Six Realms

The Karma of a Cup of Water

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An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, July 19, 1989

I’d like to illustrate some very basic teachings on the six realms of cyclic existence by looking at a cup of water.  In the human realm, this is a cup of water and it has lemon in it.  I know that it’s water because it smells like water.  It tastes like water with lemon.  I know what that tastes like.  I can tell the difference between tastes.  I know that water is good for me; I know that it will quench my thirst.  The reason why I’m having this experience is because of my karma.  In the animal realm, a dog would also experience that.   Let’s say a dog or some kind of lion or tiger or bear would experience that as water, also.  They wouldn’t know what the lemon was, they would think there was something funny in there, but they would experience it as water.  They don’t taste very much.  They know the water by smell.  They can’t taste the difference between city water and country water.  They might be able to smell a difference. But they know it to be water, and they instinctively drink it when they are thirsty.  They don’t think much about whether it will do this or that for them.  They don’t think about how much they need.  So their experience with water is similar, but different.

In the hungry ghost realm, beings are horribly thirsty and horribly hungry, and their mouths are very, very tiny, so they’re not able to take in food.  Someone from the hungry ghost realm would experience that as a cup of pus and would not be able to drink it because their experience is that it’s pus, it’s horrible and it isn’t drinkable, it isn’t water.  It smells foul and is foul.  It is not something you would drink.  So, they do not drink and they continue to be extremely  thirsty.  This is my cup of water, I know that it’s not pus but in the hungry ghost realm it would be experienced as pus and they would be terribly thirsty.

Why do they experience it that way?  Are they jinxed?  Did some magician go to the hungry ghost realm and transform all the water?  Is someone out to get them?  Had they just not looked in the right places? Should they keep on checking around? Should they think positive? What would happen if they could get it down?  Would it act like water?  No, it would act like pus, right?  Even if they could drink it, the water would act like pus to them.  No matter what they do, it remains pus and they remain thirsty.  That’s really disgusting, isn’t it?  Why does that happen?  It happens because of the karma of their mind.  Their perceptual experience that they have, the construction that they abide within has that reality or that quality because it is an emanation of their mind.  It is the karma of their mind.  It’s as real and as solid to them as the fact that this is water to me.

What about someone from the hell realm?  Depending on which hell realm it is, it would be either a cup of fire or a cup of ice.  Unfortunately, it would be a cup of fire if they were in the hot realms and it would be a cup of ice if they were in the cold realms. The difficulty is that if they held their nose and said, “I really think this is probably water.” They would drink fire and be burned. It’s very real, very real to them.  Why is that the case?  It is the case because that is the karma of their mind.

On the other hand, if this were experienced in the god realm, it would be experienced as a cup of elixir, the nectar of long life, or the elixir of infinite power, or the nectar of infinite beauty.  The gods would drink it and live a long time, anyway.  Nothing is forever in the god realm.  They would take it and it would be like an elixir that would put them into a state of absolute bliss for a while.

Well, I drank that water.  I drink lots of water, and so far, no bliss.  So it isn’t happening to me.  That’s because the gods have the karma of their minds and that’s how it works out for them.  Each one of these different beings that I have described arises from emptiness.  They are the same as emptiness; they are inseparable from emptiness.  Each cup in those different realms, no matter what was in it, arises from emptiness, it is the same as emptiness, it is inseparable from emptiness, and yet the experiences are totally different.  The experiences are different due to the karma of our minds.

Everything that you have ever experienced is completely relative, completely artificially constructed and totally experiential. Everything that you have experienced is like that, and yet what do we do?

Let’s think about the poor old guy in the hungry ghost realm with a cup of pus.  That’s really disgusting, isn’t it? Let’s say that he picks it up and he sees that it’s pus, and he puts it back down. Now what is the next thing he does?  He sits there and he feels really miserable.  He feels agonizingly miserable and thirsty.  Then he thinks, “Why does this happen to me?”  Then he thinks, “Everywhere I go, there’s this stuff.”  He thinks, “There’s no relief.”  He goes on and on and on and continues with the experience.  The experience does not stop when he decides not to drink it.  He continues with the experience.  He reacts to the experience.  The karma is that he experiences pus.  He’s in the hungry ghost realm and he’s experiencing phenomena as he experiences it, which is pretty disgusting, and he’s experiencing also this great longing for nourishment and help and respite from his suffering.

Then, after he doesn’t drink it, he continues with this process of saying, “Why doesn’t anybody love me and give me something to drink?  Why do I have to suffer this way?”  And then goes on with, “I’m so hungry, I’m so thirsty, I’m so ugly” and so on. What I have just described is an elaboration process that branches from the original karmic occurrence.  That elaboration is a very important factor and a very important thing for us to look at and understand.  It is the process of exaggeration.  Now, it sounds really far fetched to talk about this guy in the hungry ghost realm, but I use that example because it’s so solid, you can really understand how that might happen.

What about us?  Let’s use for example the experience that we have when we lose our job. We lose our job, and it’s not the first time we’ve lost our job.  The karma of that particular relationship that you had in order to have the job, ended. Maybe it just ran out because it was time.  Maybe it ended because you ended it but the karma of that particular relationship ran out.  What happens after you’re fired, though, is a process that continues and becomes more a part of you than the actual firing or even the job ever was.  That process is the process of exaggeration and elaboration.  You begin to elaborate on the process.

The first thing that happens is you begin to make an entire scenario about what really happened.  What really happened has a certain flavor.  You have perceived it in a certain way.  You have lost your job and you have the perception that your boss was kind about it, or your boss was mean about it, or it happened in this way, it happened at midday, it happened at night, it happened in the morning, it happened when it was a good time for you, it happened when it was a bad time for you, it happened before your car payment, it happened after your car payment.  You have your own kind of perception about it.

Spinning off from that, you have your determination, which is a more subtle process, about what the real story is. In other words, you’re always going to decide for yourself whether you should have been fired, whether that was righteous, whether you should be treated meanly or whether you should be treated nicely.  You’re always going to decide for yourself whether things happen as they do for good reasons, and then you’re going to make up a whole story about how it should have happened.  Probably you spend the next few days, weeks or months reworking the entire thing, and imagining what you might have said to your boss under different circumstances.  You have your own particular belief about how things should have happened.  From that you continue to elaborate and exaggerate situations, working it into the roots of your being, thinking ultimately, after you really work it down the pike, I’m a failure.  “Nobody loves me. My mother didn’t love me.  My father didn’t love me.  I’m destined to be poor and I am deeply flawed.” You know what you do.  I don’t have to tell you. You go into the entire scenario of all the different things that you feel are absolutely true.  So the experience doesn’t end with the cessation of a certain job opportunity, it continues with an elaboration process and that process is as real as the actual experience.  The exaggeration process usually is the one that sticks with you, longer that the experience itself, often longer than the job itself.  That is the experience that sticks with you.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Have Confidence in this Precious Opportunity

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An excerpt from a teaching called “The Importance of Shakyamuni” by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

All of the blessings of the Buddhist path are available to us because of the supreme compassion of Lord Buddha.  If he had not chosen to stay and forego his parinirvana for some time, forego his entry into the state of nirvana in order to teach sentient beings, it would not be possible for us to be on this path.  At the time of his teaching, there was no path that could lead to supreme enlightenment.  Again I say there were paths that could lead to spiritual progress, but none of them truly overcame all of the six realms.

Therefore follow this path with great enthusiasm because you have a set of fortunate circumstances that very few other beings on this planet have, very few human beings and far fewer beings of any other realm of cyclic existence.  If you think about how many humans there are compared to the other five realms of beings, just having that human condition is extremely rare and is over too quickly.  What proportion of those beings that have incarnated in the fortunate human condition have been offered the true path of Lord Buddha?  Such a small portion.

You should think about these incredibly auspicious circumstances, and when you do your practice, think that you are doing this to achieve the ultimate goal possible for humankind.  Think and believe that there is every reason that you can succeed.  Think and believe that there is every reason that even if you don’t succeed now, you absolutely without fail can create the causes by which you will succeed quickly.  If not immediately after this life, then you will soon, very soon.

Your moment is now.  Are you creating the causes by which you yourself might someday appear as a Nirmanakaya Buddha to guide all beings?  This practice that you do now creates the causes.  Practice sincerely.  If you practice sincerely with the intention of guiding beings, with the intention of breaking through samsaric existence as a true renunciate, if you really renounce cyclic existence with all its betrayal and take refuge sincerely, you are creating the causes, and someday your face will be known as the face of a Nirmanakaya Buddha, and your nature will be known both by you and by all sentient beings to be the Dharmakaya.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Awareness of Suffering

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Excerpt from a teaching on Compassion by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

If you’ve never practiced the Buddhadharma before, or if you’re interested in practicing, or if you have practiced some general meditation and you feel it’s time to move on to a path that is more stable or well known, then you’re in a perfect place for this teaching. You can start practicing one of the most important teachings of the Buddha right now. You can begin to cultivate the mind of compassion. How might you do this? First of all, you might look around and examine physical existence.

In America, we hide our suffering. We have very little knowledge of real suffering, and I think that’s one reason why it’s very difficult for Westerners to practice a pure and disciplined path. We think we understand suffering because we have experienced loneliness, or because when we were kids we had the measles, or because we have gone through marriages and divorces. Or maybe we’ve seen some sickness or poverty. For these reasons, we think we understand suffering, and we do to some extent. These are valid sufferings.

But there’s a funny thing about our culture that we must understand. We are actually hidden from the sufferings of our culture. When people are deformed, handicapped, mentally or terminally ill, they are taken away from the mainstream of society and they are hidden. Or if we are considered unpresentable to most people, we have plastic surgery or we have some kind of therapy that makes us like everyone else. In fact, if we examine the healing process in American medicine, part of that process is to become like other people.  We are made to look like other people.

In other countries around the world suffering is more evident, for many different reasons: those countries may not be as technologically advanced as our country, or their culture may be an older society in which suffering has become more the norm and it is not such a shock to see it. Or perhaps poverty is a factor.

I will describe how I felt when I first went to India. I couldn’t bear it. I don’t claim to be so compassionate; I too have to cultivate the idea of compassion every day. But I remember seeing people walking the streets with arms and legs missing, eaten up by leprosy. I saw mothers and fathers maim their children, not because they hated them or because they were cruel to them, but because that would give them a deformity they could use for begging. That would be the only way they could ensure their survival. There was no other way for them to get food. What do we do for our children? We might send ours to school. In the streets of India, they have to prepare them in a different way.

Suffering is a part of the fabric of the society in India, and it’s very evident. I remember walking down the street in Delhi. There was a young boy who must have been twelve; it was hard to tell, he was so small. He was lying on a rag, a tattered blanket, and he was dying. He was so thin that he looked like the pictures of starvation we see from Ethiopia. He was beyond thin. His bones were sticking out, his belly swollen, his tongue hanging out. And next to him were a few coins and a candy bar. Someone had thrown them down for him.

We don’t see that in our culture. We don’t understand it. We think that the things we’ve gone through – the divorces, not being able to pay the light bill, the heartbreak of psoriasis, the things we consider so awesome – are the real sufferings of the world. But they are not all the world has to endure.

Look at the animal realm. We know what our animals are like. They get fed everyday and they have it pretty good. But not all animals are like them. If we go to different countries, we see beasts of burden that are treated in horrible ways. We see animals that are denied their natural environment.

Humans and animals are only two life forms. According to the Buddha’s teachings, there are many different life forms, many of which are non-physical. How we appear, how we manifest, what form we take has to do with the qualities of our mind. If we are filled with hate, we are reborn in a hell realm. Why is that so hard to understand? When you are filled with hate now, even as a human being, aren’t you in your own private hell? Have you ever gone through a period where you were so filled with anger that everything you saw became ugly and you managed to distort it somehow? Each of us has lived in a private hell. Why is it so hard to believe that we are capable of living in or creating a situation like that? If your mind is capable of having a nightmare, then rebirth in a hell realm is a possibility.

Have you ever been needy? Have you ever gone through a period in your life when you needed approval, or love, or some kind of nourishment so badly, that you were in a state of despair? When people did reach out to you, they couldn’t get through? Each of us, for at least one moment in our lives, has experienced this. Why then is it so hard to understand that these kinds of existences really do exist?

Having understood that this is logical, having examined your own mind truthfully – and truthfully is the key – and found the residue of these experiences in your mind, you can allow yourself to go more deeply into the recognition that the Buddha was right. There is suffering in cyclic existence.

We have to think also of our own suffering. We must think that even if we have a TV, a car, a house, and all of the things that we are taught to desire, there will be a point at which we cannot take them with us. There will be a point at which they will do us no good. That point, of course, is death. All of the efforts that we’ve gone through to get those things will have been wasted.

Long-time Dharma practitioners may think, “I really wish she’d get on with it. I know this.” I have to tell you, if you really knew the truth of suffering, there would not be one moment that you did not practice with the utmost compassion. There would not be one moment when you thought only of yourself and your needs, and of the temporary gratifications you think you must have. Yet you still have many of those moments.

Moods, Bodhicitta and Mental Discipline

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The following is an excerpt from a teaching called “Your Treasure is Heart”

In order to understand how mental discipline will help you feel more compassionate, you need to understand that compassion is not an emotion.  Bodhichitta is not an emotion.  It doesn’t exist on that dense a level.  It’s not as dense as an emotion.  Emotions are actually reactions.  If you take perception, delusion, duality, confusion, hatred, greed and ignorance, all of those things that are characteristic of samsara, and you shake them up in a jar, the bubbles that you would get, like the bubbles from soap, are roughly the equivalent of emotions.  Emotions are the result of conceptual proliferation, whipped up into a very exaggerated state.  They are reactive. Bodhichitta really has nothing to do with that.

When we begin to give rise to the Bodhichitta, we do so, first of all, through mental discipline.  As we begin to practice, we have some understanding of the suffering of sentient beings and why we should engage in loving concern for them.  When we examine the thoughts that turn the mind, we really tune into the sufferings of samsara.  We tune in, as well, to the fact that we have lived so many lifetimes that literally anyone that we can see, or see a picture of, or hear or think of has been our own kind parent in some previous life.  Yet these beings are wandering in samsara just like a bee that’s caught in a jar, absolutely clueless as to how to create the causes by which their terrible suffering might end.

Once you learn that, you discipline your mind not to ignore it.  We like to surf on the sensual pleasure of the moment.  We like to enjoy, and try to get as high in our daily routine as possible, so we can just surf on the moment of experience.  We don’t want to think about the condition of sentient beings.  So this mental discipline is required in order to be a serious practitioner. You can’t cut corners here. If you don’t put in the time, your practice will never be up to snuff.

Many students come to me saying “Well, I just don’t feel this compassion.”  My answer is, so what!  Compassion is not an emotion.  Nobody is going to benefit by how you feel.  They’re going to benefit by what you do.  So do the practice.  Discipline yourself to contemplate the causes and conditions of both happiness and suffering; and particularly contemplate the suffering of sentient beings,  These contemplations cannot be short-circuited. They must be delved into with everything you have. Once you do that you begin to feel a certain kind of determination and motivation, and it begins to make sense.

When I was 20, I had not met with the path of Dharma yet, but I was actually given these contemplations directly in my own meditation and in the dream state. So I began to practice them.  What happened to me was I realized that compassion is the only thing that makes sense.  Think about the logic of it. Here you are, one sentient being on our planet where in the human realm alone, there are roughly six billion of us.  On our planet there are also uncountable animal forms.  You can’t even count the number of ants in an ant hill.  Each one of them is a sentient being with the Buddha nature within them, just as surely as you are, yet they appear in this form due to their own habitual tendency and the way that their consciousness is functioning. How many uncountable sentient beings can be seen with the eye on this planet alone!

If this absolute Buddha nature, this ground of being, is my nature, and you are that also, and yet we appear in these multitudinous forms, wandering and suffering in samsara, it made perfect sense to me to dedicate my life to the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings.  Nothing else seemed logical or reasonable.  And from that, gradually, this determination grew.  For about ten months,  I went through the mental discipline. I practiced for eight to ten hours a day only on those contemplations until I could see clearly for myself that this is the only game in town that made sense.  With that knowledge, living any other kind of life seemed like whoring or prostitution to me, and it didn’t seem reasonable.  So my discrimination was born.

In the Buddha’s teachings we are told that there are three thousand myriads of universes, three thousand myriads of universes.  That’s just one number that gives us some understanding that we’re talking big!  The Buddha also teaches us that there are formless realms, and there are uncountable sentient beings in these formless realms.  So logically, if my nature is this Buddha nature, completely inseparable from the very Lord that I call Buddha, completely inseparable and indistinguishable from all these sentient beings, it is logical and reasonable that I would do everything that I can to bring benefit to others instead of spending my entire life in ego-gratification and self-cherishing.  It is logical and reasonable also to me, that I will never be happy until every sentient being is free.  That’s what seems reasonable to me.

Once you have that kind of understanding, you have to go through the process of reminding yourself, keeping it alive every step of the way.  If any of you have been married, you know that taking the vow is not the end of the issue.  If you want to remain in that situation, you really have to work at it.  Giving rise to the Bodhichitta is like that .  The effort doesn’t stop once you come to the great conclusion.  You have to remind yourself every day.  It’s part of the discipline of practice so that you remain mindful.  On the path of Dharma these contemplations are crucial.

So this is how it starts.  It starts in mental discipline which gives rise to determination.  Where’s the emotion in all that?  Emotions become inconsequential.  Once you realize that there are six billion humans, that you know of, wandering in samsara, not understanding how to create the causes of happiness, whether you have gas at that moment or are in a good or a bad mood, those kinds of things become a moot point.  You learn that it’s OK to be a Bodhisattva in a bad mood.  But you don’t get to stop, you see, because you’ve learned something.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

Can You Find the Treasure?

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From a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:

Today I received a gift- a metal detector. I wanted one because I’m interested particularly in meteorites. And old things. I know- geek!

I am feeling better, but not quite enough to go hunting for treasure yet. I think of the treasure we all embody, the seed of Buddhahood. Some of us don’t know to search. Some know, but don’t try. Some see a bit of view and fake that they know more. Some find the treasure.

The point being that in this “precious human rebirth” we can find the treasure. The human rebirth, as Lord Buddha taught, has the correct measure of the awareness in this realm.

Animals have such fear; their minds consumed with it, and they are less developed in the brain. Their flesh used for food, skin for leather, etc, they are victims.

The hungry ghost realm contains those filled with grasping, desire. They cannot be satisfied, therefore they cannot awaken.

Hell beings are locked in their own misery and drama. Every suffering is intense, so there is no space in the mind to awaken, or to be free of obsession.

Other realms: the god and goddess realms for jealous beings. Constant warring and competition prevent calm abiding. No space to awaken.

There are also Long Life gods and goddesses who are beautiful, replete with bliss and satisfaction. They have no reason to attain Buddhahood until their karma is exhausted. By then it is too late. There is no merit left, having carelessly spent it all, they fall to the lower realms. How sad!

Lord Buddha taught this human rebirth is the precious one. Because we have our array of faculties remarkably complete; and space in our lives and minds, humans alone can abandon samsara as we alone are capable and, hopefully, inclined to utilize the exquisite path, the method the Buddha set for us. Extraordinary! When I see the wasting of this life with gossip, endless intellectualization of what is fundamentally simple (with faith and kindness,) endless bragging and ego centered living I want to cry. To see this wasted. And the arrogance to think awakening can be accomplished by affirmation and wishes.

I know that is not the way. And I pray we can awaken from this sick narcotic dream. We can, you know. But it takes an enormous commitment; great selfless commitment. I am afraid to tell you and ashamed, too, as I am Buddhist. But those out there now, other than Vajra Masters, Throneholders, are selling you pie. Pie is good. Sweet and tasty. You get that sugar (ego) high. But I tell you as I would my own children, born from my womb and heart; this ego quenching nonsense is to be avoided like steaming, stinking, stupid shit. It is not what you think. In a cakebox, still I tell you it is not pie. It is not food. And it is not your friend.

Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo.  All rights reserved

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