Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind
Page 7
And at length it quickens in the womb.
Then through the tightly fettered structure of the mother’s bones,
The baby is brought forth.
Its body is upended by the action of the karmic wind
And, close to death, it must endure a pain
Like that felt in the Crushing Hell.
And once it has been born,
All contact for the baby is like being flayed alive.
When washed it feels like razors slicing through a boil.
42. The sorrows of old age indeed are very hard to bear.
Your youth is gone, your body, now repulsive in the eyes of all,
Is powerless to stand or stoop but needs a stick supporting it;
Its heat declines and food is indigestible.
Your strength is gone,
It’s hard for you to move around, to walk or stand.
You wrench your joints in failing to attain your goal.
Your faculties decline.
With dim and bleary eyes, you do not see.
Sounds and words you do not hear, and tastes and smells escape you.
Dull and muffled is your sense of touch.
Your memory is but a blur.
You sink into a slumber of confusion.
You take no joy in things wherein you find but little good,
And food and other pleasures now repel.
Your life force ebbs away, and death hangs over you—
Your mind is agitated now with fear and dread.
You have no strength of patience, like a child,
Unable to put up with hardship.
And quickly you are gone,
A flame that went out when the oil was spent.
43. The sufferings of illness are extremely hard to bear.
The body’s constitution changes, bringing torment to the mind.
The objects of the senses give no joy.
Instead there comes the anguish of the fear of death.
You weep with sorrows more than you can bear.
44. Even greater torment is the bitterness of death.
The moment comes for your last meal,
The last clothes that you wear, the last words that you speak.
You lie on your last bed and leave behind
Your life, your body, relatives and friends,
Your servants and retainers, all that you possess.
Alone you go in fear you know not where.
45. Then there is the suffering of meeting with adversity:
The anguish caused by fear, by injury and dreadful situations.
Sorrow, weeping, and distress derive
From losing those you love and cherish.
You suffer as you long for them, remembering their qualities.
And then there is the pain of being deprived of what you want.
The failure to attain your goals brings anguish to your mind.
And desperate in your poverty,
You’re like a preta hungering for food and drink.
46. Form, feelings, and perceptions,
Conditioning factors, consciousness:
These are the five skandhas that perpetuate saṃsāra.
Because they are defiled, the teachings say,
They are the place of all our suffering,
Its source, its basis, its receptacle.38
47. Everything therefore within this human world
Is suffering, in form of cause or fruit.
Thus there’s no real happiness.
To free yourself, reflect upon the perfect Dharma.
This, I urge you, is the means of liberation from saṃsāra.
48. And for asuras too, contentment has no chance.
They are caught up in enmity and pointless strife.
Their envy of the glory of the gods is unendurable;
They suffer countless pains, I tell you, in their wars.
Therefore practice Dharma that with all speed
Sets beings free in states of peace and happiness.
49. Even in the spheres of the desire-realm gods
Boundless suffering is found.
At death they fall down
From the drunken haze of carefree pleasure.
Their garlands fade
And on their thrones they find no ease.
Abandoned by their friends, they fear their future destiny:
For seven of their days, their state is unendurable.
50. In the Pure and other heavens of the realm of form,
The gods rest in samādhi.
When their former karma is exhausted,
Down they fall to lower states.
Thus they are tormented by the suffering of change.
In the formless realms, the gods that are in calm abiding
Undergo the exhaustion of their karma
And assume their next existence.
They have suffering in the making.
And therefore, even though you gain high status in saṃsāra,
You should not rely on it.
Achieve your liberation therefore, you who are so fortunate!
All those who are attached to pleasures of saṃsāra
Are tortured by their craving
As though they foundered in a trench of fire.
51. Your liberation thus depends on you.
The Teacher of both gods and humankind
Has shown to us the means.
No one else can save you through their sudden intervention,
Just as no one can prevent your dreams
When you are dazed in sleep.
If this indeed were possible,
The blissful buddhas and their offspring
Would indeed have emptied all saṃsāra
With the rays of their compassion.
Therefore you must don the armor of your diligence:
The time has come—exert yourself ascending freedom’s path.
52. You must reflect that sinful beings like yourself,
Who have not been the object of the healing action
Of unnumbered buddhas of the past,
Must wander in the wilderlands:
The pathways of existence.
And if, as in the past, you fail to make an effort,
You will suffer in the six realms of saṃsāra
Time and time again.
53. The sorrows of saṃsāra are like space unbounded,
Like fire they are unbearable,
As various as the objects that appear.
Simply to submit to them, O mind, is abject and unfitting.
How can the compassion of the buddhas
Enter those bereft of conscience, care, or sense of decency?
Enlightened action, working skillfully, is called forth, it is said,
By the good karmic state of those who might be trained.
Admit therefore your faults,
And from your heart reflect upon the sorrows of existence.
To free yourself and others from saṃsāra,
Set out and climb the perfect path that leads to peace.
54. If now you cannot bear the least discomfort,
How can you withstand the dreadful sorrows of existence?
If when it’s explained you are not moved to sadness,
Your heart inert like iron or a piece of stone,
It’s clear you have no mind at all!
55. The aggregates that harbor all the sorrows
Of saṃsāra so unbearable
Are sources of defilements, root and branch, of every kind.
What people with intelligence would let their cravings grow?
Act swiftly! Triumph over your existence in saṃsāra!
56. May the Dharma feast, the source of happiness,
Sustain with joy all those who dwell
In the three cities of existence.
Exhausted by so many sorrows,
May their minds today find rest.
4. THE KARMIC LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
1. Exi
stential states both high and low
With all their joys and sorrows
Come, the Sage has said, from acts accomplished in the past.
Actions that compound saṃsāra are of two kinds, white and black.
They have the nature of the virtues and nonvirtues, ten and ten.
2. Their basis is the undetermined universal ground,39
Mirrorlike, devoid of all cognition,
Upon which lies a consciousness.
This consciousness is limpid,
And yet objects it does not discern.
It creates a ground for manifesting.
It is like a clear, untarnished mirror.
Thence emerge the five sense consciousnesses
Whereby objects, form and other things,
Are grasped without conception.
They are like images reflected in a glass.
But then cognitions follow,
Dividing apprehender from the apprehended.
And thus continually there’s apprehension and nonapprehension,
Conceptualization and nonconceptualization.
These cognitions are defiled mind and the mental consciousness.
3. Virtue and nonvirtue that derive
From coarse thoughts of attachment—
Of these is the desire realm made,
Based upon the universal ground of the habitual tendencies.
Without discernment, clear appearance makes the realm of form,
While the formless realm is based
Upon the habitual state that is completely blank.40
Saṃsāra is at all times based upon the twofold adventitious veil.
4. When the mind rests open, blank,
Utterly without the apprehension of appearing objects,
This is the moment of the universal ground.
Then, when there is a clear appearance
To which there is no grasping,
This is the consciousness of the universal ground.
It is bright and clear and motionless.
When, through the duality of apprehender-apprehended
With the wanting and rejection of the objects of the five sense doors,
The seven “gatherings” perceive sense objects generally,
One speaks of seven consciousnesses.41
Through strong habituation to them,
Our body, speech, and mind go erring
Into the three worlds, compounding sorrow.
5. Paramount in the desire realm
Are the seven consciousnesses,
While in the realm of form,
It is consciousness of the universal ground,
And in the formless realm,
It is the universal ground bereft of all cognition.
It should be understood that,
While in each realm one of these predominates,
The other two are latent as its retinue.
6. Thus, when beings in the desire realm fall asleep,
The five sense consciousnesses, step by step,
Dissolve into the mental consciousness.
As this subsides into the universal ground,
There is a state that is completely blank,
An absence of appearing objects.
This dissolves into the dharmadhātu
That transcends conceptual elaboration.
Thence unfolding, there again arises
From the consciousness of the universal ground
A single mental consciousness: the dreaming mind.
This causes the appearance of fictive things without existence,
Which are wanted or rejected.
Through further evolution, as one wakes from sleep,
The six sense consciousnesses,
In engagement with their objects,
Then give rise to karmic action.
And thus this sequence manifests
Continuously, day and night.42
7. On the different levels of the realm of form,43
The minds of beings are in the four samādhis,
Remaining in the consciousness of the universal ground.
From this a subtle consciousness may at times arise
Whereby objects are detected.
But the mind will mostly rest in stillness
Through the habit gained of concentration.
8. On the different levels of the formless realm,44
The mind is in the state of universal ground.
In Boundless Space and the remaining three,
It stays one-pointedly in calm abiding.
The mind’s continua, supported by the four “name aggregates”—
Extremely subtle feeling and perception,
Conditioning factors, consciousness—
Do not awake from single-pointed calm abiding
For an entire kalpa
And plant no seeds of virtue and discernment.
9. The resting of the mind in the samādhis
And absorptions without form
Is the result of former deeds.
When these come to exhaustion,
The mind must transmigrate.
Now since this mind is indeterminate,
Because it’s in a state of ignorance,
It’s ever and again productive
Of misguided karmic sequences, in cause and fruit,
In the samsaric world.
Therefore free yourself from all such states of mind.
10. Therefore the desire-realm mind,
Through that to which it has grown used,
Supplies the cause of rebirth, high or low,
And indeed of liberation.
11. By day, the seven consciousnesses dominate.
The other two,45 the same in nature, are their retinue.
This means that, in the case of visual consciousness
That apprehends a form,
The aspect of its thought-free clarity
Is the universal ground consciousness,
While the aspect of no-thought
Is the universal ground itself.
It should be understood that,
For the six remaining consciousnesses,
It is just the same.
12. Respectively, in times of deep sleep, dream, and waking
Are, first, the universal ground;
Then, second, the universal ground consciousness
Together with the mental consciousness;
Then, third, the six sense consciousnesses.
Therefore, these three periods are successively referred to
As the times of one; of two and one;
And of all that have a single nature.46
13. Based upon the mind,
All actions have their roots in ignorance
Concomitant with craving, hatred, and confusion.
From this are generated actions white and black,
Which in their turn compound saṃsāra.
14. Nonvirtue makes one fall
From high to low samsaric states.
When differentiated it is tenfold,
Classified as three of body, four of speech, and three of mind.
15. The act of killing is to put to death
A living being, intentionally, without mistaking the identity.
And similar to this are all aggressive actions,
Beating, striking, and so on, whereby beings are assaulted.
The act of taking what has not been given
Is to steal another’s property, and similar to this
Is the acquisition through deceit of others’ goods.
Sexual misconduct is to have relations
With one who is committed to another, and similar to this
Are all improper modes of intercourse.
16. Lying means to utter falsehood which,
When understood, effects a change in someone else’s mind.
And similar to this is speaking truth in order to deceive.
Divisive speech is saying things that bring estrangement,
And like this is repeating others’ words to create discord.
Worthless chatter is to talk about unwholesome texts and fooleries,
And this includes light, careless conversation
Unrelated to the Dharma.
Harsh speech is violent words that pierce the heart,
And similar to this is sweet talk that brings misery to others.
17. Covetousness is not to tolerate the wealth of others
And the wish to have it for oneself,
And like this is to want another’s glory: erudition and the like.
Malice is to hate and wish harm to another,
And similar to this is angrily refusing to give help.
Wrong view is to believe in permanence or nihilism
And to disbelieve the karmic law.
Similar is every kind of false ascription and denial.
18. According to their object,
And one’s evil motive, attitude, and conduct,
The ten nonvirtues bring forth four effects:
Fully ripened, similar to cause,
Proliferating, and conditioning.
19. The ten nonvirtues small in their intensity
Will ripen fully in the sorrows of the realm of animals.
Those of moderate intensity will ripen fully
In the sorrows of the pretas.
Those of great intensity will bring about the pains of hell.
20. There are two effects resembling their cause.
The first is to be born with the proclivity
To do again what one has done.
This is said to be the active consequence resembling its cause.
And then, although a higher birth may be achieved,
One’s life is short and dogged by many ills.
One has no wealth, and what one has
Is shared in common with one’s enemies.
One’s spouse is unattractive and becomes an enemy.
Much abused, one is deceived by others.
The servants and associates are unruly and recalcitrant.
All one hears are jarring sounds that tend to words of argument.
What one says has little weight, and one has no self-confidence.
One has no contentment and one’s wants increase.
One does not seek out what is beneficial,
And others are a source of harm.
One’s views are wrong and likely one is tricked.
For each one of the ten nonvirtues,
These results, the teachings say, are, two by two:
The passive consequence resembling its cause.
21. The conditioning effect of actions ripens as the outer world.