels.
The length of life of beings in the Hell of Blisters
Is the time required to empty the container
Taking but a single grain once every hundred years.
In each successive hell the span of life
Increases twentyfold.
34. Therefore, you, endowed with mind,
In order to obtain complete and utter freedom
From the hellish worlds
Cultivate a strength and diligence of mind!
35. There are pretas living in the depths37
And pretas that can move through space.
Those that live below are vast in size.
Their arms and legs are small and thin, their stomachs cavernous.
Their throats are narrow, their mouths like needle-eyes.
They find no food or drink: great thirst and hunger torment them.
When they see wholesome flowers, plants, and trees,
They dry before their eyes.
Repulsive is their dwelling place, and vomit is their only food.
And even when from far they have a glimpse of food and drink,
It seems as though it’s under guard, forbidden them.
Pretas that have inner defects
Have blazing conflagrations in their stomachs;
Smoke and flames come from their mouths.
Through defects that are shared by all their kind,
Pretas are distressed and poor; they’re fearful and assailed.
Protectorless, they suffer in wild and frightful places.
36. Pretas that can move through space are spirits,
Yakṣas, rakṣasas, the tsen and gyalpo spirits, and more.
They have miraculous powers by virtue of their karma
And can move from place to place without obstruction.
They produce all kinds of harm.
They cause disease and steal the radiance of beings,
Shortening their lives.
Regarding their own length of life,
One human month is as a day for them
And therefore in the worlds of Yama, Lord of Death,
They are tormented for five hundred of their own,
Or fifteen thousand human, years.
37. Seeing with sadness how such beings are,
All those who wish to free themselves
Will cast away all predilection for samsaric life,
And with determined resolution
They will practice holy Dharma leading them to peace.
38. Animals that live down in the depths
Teem everywhere in all the four great oceans.
They prey on one another, and their suffering is endless.
They dwell in the dark oceans that divide the continents.
They are tormented by the heat and cold,
By hunger, thirst, and fear of predators.
There are animals also that live scattered and dispersed,
Like birds and beasts that live in lands where humans dwell.
By hunters they are harmed and live in danger from each other.
Horses, oxen, camels, donkeys, goats, and so forth
Are reduced to slavery.
They’re beaten and must suffer endlessly,
And for their meat and fur and bones they are condemned to death.
Their very nature is unbounded suffering.
For half the day and night, the nāgas may find happin
ess,
But sorrow in the other half.
Their morning’s joy transforms into an afternoon of pain.
Rains of hot sand fall upon the habitats of some.
Some are lonely, friendless, tortured by their poverty.
Mostly they have small intelligence and live in fear of the garuḍas.
A great variety of suffering afflicts them, and their life span is not fixed.
Some live but a day, while some like Takṣaka, their king,
Have lives that last for one entire kalpa.
39. Think of this, O you who wish for freedom
From the state of animals.
To gain your happiness and benefit,
Set out upon the perfect path
That leads to high rebirth and ultimate good.
Day and night, exert yourself in virtue.
40. Even in the case of human beings,
Happiness has no real chance.
Beings suffer torment, mental anguish, conflicts, and the rest.
One suffering has not yet gone
Before another overtakes it.
The suffering of change
Is like consuming food that’s mixed with poison.
Mistaken modes of nourishment and dress that bring disease
Contrive our future pain—
Suffering in the making is thereby exemplified.
To these three kinds of suffering are eight more added:
Birth and aging, sickness, death;
Meeting with adversities
And losing what is pleasant,
To be deprived of what one wants,
To have continuous suffering in one’s aggregates—
All these are sources of an endless sorrow;
From all of them there comes unbounded woe.
41. Nescient consciousness, the wind-mind, gathers
In the parents’ essences and, step by step,
In seven weeks time, a body takes its shape.
From round to long, to oblong shape, “egg-like,”
“Round and flat,” “fish-shaped,” “like a tortoise”—
Thus its form evolves.
The tiniest discomfort that the mother feels,
Of hunger, thirst, of heat or cold,
Afflicts the embryo with bitter pain.
Cramped in narrow, foul, and fetid dark,
It must suffer torments many and unbearable.
From the seventh week and till the twenty-sixth,
The sense organs take shape,
With limbs, and hair, and other parts.
From then until the sixth and thirtieth week,
The body grows in strength, its size increases,