by Dalai Lama
23. Great Fruit (Bṛhatphala)
22. Increasing Merit (Puṇyaprasava) 14
21. Cloudless (Anabhraka)
Ordinary beings are born in these three dhyānas by the invariable karma of having previously attained that state of concentration.
Third Dhyāna (Tṛtīyadhyāna)
20. Devas of Refulgent Glory (Śubhakṛtsna)15
19. Devas of Measureless Glory (Apramāṇaśubha)
18. Devas of Limited Glory (Parīttaśubha)
Ordinary beings are born in the third dhyāna by the invariable karma of having previously attained that state of concentration.
Second Dhyāna (Dvitīyadhyāna)
17. Devas of Total Radiance (Ābhāsvara)
16. Devas of Limitless Radiance (Apramāṇābha)
15. Devas of Limited Radiance (Parīttābha)
These beings are born in the second dhyāna by the invariable karma of having previously attained that state of concentration.
First Dhyāna (Prathamadhyāna)
14. Great Brahmā (Mahābrahmā). Great Brahmā, who mistakenly considers himself the creator of the universe, dwells here.
13. Ministers of Brahmā (In Front of Brahmā, Brahmapurohita)
12. Retinue of Brahmā (Brahmā Type, Brahmakāyika)
These beings are born in the first dhyāna by the invariable karma of having previously attained that state of concentration.
The four dhyānas of the form realm differ in terms of the mental factors that accompany them.16 The four formless absorptions differ in terms of their object. The depth of concentration increases as one ascends these eight meditative absorptions.
Only āryas who are not yet free from saṃsāra are born in the five pure abodes in the fourth dhyāna, although after nonreturners become arhats they dwell there until attaining final nirvāṇa. The cause for rebirth there is the cultivation of alternating concentrations. This is a practice done by āryas, which involves first entering an unpolluted fourth dhyāna, then a polluted dhyāna, followed by another unpolluted dhyāna. This is extremely difficult to do, and the number of times a yogi can go back and forth between unpolluted and polluted dhyānas determines which pure abode he or she will be born in. Āryas who have attained liberation do these meditations to distance themselves from afflictions even more and to experience bliss in this life.
Śrāvakas who are nonreturners take rebirth in the five pure abodes to experience the specific bliss of the pure abodes. Ārya solitary realizers are not born there because they pray in their last life to be born where there is no buddha. Ārya bodhisattvas are born in the pure abodes to benefit the śrāvaka arhats there by encouraging them to enter the bodhisattva path after they arise from their blissful meditation in nirvāṇa.
The five pure abodes are saṃsāric realms. These differ from both nirmāṇakāya (emanation body) pure lands — such as Amitābha Buddha’s pure land Sukhāvatī and Akṣobhya Buddha’s pure land Abhirati — and enjoyment body (saṃbhogakāya) pure lands, which are not saṃsāric realms. Several places have the name Akaniṣṭha. The Akaniṣṭha that is one of the five pure abodes is a saṃsāric abode, whereas the Densely Arrayed Akaniṣṭha is not: there a buddha’s enjoyment body teaches ārya bodhisattvas.
According to the Pāli tradition, only arhats and nonreturners dwell in the five pure abodes. Those who become nonreturners in other realms are reborn in these pure abodes, where they attain arhatship. New arhats remain here until the end of their natural lifespans and then attain parinirvāṇa.
According to the Treasury of Knowledge, the beings in the form realm lack the sense of smell and taste.17 While they have some sensual desire for sights and sounds, it is weak — beings with strong desire are born in the desire realm. They do not sleep or eat, nor do they have sexual desire, because they do not have sexual organs in that realm. Their bodies are subtle forms made of the four elements. Their basic state of consciousness is samādhi, although they do emerge from it and interact with one another.
The form and formless realms are collectively known as the higher realms owing to the refined states of mind of the beings born in them. Beings are born in these realms by attaining various degrees of meditative absorption — for example, when they were human meditators. All of these meditative absorptions can be attained by human beings as well, in which case it is said that the person is in the desire realm because of being a human being, but has a form-realm sphere of consciousness (vacaracitta) because of the level of concentration they have attained.
(3) Desire Realm (Kāmadhātu)
Desire-Realm Devas (Kāmadhātudeva)
11. Controllers of Others’ Emanations Devas (Paranirmitavaśavartin) enjoy sense pleasures others create for them. Māra, the personification of delusion and desire, dwells here.
10. Devas Delighting in Emanations (Nirmāṇarati) enjoy the sense pleasures they created themselves.
9. Joyful Devas (Tuṣita) experience pure delight. According to the Pāli tradition, Maitreya (Metteya), the bodhisattva who will become the next wheel-turning buddha, dwells here, as do other bodhisattvas in the life prior to their becoming buddhas. The Sanskrit tradition says that Maitreya lives in the pure land Tuṣita, which is on the outskirts of the deva realm with the same name.
8. Suyāma Devas (Suyāma) live in the air and are free from all problems.
7. The Thirty-Three Devas (Trāyastriṃśa) is so-called because thirty-three young people were born there as a result of their meritorious actions. The leader of this group of youths became the deva Śakra, who presides over this realm and is a devotee of the Buddha. Many devas dwelling here live in mansions in the air.18 During one rains retreat, the Buddha went here to teach his mother, who had been reborn in this realm.
6. Devas of the Four Great Kings (Cāturmahārājika). The four great kings, who are Dharma protectors, rule this land. Their images are often near the door of Mahāyāna temples. The causes for rebirth here are ethical conduct and generosity.
Other Desire-Realm Beings
5. Anti-gods (asuras). Asaṅga includes the asuras in the deva realm and says that they experience great sense pleasure, even though they suffer from jealousy and constant battles with higher devas. The Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra puts them with the hungry ghosts and animals.19
4. Human beings (manuṣya) have the necessary balance of happiness and suffering that is conducive for Dharma practice. The primary cause for rebirth here is ethical conduct.
3. Animals (tiryañc) suffer from hunger and thirst, being enslaved by human beings, and being eaten by others.
2. Hungry ghosts (preta) suffer from constant hunger and thirst that is never satisfied.20
1. Hell beings (nāraka) experience great physical pain due to heat, cold, and torture.
Unethical actions and wrong views are the primary cause for rebirth as a hungry ghost, animal, or hell being. Stinginess is especially affiliated with rebirth as a hungry ghost, while violent activities are associated with rebirth in the hells.
Rebirth in any of the six realms is not eternal. When the karma causing that rebirth is exhausted, the being is born in another realm. None of the realms are rewards or punishments. They are all simply results of our actions, our karma.
According to the Pāli tradition, nāgas (snake-like beings who live in or near water), gandharvas (celestial musicians), and yakṣas (tree spirits of varying degrees of ethical purity, who resemble goblins, trolls, and fairies) live in the Realm of the Four Great Kings. The Treasury of Knowledge says some yakṣas are in the deva realm and some are in the hungry ghost realm. Gandharvas are included with the devas because they are the musicians of the devas. Garuḍas (large birds), kiṃnaras (beings who are half human and half horse), and nāgas are included among animals. Piśāca (a class of demons), unmada (crazy makers), apasmāra (forgetful makers), and mātṛka (a type of wicked demon) are included with hungry ghosts.
These realms are actual realms of rebirth. We can get an idea of life in them by comparing
them to some experiences that occur in the human realm. The Indian sage Kamalaśīla says:
Humans also experience the sufferings of hell beings and so forth. Those who are afflicted here by having their limbs cut off, being impaled, hanged, and so forth by thieves and the like, suffer like hell beings. Those who are poor and deprived and are pained by hunger and thirst suffer like hungry ghosts. Those in servitude and so forth, whose bodies are controlled by others and who are oppressed, suffer from being struck, bound, and so forth, like animals.21
The magnificent pleasures of the deva realms can be understood by comparing them to some of the greatest pleasures we human beings experience. However, these are simply analogies; they are not the actual experience. The actual bliss of the deva realms is beyond our imagination, as is the misery of the unfortunate realms.
Seeing the various realms as psychological states can be helpful for recognizing mental characteristics we may have. For example, the mental state of a hungry ghost is similar to that of a person who goes here and there looking for someone to love them, but is perpetually dissatisfied with every relationship. The mental state of a hell being resembles the mind of someone overwhelmed by fear, animosity, and violence. These human mental states could motivate actions that cause rebirth in those realms, but the actual realms are not simply psychological states of human beings.
In the Treasury of Knowledge, Vasubandhu states that the world with its realms and its sentient beings is created by karma and he describes the location of some realms in relation to our human realm. Although his account is contradicted by modern knowledge, that does not disprove the general existence of these realms. We know the animal realm exists. People with the paranormal power of the divine eye can see some of the other realms.
Three Types of Duḥkha
When duḥkha is translated as suffering, people easily have the wrong idea that it refers only to pain. But unsatisfactory experiences are more than that. In a previous chapter, I briefly outlined the three types of duḥkha and now would like to explain them in more depth.
(1) The duḥkha of pain is the manifest physical and mental pain that all beings recognize as suffering. It includes suffering from heat, cold, hunger, thirst, stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and so forth.
(2) The duḥkha of change is subtler and more difficult to identify; it includes what worldly beings usually call happiness. Why is the happiness we experience when eating a good meal, hearing the music we like, or experiencing other sensual pleasures unsatisfactory? If they were truly pleasurable, the more we did them, the happier we would be. However, that is not the case. If we keep eating, we feel ill. Jogging after a long day sitting at work initially feels wonderful, but after a while we are tired and want to sit down. When we are lonely, seeing a friend initially alleviates the feeling of isolation and makes us happy. But if we stay with that person hour after hour, we get tired, bored, and want to be alone. When we don’t have a high-status job, we want one. After we are promoted, we are initially happy but later resent having to work longer hours. Āryadeva comments (CŚ 37):
Pleasure, when it increases,
is seen to change into pain.
Pain, when it increases,
does not likewise change into pleasure.
Examining the experiences we call happiness, we see that they are not true happiness. They feel good for a short while and then turn into overt discomfort or even pain. For this reason they are unsatisfactory in nature, and the Buddha with compassion directs us toward a more satisfying joy — the peace of liberation and awakening.
(3) The pervasive duḥkha of conditioning is even subtler and more difficult to identify. It refers to our five psychophysical aggregates — our bodies, feelings, discriminations, miscellaneous factors, and consciousnesses — that are unsatisfactory because they are produced by afflictions and karma. The result of our previous saṃsāric rebirths, our aggregates are the basis for our present duḥkha when our destructive karma ripens as the physical and mental pain we experience in this life.
Although our bodies and minds may not experience pain at this very moment, with the slightest change in circumstances, they easily will. They have the potential to experience horrible pain. Also, our five aggregates propel us to create the causes for more duḥkha in the future. By reacting to the pain and pleasure of this life with afflictions such as attachment, anger, and confusion, we again create more karmic causes to take another saṃsāric rebirth where we will again experience all three types of duḥkha. Dharmakīrti says (PV):
Because they are the basis of faults [i.e., duḥkha] and also because they are under the power of [polluted] causes, they are duḥkha.
At present, we are under the illusion that happiness can be attained with this body. We cling to the hope that scientists will discover and root out the causes for depression, unhappiness, disease, substance abuse, aging, and death. While scientific endeavors have remedied much suffering, they cannot stop the basic causes of suffering because our body itself is unsatisfactory by nature. No matter how much a cook tries to slow the disintegration of rotten vegetables or covers them with delicious sauce, making a tasty dish out of them is impossible. Similarly, once we have taken a body and mind under the control of afflictions and karma, we are set up to experience duḥkha. For this reason our aggregates are considered unsatisfactory by nature. Āryadeva tell us (CŚ 32–33):
The body, however long one spends,
will not in itself become pleasurable.
To say its nature can be overruled
by other factors is improper.
The high have mental suffering;
for the common it comes from the body.
Day by day, both kinds of duḥkha
overwhelm people in the world.
When contemplating the three types of duḥkha and the disadvantages of cyclic existence, reflect that you have experienced these since beginningless time. These meditations on duḥkha are not idle speculation; being repeatedly subjected to the miseries of cyclic existence is serious. In the Tears Sutta, the Buddha gave a series of vivid examples illustrating the length of time afflictions and karma have bound us in saṃsāra (SN 15.3).
The stream of tears that you have shed as you roamed and wandered through this long course [of saṃsāra], weeping and wailing because of being united with the disagreeable and separated from the agreeable — this alone is more than the water in the four great oceans. For a long time, monastics, you have experienced the death of a mother . . . father . . . brother . . . sister . . . son . . . daughter . . . the loss of relatives . . . the loss of wealth . . . loss through illness. As you have experienced this, weeping and wailing because of being united with the disagreeable and separated from the agreeable, the stream of tears that you have shed is more than the water in the four great oceans. For what reasons? Because, monastics, this saṃsāra is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and migrating hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving. For such a long time, monastics, you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster, and swelled the cemetery. It is enough to experience revulsion toward all formations, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them.
While such a message may initially be unpleasant to hear, the Buddha says it with compassion so that we can act now while we have the opportunity to remedy the situation and free ourselves from such misery.
Feelings, Afflictions, and Duḥkha
Each of the three types of duḥkha is associated with a specific feeling: the duḥkha of pain with painful feelings; the duḥkha of change with pleasant feelings, because when we initially engage in certain activities or have particular possessions we feel happy; and the pervasive duḥkha of conditioning with neutral feelings, because all beings in cyclic existence experience this duḥkha even when they are not actively feeling pain or pleasure. We will explore this more in the practice of the four establishments of mindfulness in a future volume.
These feelings in turn prompt afflictions. Anger easily arises toward painful physical and mental feelings. Attachment manifests when pleasurable feelings are experienced; we crave these feelings, do not want them to cease, and cling to the objects that seem to cause them. Ignorance increases when neutral feelings are present because we hold the aggregates as permanent when in fact they are momentary.
Under the influence of these afflictions, we create karma. While attachment may fuel actions that lead to rebirth in any of the six classes of beings, anger makes us miserable in this life and creates the causes for unfortunate rebirths. Ignorance keeps us bound in cyclic existence, unable to help ourselves, let alone others.
Recognizing pleasant feelings as duḥkha enables us to release craving and clinging to them, and as a result, attachment subsides. Accepting that by nature our bodies are unsatisfactory makes it easier to avoid anger or anxiety with respect to painful feelings. Seeing that neutral feelings are transient in nature diminishes ignorance. In this way, although the three feelings may arise, we stop responding to them with attachment, anger, and ignorance, thus reducing the karma created by afflictions.
REFLECTION
1. Think of a situation in which you felt happy. Observe how attachment arises for the pleasant feeling as well as for the people, objects, or situations that seem to cause it.
2. Observe the actions you do motivated by attachment. How do they cause problems in this life? How do they create karma for suffering in future lives? Think of the kinds of rebirth those actions could propel.
3. Contemplate that pleasant feelings are unsatisfactory in nature because they do not last and degenerate into pain if we keep doing the action over time. After contemplating the disadvantages of the duḥkha of change, observe your attachment subside. As your mind becomes more balanced, enjoy that peace.