A SEED IN AMIDA&#39;S HANDS- SAMSARA AND NIRVANA IN JODO SHINSHU BUDDHISM BY KOSHO ARANA

Kosho Arana

Foreword by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Head priest of Amidaji International Temple: Kōshō Arana Sensei is the first Amidaji Teacher in Latin America. I am very glad to see he is very serious in his work of spreading the Jodo Shinshu Teaching (Amida Dharma) in the Spanish speaking world. This book is the first step in his mission to help sentient beings receive faith in Amida Buddha. A seed in Amida’s Hands- Samsara and Nirvana in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is successful in taking the reader step by step from the wrong notion of materialism to the Dharmic realities of karma, rebirth, Samsara and Nirvana from a Jodo Shinshu perspective. Kōshō does this by quoting the sutras, shastras and also passages of my books on Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. This book provides food for thought that could help many people in considering that there is more in the universe than what our limited bodies can perceive, thus opening the possibility of accepting the important Buddhist truths of rebirth, the bardo, the 6 realms of samsaric existence, Enlightenment/ Supreme Buddhahood and ultimately Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow. I encourage the readers to carefully study Kōshō Sensei’s arguments, examples and analogies by which he explains the various fundamental elements of the Buddha-Dharma in general and Jodo Shinshu in particular. Namo Amida Bu, Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea Head priest of Amidaji International Temple August 8th, 2564 of the Buddhist Era (2020 EC).

A SEED IN AMIDA’S HANDS Samsara and Nirvana in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism KŌSHŌ ARANA 1 Copyright © Kōshō Arana (J S H Arana) All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without prior written permission from the author. This pdf version is for free distribution on condition that it is not altered in anyway. Kōshō Arana (JSH Arana) is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Teacher certified by Amidaji International Temple, an organization founded by Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea. Kōshō Arana is the founder of Shinjin Dojo, (Cali, Colombia, South America) a dojo affiliated to Amidaji International Temple. He is also the official translator of Reverend Jōshō’s books into Spanish. All the teachings quoted in this book come from the Dharma Teaching given by Shakyamuni Buddha in the Three Pure Land Sutras and the writings and teachings of the 7 Patriarchs of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist lineage (as recognized by Master Shinran Shonin the founder of the Jodo Shinshu School) in India, China and Japan: Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Tan Luan, Daochuo, Shantao, Genshin and Honen. This book also includes numerous quotes from the books of Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea which explain the teachings of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist School. Contact the author: Kōshō Arana: Email: eldharmadeamida@gmail.com Shinjin Dojo official website: https://eldharmadeamida.wixsite.com/dojoshinjin Tel: +57 3226334313 Amidaji International Temple official website: www.amida-ji-retreat-temple romania.blogspot.com 2 “With my Divine power I will manifest a great Light illuminating the limitless worlds and dissipate the darkness of the three poisons (Anger, Greed and delusion). In this way I will free all beings from misery” The Larger Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life delivered by Shakyamuni Buddha (Sukhavativyuha) 3 I specially dedicate this book to my sensei and Dharma friend Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea, my Dharma friend and colleague Gansen John Welch, and to the memory of Lay Amida Dharma teacher Paul Roberts. May all sentient beings in the 10 directions and the 6 realms receive adamantine faith in Amida Buddha, recite His Name and wish to be reborn in His Pure Land. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Rev. Jōshō Adrian Cirlea……………………….7 Introduction…………………………......................................9 PART I: AFTER DEATH AND BEFORE LIFE…………...39 Beyond the physical………………………………………….40 The Concepts of Being, karma, rebirth and Buddhahood according to the Buddha-Dharma………..………………….84 Dual Dharma teachings and Non-dual Dharma teachings….107 PART II: SAMSARA AND NIRVANA…………………...121 A preliminary reflection on the Buddha-Dharma and modern research………………………………………..122 Far Beyond the Realm of Human Beings…………………..131 Essential characteristics of the 6 realms of samsaric existence ……………………..……..………………………………...190 The Bardo (the intermediate state between death and rebirth) ……………………………………………………………...250 The nature of samsaric universes…………….......................256 Buddha-Nature / The Tathagatagarbha Doctrine…………...265 The Three Buddha-Bodies and the Noble Realms………….275 The Bodhisattva Path is vast.……...………………………..283 5 The Four Profound thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma……………………..292 PART III: A SEED IN AMIDA’S HANDS………..………323 A spiritual idiot………………………………….………….324 A Light of Hope…………………………………………….333 Amida’s Primal Vow is supreme and unconditional: Getting rid of self-power practices and entering the Jodo Shinshu Path of Faith in Amida’s Primal Vow-……...342 Amida’s Pure Land: The Supreme Enlightened Realm…….377 Mappo: The Age of Dharma Decline………………………424 Shinjin: Adamantine Faith………………………………….447 Amida’s Call to all the Sangha……………………………..465 Amida’s Beloved Children………………………….……...478 6 Foreword By Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea Kōshō Arana Sensei is the first Amidaji Teacher in Latin America. I am very glad to see he is very serious in his work of spreading the Jodo Shinshu Teaching (Amida Dharma) in the Spanish speaking world. This book is the first step in his mission to help sentient beings receive faith in Amida Buddha. A seed in Amida’s Hands- Samsara and Nirvana in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is successful in taking the reader step by step from the wrong notion of materialism to the Dharmic realities of karma, rebirth, Samsara and Nirvana from a Jodo Shinshu perspective. Kōshō does this by quoting the sutras, shastras and also passages of my books on Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. This book provides food for thought that could help many people in considering that there is more in the universe than what our limited bodies can perceive, thus opening the possibility of accepting the important Buddhist truths of rebirth, the bardo, the 6 realms of samsaric existence, Enlightenment/ Supreme Buddhahood and ultimately Amida Buddha’s Primal Vow. I encourage the readers to carefully study Kōshō Sensei’s arguments, examples and analogies by which he explains the 7 various fundamental elements of the Buddha-Dharma in general and Jodo Shinshu in particular. Namo Amida Bu, Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea Head priest of Amidaji International Temple August 8th, 2564 of the Buddhist Era (2020 EC). 8 Introduction Searching for true Buddhist teachings in today’s world is difficult and even more so to actually find them. The internet, social networks, gigantic entertainment industries, shallow trends, and a rampant greedy economy that has spread its tentacles into religion as well, are some of the obstacles that hinder us from accessing genuine Buddhist teachings and having a sincere and serious conversation about them. “Easy steps” to have an entertaining meditation, “certified” yoga and meditation teachers by the thousands, and all manner of spiritual mixtures: from Christian-Buddhism to neo Advaitashamanism…(you name it), are now available for “spiritual consumers”. There are gurus all over the planet and so called “masters” everywhere you happen to see the label “spiritual”. Of course this is not new. False teachings and views have always managed their way into people´s hearts and minds throughout history; but to me it is painfully evident that new market trends have opened a Pandora´s box full of all manner of spiritual chimeras and flamboyant philosophies that make you question whether they are actually joking by saying Buddhism is about “being happy here and now” or “taking it easy”. Once you read the sutras and let them come alive in your mind you will realize that Buddhism is not about instant happiness or quick fixes. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We shouldn’t modify the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) according to our whims and wishes. 9 The serious and profound way the Buddha and His Disciples taught the Dharma is something that one barely finds in any monastery or temple nowadays. When I discovered what the Buddha taught in his own words I was shocked. In one if his famous teachings Shakyamuni Buddha (the historical Buddha of our world) said: "This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans” "Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother. The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering (in Samsara) this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans”1 The first time I read this I got cold as ice, out of pure fear and bewilderment. I asked myself “Have we all actually been dying millions of times, suffering and wandering in existence since an eternal past?” At that time I did not consider myself a Buddhist, but still, on my spiritual journey I was curious to know what the great spiritual masters of the past had to say about the human condition and the deep nature of all life in the universe. 1 Extract from the Assu Sutta (The Sutra of Tears) from the Pali Canon, translated by Thanissaro Bikkhu https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn15/sn15.003.than.html 10 When I actually read this passage I quoted above along with many other sutras that talk about Samsara (the fearsome cycle of death and rebirth) I just could not get my mind around the concept of me going from one life to the next, experiencing death and sorrow, time and time again. That is something really mind-blowing in a scary way when you consider it seriously. Of course I thought (trying to feel better about it) that maybe it was a metaphor or a symbol…I said to myself: “Surely the Buddha did not ACTUALLY think we are going to believe we have lived millions or trillions of times in the past and that all the tears we have shed (and also the blood we have shed as taught in other sutras) are greater than all the oceans put together”. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment 2 under the Bodhi Tree, he saw all His previous rebirths, and then He found out something really alarming: he had lived an infinite number of times and experienced VAST suffering in the infinite past. He could not find a beginning for such a dark and lamentable state of anguish. The Buddha did not only contemplate his own suffering but the suffering of all beings as well. He saw all types of beings being reborn over and over again; going up and down different realms of existence, living and dying, ad infinitum. The terrible suffering He saw made him realize how URGENT it was for him to be free from this deadly cycle once and for all. The suffering he saw in the entire universe made him realize how important Enlightenment and TRUE freedom (Nirvana) was. The whole reason He taught was to overcome In the Buddha’s Words: An Antology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, by Bikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications 2005 Sutra MN 26, Mahasaccaka Sutta, I 240-49, pages 59-57, 2 11 this vicious cycle of birth and death (Samsara), and nothing less than that. It was very difficult at first but little by little I became aware that Buddhism was not the “take it easy” “feel good now” philosophy I thought it was, but a very profound teaching about the tragic existence of all life in the universe, and how to transcend this incredibly dark condition and become a Buddha (an enlightened one, a being free from the bondage of Samsara) in order to save beings from drowning in the ocean of life and death with the perfect medicine of Enlightened wisdom and compassion. It was a pill hard to swallow, but i became truly confident about the seriousness of all Buddhist teachings, and upon careful consideration I decided that if I wanted to know what Buddhism was about, I needed to go to the original texts; study them for myself, and try to consult teachers who did the same. This teaching was speaking to the very core of my being and even if I was still unsure if I wanted to follow that specific spiritual path, I thought the depth of the teachings and their richness deserved my full attention and consideration. As I began to read about the rich legacy of Buddhism i realized that the Dharma is not a buffet where you can cherry-pick what you like and discard what you don’t, but in fact the essential Dharma teachings of impermanence, karma, rebirth, Samsara and Nirvana, are interrelated and co-dependent and I was surprised (to say the least) that all the so called “teachers” I had been consulting until then, only spoke about feeling good. No mention of death, suffering, and Samsara…nothing, ZERO. They were clearly not paying attention to the teachings of the Buddha. 12 Shakyamuni and all His disciples constantly taught about the dangers of the 6 realms of existence: Hell realms, Hungry Ghosts, animals, Asuras (demigods), Human beings and Devas (the gods). According to the Buddha we all have been wandering on and on, dying and being born again with different masks; nevertheless deep inside we remain just the same old deluded beings dancing to the same tune of death and suffering experimenting inexpressible anguish and desolation over and over again without respite. Although back then I had not read a lot about Buddhism, I realized that the numerous teachings about Samsara which point to the complete transcendence of birth and death are not only relevant but in fact they are absolutely ESSENTIAL for a deep understanding of the most basic Teachings of the Buddha (The Buddha-Dharma). If we don’t accept the core teaching of samsara in Buddhism; if that simply does not make sense to us, because we think it is not fashionable, outdated or because we believe modern science has discarded such “irrational” beliefs, then it is like rejecting Buddhism all together. It is true that some people meditate just for the health benefits, but certainly what the Buddha taught (even if we don’t yet believe it) is something HUGE, and it certainly isn’t about chilling, having a good time doing breathing exercises or improving your concentration at work. The Dharma is in reality a set of transcendental teachings designed to overcome Samsara, the fearsome cycle of rebirths; a way to annihilate sorrow and suffering FOREVER. 13 Of course those words seem like out of an epic movie for most; but really consider what the great masters of the past were trying to accomplish. Certainly good food, wine and sex can relax you and NOT the hard, and I mean HARD and incredible efforts the Great Masters of the past made to be finally free from the cycle of samsara. It is evident to me that the reason why Shakyamuni and so many great Buddhist masters of the past, like Nagarjuna, Milarepa and Tsongkhapa, (to name a few), and a thousand others, travelled through such an arduous path: practicing meditation in caves for years or even decades; the reason they crossed deserts, and climbed snowy mountains, endured hunger, cold, heat, and all manner of inner and outer demons, was to overcome the ENORMOUS problem of SAMSARA and reach final NIRVANA (liberation from all 6 realms of samsaric existence). Samsara the cycle of life and death was the fearsome enemy they wanted to defeat….all of those titanic efforts and their arduous quest was solely to transcend the ocean of tears the Buddha mentioned in the Assu Sutra (The Sutra of Tears, I quoted earlier), and so many other teachings He also gave concerning the dangers of the cycle of birth and death. It is crystal clear that what all of those great masters wanted was ENLIGHTENMENT. The Buddha taught that there was a way out of the 6 realms of samsaric existence. Deep inside all beings there’s a Buddhanature, a deathless and supreme reality that can be awakened if beings practice the Dharma with commitment and discipline. That deathless reality: Nirvana is possible to attain abut it must be said that it is EXTREMELY difficult to do so. Before 14 Gautama became the Buddha He almost died enduring an extreme ascetic discipline. He displayed a relentless will to overcome delusion and ignorance with tremendous efforts. A Buddha is not only a being that won’t be reborn in samsara again (as a deluded being) but also a being that has Enlightened Wisdom and Compassion and is therefore perfectly capable of benefiting countless samsaric beings by leading them out of samsara so that they can also attain Buddhahood. This absolute freedom from life and death and the power to benefit beings was the noble objective of all great Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist Masters of the past, irrespective of their specific Dharma schools or lineages: Zen, Tendai, Pure Land, Shingon…etc.; the fact is that ALL these Buddhist lineages and schools, even if they have different methods (they focus on different paths, methods and sutras prescribed by the Buddhas according to the various needs and skills of sentient beings), what they all have in common is that they are trying to rescue beings from samsara’s prison by studying and practicing a particular path that belongs to the vast storehouse of the Buddha-Dharma. (The many sutras/discourses taught by the Buddha) The objective of the Buddha-Dharma is to transform a sentient being into a Supreme Enlightened Buddha and nothing less than that. This is precisely the reason why so many great Masters pushed their lives to the very limit; their innermost feelings and efforts were at stake; all of those tears and sweat…just to follow the teachings of Shakyamuni with ALL their minds and hearts. Even if you are not yet a Buddhist, if you read the life accounts 15 of the great Buddhist masters of India, Tibet and China (for instance) it will become crystal clear that they were DEAD SERIOUS about it. There are so many records of the astonishing forbearance capacities of the Great Buddhist masters of the past. They could meditate for months on end and even years…yes years. It was very common in the sutras to see accounts of the Buddha just sitting in meditation for weeks on end. A good recent example of this kind of determination and earnestness in Buddhist practice is master Empty Cloud, a Zen practitioner from china (1840-1959) who lived to be almost 120 years old3. He was almost tortured to death by the communist regime, but he apparently scared his torturers by displaying supernatural resistance. He was also famous on his time for enduring meditation sessions of several months at a time (according to modern biology the human body cannot survive more than a week without water). Cases like that are very common in Buddhist history, and the further you go back in time, those skills (and the commitment that nurtures them) were literally the daily bread of the great Buddhist monasteries and academies of the past. The Buddha himself constantly displayed great psychic powers, and a lot of His teachings were tailored to teach non-human beings like devas (gods). One of the epithets of the Buddha is “The Great Teacher of Gods and Men”. If you read the Sutras you will clearly see that 3 Brief Biography of Master Empty Cloud: https://www.emptycloud.net/articles-2/the-masters-story%e5%b9%b4%e8%ad%9c/ 16 Shakyamuni and His great disciples had powers that are beyond what we consider normal in human beings (in our day and age) I want to stress the fact that famous advanced practitioners like Tsongkapa and Milarepa (and to a certain extend Master Empty Cloud of whom I spoke above), practiced very HARD and those noble efforts show a powerful and tremendous determination. In think that at the very least we should understand that what they were after is not a normal human mundane goal. What the noble Buddhist disciples of the past were trying to accomplish was TRANSCENDENCE, BUDDHAHOOD and absolute LIBERATION from ALL worldly conditions; including the 6 realms of samsaric existence. As people of the 21st century we could see all that as only “folk” Buddhism or as an encouraging tale….but in fact history is REPLETE with cases of such Buddhist masters displaying signs of transcendental power, and to my surprise some of them were fairly recent (the 20th century and the 21st century). Such strong motivation to seek enlightenment certainly surpasses what we consider “normal”. It is clear that the underlying motivation behind such tremendous efforts in spiritual practice is not to be smiling all the time like an idiot at fancy conferences in front of tanned hippies but to actually scape samsara and become an enlightened being (Buddha), possessing perfect wisdom and compassion. I am being provocative here. It is true that great Masters are very kind and gentle hearted, (like the Dalai Lama for example) but we should not assume that everyone who is a little calmer or more 17 positive than us is a great Buddhist Master. There are far deeper things. Being a Buddha is NOT JUST about being a good human being. Being an Enlightened One (as the Buddha taught time and time again) is to be far and beyond all realms of existence, it is to transcend heaven and hell. Buddhism has incredible records of the things great masters accomplished, but greater than all those great tales about levitation, supernatural powers and lights emanating from their bodies….are the Teachings of the Buddha and His Noble Disciples. The teachings of the Buddha and those of the famous Masters of India, China, Tibet and Japan reflect hearts and minds COMPLETELY committed to the Dharma, and all of those great Buddhist masters left many disciples that were deeply touched by what their dear teachers accomplished just by being serious in their practice and devoted to the Dharma every single day of their lives As one of the great Mahayana vows says “Beings are numberless, I vow to save them all”, or the famous phrase of Master Shantideva: “For as long as space endures And for as long as living beings remain, Until then may I too abide To dispel the misery of the world” All these great masters of the past, and of course Shakyamuni Buddha himself wanted us to become Buddhas, enlightened ones, even if you are too ignorant like me, to fully understand 18 all there is to know about Enlightenment. As you will see throughout this book, Shakyamuni and all His disciples constantly pointed out that the ONLY way to help sentient beings is by leading them towards Buddhahood, otherwise, however good our intentions might be, if we lack the transcendent wisdom and compassion that only Buddhas and High level Bodhisattvas4 possess, we will end up harming the beings we attempt to help by leading them astray into the labyrinth-.prison of Samsara instead of getting them out of it. If we are sick and we ignore how to cure ourselves, then no matter how much we want to help others and cure them, we will FAIL. I consider one of the biggest problems (and there are sadly many more) in today’s Buddhist Sangha (Buddhist Community) is the complete lack of faith and trust in what the Buddha taught. Materialistic and nihilistic philosophies have spread like a wild fire in Dharma temples. Many people don´t question the scientific status quo, and whatever doesn’t appear in fancy tv shows or famous books, they just don’t pay attention to. As I was having a clearer insight into the Buddhist sutras I was surprised to find out that the Buddha in fact refuted many teachings that were leading people astray on his time like for 4 A Bodhisattva is a being that is walking the path towards Enlightenment. Normally this title is reserved for high level practitioners that have made considerable advance in this Path. Some Bodhisattvas like Mahasthamaprapta or Avalokitesvara are actually Buddhas who choose to manifest themselves as Bodhisattvas to encourage practitioners in different ways to follow the path that leads to Buddhahood. Later on in the book in the chapter devoted to the different realms of existence this topic will be explained in more detail. 19 instance the belief in an eternal soul, having faith in an allpowerful creator deity, or the negation of rebirth and karma. Buddhism promises and teaches salvation from Samsara and the attaining of Nirvana. If we don’t believe in rebirth and karma, (as sadly many modern Buddhist teachers do today) then we are simply not following the teachings of the Buddha and therefore we should not consider ourselves as Buddhists. The Buddhas do not consider themselves as just other teachers among many; as we will see, Shakyamuni Buddha describes Himself as “The teacher of Gods and Men”, the Unsurpassable One, and the Supreme Teacher above all Samsara. So to consider the Buddha just a human being or to mix His teachings (the Dharma) with other religions or philosophies is to ignore what He constantly taught about the nature of His teachings and the Buddhas. Nowadays many people are having blind faith in the idea that we are just the body and that, as many scientists claim, we just disintegrate at the end of life and then “the show is over”. So, a thorough consideration of the full scope of Buddhist teachings is not encouraged by most modern Buddhist teachers. Many “modernized” temples teach that Shakyamuni Buddha was just an ordinary being with an interesting and tolerant philosophy he made up to make other people feel good; so, naturally, they don’t think it is an issue to mix the Buddha-Dharma with Christianity, Hinduism or even pop-psychology. When false teachers do these terrible things they are ignoring literally thousands upon thousands of sutras and commentaries that clearly show that Shakyamuni did not accept ideas that were fairly common during his era like the notion of a supreme creator deity, the soul or materialism. 20 For instance; at the time of the Buddha, materialist philosophers also existed. The Charvaka School of philosophy (also called Lokayata) was a materialistic philosophy that attacked the existence of life after death, and anything outside the realm of the physical senses and empirical observation. The Buddha refuted them5 and this was also the case with other spiritual groups like the Jains or the followers of the Vedas. Buddhism is not an “all is valid” kind of philosophy but a set of very PRECISE and SPECIFIC teachings about the universe, the beings that inhabit it and the way out of the cycle of suffering (samsara) that those beings are trapped in. I don’t think that adding colored candy or “drawing unicorns” all over the noble Buddhist teachings is going to be beneficial for anyone. Buddhism teaches about life itself. It is not a good theory or a fair story for children, neither is it a set of symbols nor metaphors but it’s in fact a way to be free from repeated suffering and then liberate all the beings that we have loved and cared for in this life and many lives in the past. I have seen time and time again, how fashionable people go to temples the way you go to a social club or a party with friends. All opinions are allowed, no studying required, and of course drinking and eating are not rare to find. I guess it is becoming a trend to attract people by conjuring them with these mundane things just to “keep an audience” or have a multitude of people instead of a half-empty meditation hall. How sad this is indeed. Words fail to describe it. 5 Lokayatika Sutta: The Cosmologist translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.048.than.html 21 As I took the responsibility for my own spiritual quest, I did not want to take Buddhist teachings at face value; If I were to adopt Buddhist teachings, I did not want it to be based on blind faith or carelessness, I wanted to be serious for once, and actually LISTEN to what the Buddha was telling his disciples time and time again: Get out of Samsara now! The Buddha gave many analogies that describe the dire situation of beings trapped in the cycle of samsara. He once compared this dire situation to a man that caught fire on his clothes and his head and is trying with all his might to put out the fire and safe his life. In another famous analogy in the Lotus Sutra6 the Buddha compared us with little children trapped in a huge house on fire. In that analogy the Buddha compared Himself to a father that desperately tries to save his children from the flames. The children were ignorant as they were just playing, oblivious to the dangers of the flames. The house on fire is samsara, the fire is birth and death within the 6 realms of existence (Hells, pretas/hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras and devas/gods) The Buddha provided many similar analogies (involving flames, tears, blood, and all kinds of dangers expressed in parables) because that is exactly the way we should look for the way out of samsara according to the Buddha. That was the motivation of His first disciples and all the other great masters that came afterwards. They did not spare a single moment, and trained as if there was no tomorrow, because the fact of NOT 6 This famous analogy can be found in Chapter III of the Lotus Sutra, Translated from the Chinese of Kumarajiva by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama, BDK America, 2007, page 56 22 being enlightened was a RISK for them. The danger of falling into the lower realms was terrible danger for them: Hell reams, Ghost realm or animal realm, which according to the teachings are full with even greater sorrow and suffering than our human realm. Seeking rebirth in the heavenly realms is considered dangerously foolish as according to the Buddha there are too many distractions in the heavenly planes of existence and after a period of senseless pleasure gods die (like any other samsaric being) and are reborn again in lower realms and thus suffer terribly. (We will explain all the realms of samsara later on in the book) In this process of discovering the Buddha-Dharma, I must admit that, like many other people, I was just a guy with a huge appetite for Internet articles about Buddhism, documentaries, and all manner of Buddhist-related audio visual material. I read about all those great masters, and there I was….eating cereal in front of a computer watching some cool Buddhist movie or documentary, just enjoying myself like life was some sort of tv series or a video game. The fact is that I am another normal human being, quite prone to distraction as any other person walking the street in front of your house now; full of all manner of weaknesses and evil thoughts I prefer not to share with others. Our technological world pays homage to our weak egos. Now more than ever, everyone has access to so many things just a click away. Nowadays we can build our own little worlds and barricades that protect us from crude reality: the death of a close friend or relative, bad jobs, depressing political situations or just dealing with money issues. I get it. I understand why we do this. Perhaps we think that by going on a straight line, like a horse, never looking beyond our little path, those questions are 23 never going to bother us. “Death? Rebirth? Sure, I watched something cool the other day on tv”, and there it goes…..we have a nice conversation and we end up cleverly avoiding those profound questions that cross our minds like thunders. Little by little I realized that these matters are in fact of crucial importance. I began to have “wake up calls”, as mundane as my life is (full of little things…. day to day stuff) I did notice from the very start of my spiritual journey that “something” really existed beyond the boundaries of our daily experience and the sphere of our five human senses. When you look at it closely, people deep down know there’s this “something else”. Some people claim to see ghosts, others say it is UFO’s, others say they see angels, some claim to have had past lives, others talk about forest spirits and gods… people get sick, they die and they suffer all the time and we are ALL going to die in the end…so what’s the big deal anyways? What does it have to do with Buddhism? What does all of that stuff have to do with any of our lives, our jobs, our families, and our pets? At a point I truly asked myself something to the effect of “I know… but, Shouldn’t we just bypass all those difficult and uncomfortable bizarre subjects, and just move on until we finally disappear, and cheat our way out of them by just dying, and melting with nothingness…like some materialist and nihilists say? Does it even matter in the end? Well…If you read the Buddha-Dharma with a sincere mind and heart you will discover that those profound questions (and sometimes painful matters) do matter A LOT. Even if our lives are prone to distractions (the next football or soccer match, a new great movie, video games, hobbies of all 24 sorts, sex, drinking, etc.) and even if we remain very busy most of the time with work, family and social networks…..that “something” is not just OUT there like in another separated domain of existence…but that “something else” actually could involve ALL of us BIG TIME. It dawned on me that we are not (and we cannot be) separated from the totality of existence. What the Buddha taught about samsara which was also confirmed and experienced by so many accomplished masters is a reality that should really scare us and inspire us to find a way out. I suddenly realized that even if I did not believe what I read in the Sutra of Tears or the Lotus Sutra, that could still be REAL; and it certainly was real for all of those great masters of the past I loved so much to read about in books and watch in good documentaries on Buddhist history. “What if Buddhism is actually describing reality itself?” I constantly asked myself back then. According to Buddhism we should ask those HARD questions, and we should answer them as soon as possible, for we may die at any moment. Even though I knew there are thousands upon thousands of spiritual doctrines and philosophies that have sprung in the meadows of history, (and especially now in the rugged terrain of the internet) In spite of all that….. at the very least I wanted to explore Buddhism in a profound way. It was my experience, that the majority Buddhists I met were shockingly lax and lazy when it came to explaining their worldview. For them, (time and time again I discovered) their spiritual practice occupied only the outskirts of their minds and hearts. It was not about 25 being eloquent or intelligent; it was simply shallowness and laziness. They spoke the Buddhist Teaching as if it was a drug to get “high on happiness” or something; and they avoided at all cost speaking about the dire warnings I constantly read on Buddhist sutras about death, impermanence, suffering and rebirth in Samsara. Most Buddhist followers I met or consulted considered all of those teachings myths or they thought they were just “inconvenient” to be openly talking about them, as if they thought those essential Buddhist themes of death and rebirth were esoteric topics in Buddhism. They certainly could not explain why they thought the way they did in a serious manner (by quoting the sutras or by sharing some sort of reflection that showed some basic concern for what they were in favor or against). In other cases the famous teachers I found were just the opposite extreme…they had so many information on their minds, and they had so many fanciful opinions about the Dharma (and they held those personal opinions in such high regard) that they thought the Teachings of the Buddha were secondary to their “innovative ideas”. Before engaging in any real spiritual search I think it is fundamental that we SINCERELY check our core beliefs about the world and who we think we are. The implications of actually understanding (and by understanding I mean, to really let it sink in our minds and hearts) that our consciousness actually survives bodily death are OUTSTOUNDING. If that is so, then that reality leaves us one important step closer to the Buddha’s dire warnings about Samsara and therefore we can actually KNOW in our gut why the great Buddhist practitioners 26 pushed themselves to such EXTREMES in pursuit of LIBERATION. As I will explain in the book I began by asking myself if the mind actually survives bodily death by reading many accounts from the past both from Buddhist masters and non-Buddhist researchers. To my surprise I found out that there were a lot of modern thinkers who supported such a notion with detailed research. I will mainly quote the investigations regarding Near Death experiences (NDE) and out of body experiences (OOBE) made by Doctor Sabom (Canadian cardiologist and researcher), Ian Stevenson (a Psychiatrist and biochemist from Virginia University, Medicine faculty) who made research into several thousand cases of small children who remember past lives in different countries and the vast historical documentation about scientific paranormal phenomena research in the 20th century provided by Michael Cremo (Science philosopher and archeologist). All of these researchers have made significant investigations about matters that strongly challenge a materialistic worldview. I thought that all those intensive studies clearly showed that we all are way more than our physical bodies. The monumental amount of data accumulated in the 20th century alone was too great to ignore. Buddhism indeed can explain those phenomena with great accuracy and insightfulness. Back then I thought to myself: Certainly the “here and now” kind of philosophies within and outside the Buddhist framework would also have to account for what happens after we die. So, In the first section of the book called I. “After death and before life” I will quote some 27 mind-bending cases of OBE (out of body experiences), NDE (near death experiences) and extensive past lives cases in small children, that strongly suggest that we should take the reality of rebirth very seriously, and specially the profound teachings the Buddha Shakyamuni gave about rebirth and samsara. We will see that OBE and NDE that have been thoroughly studied by the hundreds during decades. It was remarkable to find out that those experiences people have had and recorded throughout history (and also quite recently) were very consistent as they show a clear pattern of characteristics that perfectly coincides with the writings of Buddhism, which explain with great accuracy the process of dying and rebirth. In fact Buddhism illuminates those experiences since most people who have NDE’s, past life memories or OOBE’s have no control whatsoever over what they experience whereas the Buddha and the great Buddhist masters were great beings who excelled at knowing their past lives and other realms of existence. Many things that seem chaotic about those phenomena are crystal clear in Buddhist cosmology and practice. I will explain those phenomena by quoting the Buddhist sacred texts and treatises that describe what happens in the Bardo (the stage in between death and rebirth) and how the process of rebirth is interrelated with karma and samsaric existence in the 6 realms. On my spiritual journey I had come to grips with the fact that I would be born again and that certainly this life was not my first one, nevertheless there were still many questions in my mind so I continued by asking…ok, rebirth is true….then, 28 when does it start?, Where do minds go? Where do they come from? Are there only humans, or are there also other beings involved in the process of rebirth? Am I going to be reborn as a human forever? How many realms of existence are there in the universe? In fact all of those questions lead me to discover the teachings on the 6 realms of Samsara as taught by the Buddha and His disciples. If what the Buddha taught is true, surely he must account for the vastness of the Universe, something that was actually only discovered in the 1920’s by Astronomer Edwin Hubble7, before his groundbreaking discoveries most scientists used to believe that the milky way was all there was in the cosmos, the milky way galaxy was considered the totality of the known universe….well, now they know for a fact that there are at least several billion galaxies….and counting. I thought Buddhism had to say something about that if it was something special, otherwise it could just be a manmade religion. Well, then again….i was astonished when i found out that Mahayana Buddhism teaches about millions of universes and galaxies (a conception that has only been on the table of possibilities for modern scientific cosmology for less than a century). The world systems described in Buddhist cosmology are inhabited by different beings with different states of mind within the 6 realms of samsara that are more accurately divided in 31 planes of existence (6 realms and three main dimensions). According to Mahayana Buddhism there are billions of Buddhas throughout the cosmos in transcendental realms Enclyclopedia Britannica. Edwin Hubble’s biography and his discoveries in Astronomy https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Hubble 7 29 outside Samsara and they are constantly manifesting in many samsaric realms in different ways to lead beings to Buddhahood. I was in awe when i noticed the precision the Buddha had to describe all of those planes of existence and how it all made perfect sense. I noticed that all kinds of astonishing phenomena reported throughout history such as angels, demons and forest spirits are included in Buddhist cosmology in a deep and clearly integrated framework. The chaos inside my mind was then finally put to rest because the Buddha had charted all those planes of existence in a clear map, designed to guide the mind of beings out of samsara. The Buddha’s way to look at the cosmos made total sense to me and the concept of samsara finally opened up for me. It became crystal clear that the cosmos was more vast and overwhelming than I could have ever imagined; but far from feeling happy about it, I became frightened because the dire warnings of the Sutra of Tears became not just a theory or something to imagine but a vivid and scary reality. So, in section II called “Samsara and Nirvana” I will explain each realm according to the Buddhist teachings (Hells, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, Asuras and devas) and we will then explain the Noble Realms of the Buddhas. In this section we will also explore what it means to become a Buddha (to attain Nirvana). I will quote the teachings in the sutras and the Commentaries of the great Buddhist masters of the past as explained by my Dharma Teacher Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea. I will start by suggesting why we should seriously consider the existence of higher and lower realms of existence as possible 30 destinations for our stream of consciousness. I will show very interesting research made by competent scientists which suggest that there are in fact other realms of existence beyond our human sphere of experiences. In this section i will quote the research made by military historian Richard Dolan, science philosopher Michael Cremo, and Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman and other great researchers who have carefully studied the possibility of other realms of existence beyond the world of human beings. After that, we will see the “big picture” according to the Buddha-Dharma. We will integrate the modern research made by those scientists which describes a few “glimpses” of other realms of existence with the Buddha-Dharma, which has a complete and coherent world-view that accounts for those phenomena in the teaching on Samsara and Nirvana. I will constantly quote Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea’s excellent book “The four profound thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma” which describes in great detail each plane of existence in Buddhist cosmology by quoting the words of the Shakyamuni Buddha and great Buddhist Masters like Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Tsongkapa, Genshin, Honen, Shinran and many others. I will describe the karmic causes that lead beings to be reborn in each realm and some fundamental notions about the nature of the universe in Buddhist cosmology (how a universe is formed and how it is related to samsara and the Law of cause and effect/karma). I will end this section by describing the Buddha-Nature that all beings carry inside; that is, the potential 31 to awaken to their Buddha-Nature and become Buddhas, Enlightened beings. I will describe here the great capacities that Buddhas possess and how they are related to the Noble Realms above samsara and the vast path of the Boddhisattva (the 10 Bhumis), which is the spiritual path that a being who aspires to become a Buddha goes through in order to develop perfect wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings. After really letting the existence of Samsara sink in I really felt cold with fear. I said to myself “So…Samsara as all masters’ taught so persistently is something real. VERY REAL: As i studied such a monumental body of evidence both in Buddhist Sutras and in modern scientific research, the concept of Samsara stopped being a possibility and it became a VIVID reality for me. “We all are in BIG trouble”…I thought to myself….“I sometimes did not even know for what exact reason I entered a room in my house, perhaps in the same way I was entering into different rooms in the building of existence for a very long time, and as a foolish being, I was going from birth to death, like a monkey jumping from one tree to another in the jungle, unaware, and oblivious of what was happening to me and everyone around me”. I was in the prison of Samsara, and for the first time I felt the cold bars surrounding me. I wanted to get out QUICKLY. In section III A Seed in Amida’s Hands I will explain how difficult it is to actually follow the Buddhist Path that leads to supreme Enlightenment (Buddhahood). There are so many teachings in Buddhism (thousands actually) and all of them imply a high degree of morality, concentration and spiritual 32 talents that I clearly lacked. Then I became convinced that the Dharma was only for spiritual prodigies or advanced spiritual beings, but certainly not for a simple guy like me who constantly enters into rooms and doesn’t even know why he went there in the first place. If I wanted to be free from samsara and try to become a Buddha like Shakyamuni I needed another way….that was obvious. In this part of the book I will quote several Buddhist sutras that explain what Buddhas can do and what Buddhist followers (no matter what school they follow) are seeking to attain when they engage in meditation, study and observing precepts. I will describe how I began to read about Pure land Buddhism (a school of Buddhism within the Mahayana8), which focuses on the great Buddha Amitabha (Amida), the Buddha of Infinite life and light. Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha of our world, 8 There are many schools in Buddhism; each branch of Buddhism normally has many sub-schools. The main three schools of Buddhism are: Hinayana (Theravada is the most important one in this branch) which focuses on liberation for oneself. This tradition is mainly practiced in countries like Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. There’s also Mahayana and Vajrayana (Esoteric and tantric traditions) which are practiced in eastern regions like China, Tibet, Nepal, Korea and Japan. They focus on liberation for all beings in the universe. Nowadays due to globalization Buddhism has spread also in the western countries. Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhist Schools are very popular in Europe and the USA; nevertheless Pure Land Buddhism remains the most popular school in Buddhism in general, since it is widely practiced by millions of people in countries like China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and to a lesser extent in the west as well. It must be noted that Pure Land Buddhism/devotion to Amitabha Buddha is also present in Tibetan Buddhism in the teachings on Phowa (that is focused on rebirth in Sukhavati/Amida’s Pure Land) and other teachings spread in different tantric lineages. 33 spoke a lot about Amida in the Three Pure land Sutras9, where Amitabha is the main focus of the teaching. In those sutras and many others Shakyamuni praises Amida Buddha’s power and His specific method He uses to save sentient beings; that is, by taking them to His Pure Land through His Enlightened power; thus Shakyamuni Buddha encouraged us sentient beings to be reborn in Sukhavati (Amida’s Pure Land) after death, as this blessed realm is the most perfect place for us to attain Buddhahood/Nirvana without any obstacles. Eventually i had the opportunity to read Josho Adrian Cirlea’s fine books about the Jodo Shinshu School of Buddhism, based on the teachings of the great Japanese Buddhist Master, Shinran Shonin. I began to read about how there was a great lineage of Masters, as recognized by Shinran, starting from Shakyamuni, then Nagarjuna, and Vasubandhu, from India, then spreading to China with Tan-Luan, Daochuo, Shan-tao, and finally in japan with Genshin and Honen. They all spoke in unison about the salvation from Samsara offered by Amida Buddha by only having faith in Him and reciting His name to be born in His Pure land after death. 9 The Three Pure Land Sutras are: 1. The Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life (The Larger Sutra) /In Sanskrit: The Larger Sukhavativyuha sutra/Japanese: Busetsu Muryoju Kyo. 2. The Sutra on the contemplation of the Buddha of Infinite Life (The Contemplation Sutra) In Sanskrit: Amitayurdhyana Sutra. In Japanese: Busetsu Kammuryoju Kyo 3. The Smaller Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life (The smaller sutra) In Sanskrit: The smaller Sukhavativyuha and in Japanese: Busetsu Amida Kyo 34 Buddhas are not only completely liberated from all worldly conditions; they also have mastery/command over all phenomena, so they have the transcendental capacity of emanating fields of direct influence that are called Pure Lands. They can create enlightened worlds using their powerful Enlightened Power. Since they are enlightened beings they don’t emanate samsaric worlds like ours but enlightened realms that are made with the sole purpose of teaching the Dharma in order to bless and benefit sentient beings away from the noisy and dangerous streets of Samsara. They are magnificent in their transcendental qualities and beauty, and they offer a superb environment to be blessed by the inconceivable powers of the Buddhas. Amida’s /Amitabha’s Pure Land is the most important and splendorous Pure Land of all. Once you are born in Amida’s Pure Land, it is game over for samsara. You never fall back to the 6 realms. You are assured of Buddhahood. (As this subject is very rich we will devote a complete chapter to it later on) There are millions of Buddha lands in the universe as there are millions of Buddhas and universes in Buddhism, but among them all, Sukhavati (Amida’s Pure Land) is the easiest to go to. Unlike other Buddha lands, where you need to be quite an accomplished Buddhist practitioner to be worthy of being born there, on the other hand being born in Sukhavati the only need you need is saying Amida’s Name, entrust ourselves to His power and wish to be born in His Pure Land after death, as expressed in His 18th Vow, called the Primal Vow of Salvation. Amida promised he would save ALL beings in ALL places of the Universe, and beings of ALL capacities. That is His Great Primordial Vow of Salvation: To take all beings (both good and 35 evil) to His Pure Land, and by doing so, rescuing all sentient beings from the stormy seas of Samsara forever. Sukhavati is the crowning jewel of all the Pure Lands, it is full with wondrous spiritual treasures and if a sentient being is reborn in that transcendental and marvelous realm, Enlightenment (Buddhahood) is given spontaneously if you have no doubts since beings never come back from there empty handed, that is, beings become Buddhas there and return to this world to save other beings by leading them to Buddhahood; all of this due to the power of Amida Buddha. In this part I will focus on some passages of the book “The meaning of faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism” by my teacher Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea. We will learn about Amida Buddha (Amitabha) the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life and His Primal Vow where He promises to save ALL beings (the wise and the fools, the evil and the virtuous) from the deadly jaws of Samsara. I came to trust NOT myself but AMIDA, and NOT my individual practices but HIS VOW, his Primordial Vow of salvation, reciting his name NEMBUTSU (saying Namo Amida Butsu) out of gratitude for His unconditional salvation. Before encountering Amida’s teachings I believed in the vastness and depth of the True Teachings of the Buddha, but the greater my confidence in the teachings became, the more inadequate and powerless I felt. I confess I was on the verge of just abandoning Buddhism altogether just out of a feeling of spiritual impotence and incompetence. 36 When I found the teachings of the Japanese Buddhist Masters Shinran and Honen I realized that they ALSO felt they were not up to the task of climbing the steep mountain of Enlightenment on their own, and instead of quitting their search for Buddhahood, they in fact stopped believing in their foolish selves and began trusting in Amida’s Power to be born in the Pure Land after death. This teaching is available to EVERYONE: prostitutes, lowly peasants, monarchs, priests, women, men, rich and poor… all beings are invited to Sukhavati and the only thing that is required is faith and say the name of Amida Buddha. I was astonished to say the least. “So the Buddha DOES care about fools like me” I thought. When you think about it….if the only way to get enlightened was by being a great disciple (being really good at meditation and precepts….most of us, if not ALL of us (specially nowadays) would be in real trouble. As my teacher Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea once said, (I paraphrase him) “when one reads about all the great practices and teachings of Buddhism one can feel that the Buddha is like a teacher that only shares His wisdom with perfect students…you know, the ones that seat on the classroom’s first row and know all the answers already. Master Shinran and Master Honen, and all the great Pure Land Buddhism Patriarchs tell us that THIS IS NOT TRUE. The Buddha CARES A LOT about messed up people like us. He wants us to be free and become Buddhas. The same way a loving mother wants her child to be safe and well fed, no matter if the child is not perfect; a loving mother will naturally care for her child.” 37 The end of my journey was to receive faith (shinjin, as it is called in Jodo Shinshu) in Amida Buddha and His Salvation. After all the despair I felt and after being on the verge of just quitting Buddhism altogether I just saw that the answer was not inside myself but outside. I opened the messy house of my mind to the shining sun of Amida’s salvation. I saw how great Buddhist Masters like Honen, Shinran, Nagarjuna and Tsongkhapa who knew the sutras perfectly and practiced harder than I could even conceive had a simple faith in Amida’s salvation. They relied on Him to achieve Buddhahood. What so say about me? As Master Rennyo Shonin (Jodo Shinshu Master) says: “Cling to Amida’s sleeves”. I simply became a common peasant, a foolish being carried away on Amida’s golden hands to His Pure Land, just like a seed on his hands. All I want for you, reader, my brother/sister in the dangerous streets of Samsara is that you keep an open heart and mind and give it chance to also trust in Amida Buddha, by contemplating the dangers of Samsaric existence and their REALITY. If just one person reads this book and decides to study Amida Dharma in greater detail and opens his heart and mind to the salvation of Amida, the Buddha of Infinite life and light that would be the greatest joy for this fool. Namo Amida Bu. 38 PART I AFTER DEATH AND BEFORE LIFE 39 Beyond the physical Shakyamuni Buddha came to this world to free us from Samsara; all the millions of Buddhas in the universe who are teaching the Dharma right now in other parts of the universe or other universes, all the Buddhas who came in the remote past, and all the Buddhas who will come in the future will do it in order to free beings from the bondage of Samsara and lead them to Nirvana, to Buddhahood. Of course these concepts have so much richness and complexity that if we put together all the Buddhist writings that explain them we could fill a large building with scores of sophisticated manuscripts and treatises. Nevertheless the Buddha not only gave his teachings to brilliant disciples but in fact He taught the Dharma all people from all walks of life: merchants, peasants, kings and slaves, women and men, youngsters and elders. Shinran Shonin the founder of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist School of Japan and His Master Honen also taught the Dharma to everyone, even to the lowest of the low like prostitutes and murderers. So you we can be pretty sure that intellectually speaking all those farmers and simple lay folk were not very sophisticated or bright. Most of them could not even write and they completely ignored sophisticated language; in spite of that they could still comprehend, in a BASIC way what the Buddhist teaching is about. The Buddha used many simple analogies to describe 40 Samsara for example he used similes like sticks, stones and branches, we read for instance: “The Blessed One (The Buddha) said this: “Monks, this Samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving. Suppose, monks, a man would cut up whatever grass, sticks, branches, and foliage there are on this earth, and collect them together into a single heap. Having done so he would put them down, saying for each one: “This is my mother; this is my mother’s mother” The sequence of that man’s mothers and grandmothers would not come to an end and yet the grass, sticks, branches, and foliage on this earth would be used up and exhausted”10 In another sutra, the Timsa Sutra, we read: So the Buddha addressed the monks: "Monks." "Yes, lord," the monks responded. The Blessed One said, "From an inconceivable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks? Which is greater, the blood you have shed from having your heads cut off while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time, or the water in the four great oceans?" "As we understand the Dharma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the blood we have shed from having In the Buddha’s Words: An Antology of Discourses from the Pail Canon, by Bikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications 2005 SN 15: 1 II 178, “Grass and Sticks” I 240-49, page 37 10 41 our heads cut off while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time, not the water in the four great oceans." "Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dharma taught by me. "This is the greater: the blood you have shed from having your heads cut off while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time, not the water in the four great oceans. "The blood you have shed when, being cows, you had your cow-heads cut off: Long has this been greater than the water in the four great oceans. "The blood you have shed when, being water buffaloes, you had your water buffalo-heads cut off... when, being rams, you had your ram-heads cut off... when, being goats, you had your goatheads cut off... when, being deer, you had your deer-heads cut off... when, being chickens, you had your chicken-heads cut off... when, being pigs, you had your pig-heads cut off: Long has this been greater than the water in the four great oceans. "The blood you have shed when, arrested as thieves plundering villages, you had your heads cut off... when, arrested as highway thieves, you had your heads cut off... when, arrested as adulterers, you had your heads cut off: Long has this been greater than the water in the four great oceans. "Why is that? From an inconceivable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted 42 with all fabrications, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released (from samsara)”11 The Buddha constantly pointed out, that we should not be happy about living in this world and that we should try to transcend it at all cost that’s why He emphasized the concept of samsara so much, in order to cause who ever heard him to feel repulsed by birth and death. He was not making it complicated for people at all. He just told them that in the past they had suffered, in the present they were suffering from illness, pain and death, and that if they did not pay attention to the Dharma they would suffer again and again in the future. There were great differences between the Buddha’s teachings on cosmology and the notions of a supreme creator god or the belief in an immortal soul (eternalism). The Buddha strongly rejected the concept of prayer to deities or rituals to go to heaven as the final goal of enlightenment because the realm of the gods (devas) is just another part of samsara. You can compare it to a Jail Building with many floors. Each floor of the prison being a little bit nicer the higher you go. No matter if you are locked in a cell in the poorest prison cell on the first floor or on the top floor with better food and clothes….you are still in prison and you are not free. The Buddhas want to destroy the jail of Samsara to the last tiny brick and therefore free all beings from the captivity of birth and death, their fundamental goal is not to improve the conditions inside the jail building but to free the beings inside it. 11 SN 15.13 Timsa Sutta: Thirty- translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn15/sn15.013.than.html 43 Another famous analogy in Buddhism is to call the Buddha “a doctor” and Samsaric beings the sick patients. The patients should accept the medicine that the Doctor prescribes to heal them from their sickness. The sickness is birth and death in Samsara and the remedy is the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. Today’s modern world is filled to the brim with distractions and ignorance of the most basic truths. People have come to have one of these three erroneous mental attitudes about the nature of life after death: 1.They bluntly deny it. They believe they are just the physical body, (in the case of the materialists) or 2. If they happen to believe in the continuity of their consciousness after death, that belief is very shallow, that is, they don’t give much thought to these matters, and in my experience they just say they believe but in fact they are doubtful about the continuity of their minds after death or 3. They follow non-Buddhist paths and therefore they interpret the concept of rebirth or life after death in a wrong way because they do not follow the Teachings of the Buddha which in the words of Shakyamuni Buddha are not just another set of teachings created by a man or a deity but in fact the BuddhaDharma (the teachings of the Buddhas) are supreme; they are above all concepts created by the minds of unenlightened beings in the 6 realms. Using the previous analogy again, this situation is similar to a Doctor that comes to help a sick person, but this person says he/she does not believe he/she is ill, in fact he/she does not 44 believe that such thing as “sickness” exists, so the sick person sends the Doctor out, and says “I am not interested”. So, the Buddha comes to alleviate the problem of rebirth, but if we don’t even believe we are more than our bodies or we are full of wrong notions about it we are just like that mad patient: we say to the Buddha and His teachings “Go away!”, truly, How can we accept a medicine to a sickness we don’t believe to be real?, or How can we accept a medicine from a doctor if we believe we know better than him and we think the sickness does not even exist? Well the sad thing is that many Buddhist nowadays (the patients) did not have the courtesy of sending the Doctor away but they are actually playing with the books of the doctor, his medicine, and asking him to entertain them with stupid things that are not related with the sickness. That is what is happening with so many people going to study the Dharma to “improve their relationships”, or “be happy and relaxed”, in reality they are just like a patient wasting the time of a Doctor who came to the house trying to save the sick person’s life, but this deluded person refuses to take the medicine and does not even admit that he is sick and does not conceive that the concept of sickness even exists. One of the most important things in Buddhism is the concept of the afterlife, despite whatever smiling teachers say about “being in the present moment” or “take it easy”, the Buddha (as you have seen in the Sutra of Tears, the Timsa Sutra or in the analogy of the sticks, stones and branches) taught persistently and vividly about rebirth and 45 why we should concentrate on the questions of death and suffering with all our hearts and minds. One of the most vital and important concerns of the Buddha-Dharma (if not the greatest of them all) is the brutal reality of death and rebirth, and if we don’t accept that fact then we will be practicing our own “made-up Dharma” but certainly not what the Buddha and His Noble Disciples constantly taught. As Master Rennyo from the Jodo Shinshu School said: “It has been said that those who do not know the importance of the afterlife are foolish, even though they may understand eighty thousand sutras and teachings; those who know about the afterlife are wise, even though they may be unlettered men and women.”12 As I said earlier, Buddhism is not just for spiritual prodigies but also for common people with common lives and with modest capacities. The Buddha taught everyone about the importance to escape the cycle of rebirths in the cycle of Samsara, and that can be learned even by a peasant farmer who doesn’t know how to read or write. We need to ask ourselves transcendental questions about important matters such as death, suffering and rebirth which have been the focus of Buddhism for millennia. We don’t need to read a million sutras to understand the basic truths the 12 Rennyo Shonin Ofumi: The Letters of Rennyo, translated from the Japanese (Taisho, Volume 74, Number 2668) by Ann T. Rogers and Minor L. Rogers, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley, California, 1996, p.16 46 Buddha taught, we just need to be sincere and honest with what we see in the basic Dharma teachings and how they are related to the world and ourselves. By doing this we will then realize that the Buddhas have our best interest in mind constantly. The first thing we need to acknowledge is the existence of the continuity of consciousness after death; once we acknowledge that fact it will DRAMATICALLY affect the way we see the Dharma, and many of the most fundamental sutras will COME TO LIFE and we will eagerly listen to them in a profound way. I will now explain some phenomena that defy the notion that consciousness is produced by the brain. You will read about phenomena such as Out of Body experiences (OOBE), Near Death experiences (NDE) and past life memories that have been carefully investigated by competent modern researchers throughout the 20th century (and some in this century) These cases were also recorded in the Buddhist sutras and they put these phenomena in the bigger framework of Buddhist cosmology as we will see later on when we connect the dots and see the bigger picture of Buddhist cosmology and the teachings on karma. OBBE and NDE Throughout human history almost all traditional civilizations (Egyptians, Greeks, Mayas, Native Americans, and Druids, just to name a few) have had a strong belief in a realm (or several realms) outside what we can normally sense with our physical bodies. Many of those cultures considered that there is 47 something in us that continues after death, and something that precedes it as well. It is a well-known historical fact that Materialist worldviews are extremely rare (even if they do exist in some cultures) in history but they are certainly the exception rather and clearly not the general rule. Out of Body Experiences OOBE and Near death Experiences NDE are very common, and they have challenged Anthropologists and historians time and time again, because of the complexity and keen interest of so many cultures in death and the afterlife is so vast and rich, that simplistic explanations like: “Oh yes, cultures just needed something to believe in” or “they controlled the economy through religion” are just not enough to account for the vastness and depth of the phenomenon, as researcher Dean Sheils says: “(….) Data from nearly 70 non-Western cultures were used to explore beliefs in out-of-the-body experiences (OOBEs).The data reveal that OOBE beliefs appear in about 95 per cent of the world’s cultures and that they are striking in their uniformity even though the cultures are diverse in structure and location. Three conventional explanations of OOBE beliefs— social control, crisis, and the dream theories—were tested and found to be inadequate as explanations. Hence, it is possible that the specificity and generality of OOBE beliefs is simply a response to a genuine event; i.e., the actual occurrence of OOBE.”13 These kinds of experiences throughout so many traditional cultures suggest that the search for the transcendental is 13 Human Devolution, quoted by Michael A. Cremo, Science Philosopher and Anthropologist, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p. 259 48 something innate in all of us. From the Egyptian book of the dead to the Tibetan book of the dead, we clearly see that cultures separated by entire continents and oceans, and also separated by thousands of years, not only have had great interest in death and what happens afterwards but they have also written very detailed works describing this process. The very concept of OOBE is so common, that it is very likely you have heard of or even witnessed yourself, people who have been in grave accidents who claim to have seen themselves from above, because they left their wounded body behind while they were being helped by someone else. These kinds of experiences are quite common worldwide. I will start by mentioning modern cases because sometimes people tend to assume that if you quote something from an ancient text it gets an “exotic aura” that prevents them from realizing that these experiences address reality itself. Buddhist texts are very profound but some people get intimidated by the superficial cultural differences rather than recognizing what the Buddhist teachings are pointing at: reality itself. As you will see there have been many serious scientists and medical doctors who have done intensive and extensive research on NDE and OOBE. For example Michael B. Sabom, (1954- ) is a North American cardiologist and a NDE and OOBE researcher with a great experience in the field of medical resuscitations and heart surgeries. Having witnessed so much of these cases he began a 49 thorough investigation on patients who claimed they had left their bodies during surgeries or an accident. During his research he reported hundreds of cases where people claim they had the vivid experience of levitating outside their bodies and they could also see things and people they should not have been able to see if they had been inside their physical bodies. In many cases the patients who had OOBE and NDE experiences gave very detailed reports of complex heart surgery procedures that only an experienced cardiologist could know, and some patients could actually recall the procedures in the EXACT order they were performed, which is something remarkable. Doctor Sabom was skeptical about the reports he recorded so he devised a method to confirm it was not a coincidence or a psychological fabrication. He formed a control group made of patients with a similar social background as the patients that reported NDE and OOBE14 . Sabom interviewed 25 patients that were somewhat familiar with the procedures of a heart surgery (some of them had watched surgeries on TV) Doctor Sabom asked them to imagine they were in an operation room and describe a heart surgery using their previous knowledge on that topic and their imagination. He discovered 22 of those patients made huge errors and a couple of them could not even invent anything related to the imaginary surgery. On the other hand 32 of the patients that reported NDE made no mistakes about the surgical procedures and 6 of them could give detailed information about the tools used during the operation, including 14 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 266-268. 50 the precise order of the surgical performed during their surgeries. After that Doctor Sabom was confident that the patients were not fabricating stories but they actually had an experience that defied skepticism. Some Scientist say that some of that could be explained by hallucinations created by the brain, but that simply doesn’t make sense because a lot of patients who have reported OOBE cases can make accurate and precise descriptions of their surroundings and the people who were present when their body was unconscious in an accident or while a surgery was being performed. The lack of oxygen does not make the brain think clearly but quite the opposite. This fact is at odds with the sense of sharpness and clarity that the patients have. They actually feel the opposite way: they feel they have more freedom and they can actually see things they normally would not be able to see with their physical bodies. There’s one particular case studied by Doctor Sabom that illustrates this point: “In another case, an American soldier in Vietnam was severely wounded in a mine explosion, losing two legs and one arm. While he was being transported away from the battlefield in a helicopter, in an unconscious state, he had an out-of-body experience. He remained close to his body and could see it. His body was taken to a field hospital. There he saw doctors operating on his body, but he wanted them to stop. In his interview he said, “I actually remember grabbing the doctor. . . . I grabbed and he wasn’t there or either I just went through him or whatever” (….)The same soldier reported traveling from the operating room back to the battlefield, where he 51 witnessed other soldiers putting the dead into body bags and collecting the wounded. After trying to get one of the soldiers to stop, he found himself suddenly back in the hospital. He recalled, “It was almost like you materialize there and all of a sudden the next instant you were over here. It was just like you blinked your eyes”15 As you can see, in this case, a soldier reported he left his body and he could travel almost instantaneously wherever he wanted to go, “in the blink of an eye” and when he tried to grab the doctor it seemed he could not because he was in a different dimension altogether, the soldier said “I just went through him”. Cases like these are very common. So…may I ask, are they making these stories up? Or are they telling the truth? I should add Doctor Michael B. Sabom’s research is just one among many. Ray Griffin is an American philosopher who made a great research about these kinds of phenomena on his book Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: a Postmodern exploration, in this book there’s an incredible report of a patient who had a similar OBBE experience, where she flew to the top of the hospital building during an operation: Dr. Kimberley Clark, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington and a social worker at Harborview Medical center, reported another case that is difficult to account for in terms of hallucinations formed from sound and touch impressions entering the mind of a person approaching complete unconsciousness. A migrant worker named Maria underwent treatment for cardiac arrest at Harborview. 15 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Science Philosopher, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 265 52 Afterwards, she told Clark she had experienced an OBE. She had been floating above her body and looking down at the doctors and nurses. Clark figured she could have imagined the scene, drawing upon things she saw and heard before she lost consciousness. Maria then told how she had found herself floating outside by the emergency room driveway. Clark concluded that she could have seen the driveway during her stay and incorporated it into her OBE. Maria further explained how she had noticed something sitting on the ledge of the third floor of the hospital building. She found herself floating right up next to the object, which turned out to be a tennis shoe. She described little details, such as a worn place in the spot where the little toe would have been, and a shoelace looped under the heel. Clark went to check, and at first saw nothing. She went up to the third floor, and after looking through many windows finally found one where she could see the shoe. The ledge was not easily visible from the window. One had to press one’s face against the glass, and angle the eyes down. And from there she still could not see the details described by Maria. Clark stated: “The only way she would have had such a perspective was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe.” When the shoe was retrieved it matched the description given by Maria” 16 As we see in this case, Maria´s mind (the patient) could literally fly above a building and have access to a perspective of the building from above, so her claims could be verified. This is similar to the other cases where Doctor Sabom could verify that the patients were giving specific information about people such as the detailed description of items and complex procedures that could’ve been perceived only if they had been 16 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 271-272 53 (as they claimed) outside their bodies and with a clear and sharp capacity to perceive, which is at odds with the inactivity of the brain during a surgery. Other important research was done in 2001, at Southampton University (United Kingdom), Doctor Sam Parnia and a team of medically trained researchers made an intensive study on NDE during a year in the city’s general hospital. The results of the research said: “The patients brought back to life were all, for varying lengths of time, clinically dead with no pulse, no respiration and fixed dilated pupils. Independent EEG studies have confirmed that the brain’s electrical activity, and hence brain function, ceases at that time (…)”17 One of the most striking things about NDE (Near death experiences) is that patients report complex and structured memories when they are resuscitated. If all brain activity has stopped, then how are those patients reporting having these experiences if their nervous system was totally inactive? As the study says: ““During cardiac arrest brainstem activity is rapidly lost. It should not be able to sustain such lucid processes or allow the formation of lasting memories.” The University of Southampton study took into account two common explanations for NDE’s. The first is that the visions are produced by lack of oxygen or unusual drug treatments. But oxygen levels were carefully monitored in the study, and none of the survivors reporting NDE’s had low oxygen levels neither did they have 17 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 276 54 any unusual combinations of drugs. Another explanation is that the visions are an attempt by the mind to avoid confronting the uncomfortable fact of death. But Dr. Parnia observed, “The features of the NDE’s in this study were dissimilar to those of confusing hallucinations as they were highly structured, narrative, easily recalled and clear”18 So, this research’s stunning result was that their patients had no physiological way to have those vivid and complex memories. Their brain activity was totally nullified and yet they reported complex narratives that were “easily recalled” and clear. So it is very difficult to discard this investigation and say that they were just hallucinations. As you can see, patients not only feel clear minded but they also have abilities that they don’t normally possess with their physical bodies. Cases like those quoted above are widespread, and they involve cases in all continents. There are literally thousands of documented cases studied by researchers like Sabom, Griffin, Parnia and Stevenson to name just a few. All of these cases strongly suggest what we call the mind is not limited to the physical body. When we combine those compelling investigations with the anthropological and historical statistics that clearly show that more than 95% of all cultures throughout history have had detailed accounts of OOBE and NDE experiences it is clear that any non-biased reflection about these worldwide phenomena would conclude that they are very real, even if we are not able to explain their full scope and precise causes. The Buddha taught that the continuity of consciousness is not something to be celebrated, as many people tend to believe, but 18 Ibidem 55 it is actually the consequence of ignorance, because if a person is reborn again he or she will experience suffering, sickness and death. We will explain in detail the concepts of karma and rebirth later on in the book but for now, keep in mind that the Buddha taught that the sufferings we experience in this life such as sickness and death are not limited only to this present life. Memories of past lives in small children: Doctor Ian Stevenson (Montreal, Canada 1918-2007 Charlottesville Virginia, USA) was a biochemist, Medical doctor and professor of psychiatry in Virginia University. In 1967 he founded the Division of Perceptual Studies which focuses on the study of OBE, NDE experiences and specially the study of memories of past lives in small children. Doctor Stevenson and his team of researchers have collected more than 2000 cases of children that recall past life memories throughout the world, including western Christian countries like Brazil, USA and Canada where the concept of reincarnation is not a widespread religious belief (and sometimes heavily condemned by some religions). After the passing of Stevenson in 2007, the Division of perceptual studies kept their reputation as a well-known and respected scientific organization within the University of Virginia and their ongoing research on past live memories in small children has added several hundred cases more to Stevenson’s already voluminous investigation records. 56 In his famous book “Twenty cases suggestive of Reincarnation”19 Doctor Stevenson summarizes his research by selecting 20 of the best documented cases he investigated in several countries. Some of the common characteristics of these cases are: 1. The children don’t claim to have been Julius Cesar or Cleopatra or any important historical figure in their previous life. Instead they claim to have been just common people in the past. 2. All the children have the capacity to name several specific names of their relatives in former lives and they also have very private information that they have no way to get by natural means. In many cases the child can recall the way to the house he/she used to live in and they are also able to recognize their former relatives as well as identify and locate several items that belonged to the diseased person they claim to be the reincarnation of. 3. In most cases they claim they did not have a natural death but that they died in accidents or murders. The children are usually traumatized about their memories and their parents are frightened and impressed by their accounts because they usually have nightmares related to the way they died and they name specific circumstances and feelings that are not normal in little children. Like for instance the agony of being in a car or plane crash, or being murdered by a criminal. “20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. 19 57 4. In many cases children have birthmarks related to the way they died in their previous life. For example if the child has a wound on this head, he recalls having been murdered with a gun, and the exact location of his wound matches the wound that was inflicted according to the past life memory. I will share three important cases investigated by Stevenson that are very difficult to discard as hallucinations or hoaxes 20: 1. The case of Sukhla (India, 1962)21: “There’s a famous case in Bengal, India, 1962, Stevenson went there personally to interview a Bengalese family,(The Guptas) which lived in the village of Kampa, West Bengal22. Their daughter Sukhla was a little girl of 4 years old, even before that age her parents reported she always used to call a little pillow “Minu”. When they asked her who Minu was, she responded “She is my daughter”. As she learned to speak more fluently she began to reveal more details about her past life memories. She started talking about “he”, her former husband and another village she used to live in, and she also mentioned Khetu and Karuna, brother and sister of her husband that lived in a village called Bhaptala. It should be noted that their family did not know anything about where the village was exactly “20 cases suggestive of Reincarnation” page 52. I will base myself on this book for this case of Sukhla (India, 1962) and the next one Imad (Lebanon, 1958-1962). 21 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 223-226 22 “20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. page 52. 20 58 located and they did not know anyone who lived there. She recalled being the wife of Brahmin and she had the vivid memory of going to the movies with him. Later it was discovered she died in an accident the night they went out to the movies” Sukla also had strange behavior regarding her manners; she always insisted that she should not be having dinner with “such lowly people”. She constantly felt that she was a respected Brahmin family (a high cast in the Indian cast system) and she should not be eating beside her little brother. This behavior on top of her capacity to recall the names of a former husband and her sisters was very surprising to her family indeed. “Sukla then had a strong desire to go to a small location in Bahtala called Rathala, and she insisted that if her family didn’t take her there then she would go alone. She also said she could also lead the way to her former father-in-law’s house in that small locality. She insisted so much that her parents finally took her there and she guided them. (She was only 5 years old at that time). There she met Sri Amritalah Chrakravarti, who she recognized as her former father-in-law. In his house she could accurately name several family members who lived there and she recognized a variety of objects with a sincere nostalgic feeling. She could recognize all her former sisters-in-law and brothers in law and she behaved like the wife of the son of Amritalah, who she identified as her former husband. She was identified as the reincarnation of Mana, the diseased wife of Haridhan 59 Chrakravarty who died in an accident a day they went out at night to the cinema. Sukla had guided them in the intricate streets and roads of the village and they arrived at the correct house, Sukla had some difficulty finding the main entrance door. Stevenson commented: “Since the death of Mana, a former entrance to the house had been closed, and the main entrance moved to the side off the street and down an alley. Shukla’s confusion was thus appropriate to the changes.”23 While Sukla and the party were still in front of the house, Amritlal Chrakravarti by chance came into the street. Immediately upon seeing him, Sukla gave a sign of recognition, dropping her eyes downward, as Indian women customarily do in the presence of an older male relative. Inside the house were between twenty and thirty people. Sukla was asked if she could pick out her husband. She correctly identified Haridhan Chakravarty as “Minu’s father”24. At the same time, she also pointed out Khetu, identifying him as “the uncle of Minu”. At another point during the visit, a man entered the room and a few minutes later asked Sukla, “Who am I?”25 Sukla said, “Karuna,” and also identified him as her younger brother-inlaw. Most of those present did not know him by his given name Karuna, but by his nickname Kuti. When she saw Minu (her 23 “20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 58 24 “20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 59 25 Ibíd 60 daughter) Sukla began to shed tears and manifested other signs of intense affection for the girl, who was at the time twelve or thirteen years old 26 It was clear to Stevenson and other Indian researchers that had studied the case that Sukla had a strong emotional connection with Minu, and the families reported that after their first encounter, Sukla requested to be taken often to her former husband’s house to visit her daughter Minu. Whenever Minu got sick, Sukla would cry and demand to be taken to see her. And later on Minu would also visit Sukla in her village and demanded to spend time with her. All of these strong emotional reactions were at odds with any type of skepticism, Doctor Stevenson noted no intention in both families to lie or create an elaborate hoax. Sukla had always felt separate from the other children in her family, because she felt she belonged to another family and she displayed an unnatural knowledge of other people’s personal information. Moreover she also behaved like a mother and a wife when she was closed to Minu and her former husband. She also knew that Mana’s first son had died as a baby. Sukla also went to her bedroom and identified several items like for instance a decorative pitcher that was still on Mana´s room. When she saw sewing machine that was often used by Mana she began to shed tears bitterly. Sukla had never entered that room in her life, and yet she could identify several personal objects with great accuracy. Stevenson noted another fact that pointed to the veracity of this case: Sukla only knew things that 26 Ibíd 61 only Mana could have known during the time she was alive. Events that happened after Mana’s passing like for instance: the death of the house’s parrot and the death of a brother-inlaw’s cow was new for her; she had no idea about that, and she demonstrated authentic concern and emotion when she heard about those minor details. Stevenson tried to get his mind around such an overwhelming case, but he could not find any prove that the two families had known each other previous to Sukla’s visit to Minu’s house. He eventually found out that all members of the family seemed to be truthful as later on he found out that the constant visits of Sukla to visit Minu where very inconvenient given that both villages where several miles apart. No economic interest was ever discovered by Dr. Stevenson and the Indian researchers. The fact that both families did not know each other before Sukla’s visit is reinforced by the clear difference in social status and rank in Indian Society. The Guptas were lower class and the Chrakravarty family was part of the Brahmin cast so the possibility of they having a close relationship in which they could know all those personal details that Sukla pointed out was far-fetched according to Stevenson’s analysis.”27 The case of Imad Elawar (Lebanon, 1958).28 “Another compelling case investigated by Stevenson was the case of Imad Elawar who was born in 1958, in the village of Kornayel, Lebanon. His family belonged to the druse, an 27 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 223-226 28 ; Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 226-230 62 Islamic sect that accepts reincarnation. From the time he was two years old, Imad began telling of a previous life in the village of Khriby, in a family of the name Bouhamzy. He often spoke of someone with the first name Mahmoud. Other male persons he spoke of were Amin, Adil, Talil (or Talal), Said, Toufic, Salim, and Kemal. Imad also mentioned a female name, Mehibeh. Imad’s father did not like these revelations and scolded his son for telling lies. But Imad’s mother and grandparents were sympathetic. When Imad was still two years old, Salim el Aschkar happened to visit Kornayel. He was a resident of Khriby. Imad’s grandmother testified that when Imad saw Salim, he rushed up to him and put his arms around him. “do you know who I am?” asked Salim. Imad replied, “Yes, you were my neighbor” 29Salim el Aschkar had in fact been a neighbor of a deceased member of the Bouhamzy family. Shortly thereafter, Imad’s parents met a woman who lived in a village near Khriby. She confirmed that people with the same names as those mentioned by Imad did live there 30In december of 1963, Imad’s father attended a funeral in Khriby, and some of the people he met pointed out to him two men with names mentioned by Imad. This was his first visit to Khriby, and he did not at that time speak to any member of the Bouhamzy family. Imad displayed unusual behaviors. As a child, the very first word that Imad uttered was Jamileh, the name of a woman, apparently known to him from his previous life. He described her beauty and her taste for Western clothes. 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. p 276 30 Ibíd. 29 63 In many ways, he made known his attraction for this beautiful woman, showing an interest far beyond his young age of two or three years. Imad avoided children of his own age, and had a liking for strong tea and coffee, just like the village men. He would often ask his father to take him hunting. He indicated that in his previous life, he had a double barreled shotgun and a rifle. He said he had hidden his rifle in his house. In school, he was unusually quick in learning French. When a sister was born, he asked that she be named Huda. He also had a phobia of buses and trucks. He spoke repeatedly of two accidents. In one, a man driving a truck got into a wreck and lost his legs. There had been a quarrel between the man who lost his legs and the driver. In the second accident, Imad was the driver of a bus that got into an accident when for some reason he was not driving it. He also described the house in which he had lived. As a child, Imad often said he was very happy that he could walk. From all of these things, Imad’s parents concluded he had once lived in Khriby and that his name in his past life was Mahmoud Bouhamzy, who had a beautiful wife named Jamileh. The man had died after a truck hit him, causing him to lose both his legs. This had happened as a result of a quarrel with the truck driver. They also concluded that some of the names he mentioned were those of his sons, brothers, and other relatives. For example, they concluded he had a brother named Amin who lived in Tripoli and worked at the Tripoli courthouse. He had another brother Said. He had two sons, Adil and Talil (or Talal). He had another two sons, Kemal and Salim. He had a friend called Yousef el Halibi, and another called Ahmed el Halibi. He also had a sister named Huda. 64 In 1962, Stevenson learned of the case from an informant, and in 1964 went to Lebanon to meet the Elawars. In March 1964, when Imad was five and a half years old, Stevenson took him and his father from their home in Kornayel to Khriby. Kornayel is in the mountains fifteen miles east of Beirut. Khriby lies 25 miles south from Kornayel. A distant relative of the Elawar family knew the Bouhamzy family. But Imad’s father told Stevenson that this relative had never mentioned anything about the Bouhamzys. When Stevenson, Imad, and his father went to Khriby on March 17, 1964, Stevenson interviewed a limited number of informants. Two residents said that in June 1943 a member of the Bouhamzy family died after having been run over by a truck. It was, however, not Mahmoud but Said Bouhamzy. As far as Jamileh was concerned, she was, they said, not the wife of Said Bouhamzy. On this visit, Stevenson managed to locate Yousef el Halibi, who was by this time quite old and ill. He said he had been a friend of Said Bouhamzy. Stevenson stated: “On this occasion Imad pointed correctly in the direction of the house he claimed to have lived in, and made a couple of other statements suggesting paranormal knowledge of the village, but did not meet any members of the Bouhamzy family”.31 The next day Stevenson returned to Khriby, but without Imad and his father. He received additional confirmation that Said Bouhamzy had no connection with Jamileh. He also learned that the descriptions Imad had given of the house he had lived 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 279 31 65 in did not match the house of Said Bouhamzy. Furthermore, there was already a man who claimed to have been Said Bouhamzy in a previous life. Thus far the information obtained by Stevenson was confusing, and appeared to call into question Imad’s story, as presented to him by his relatives. But then Stevenson learned about another member of the Bouhamzy family, a man named Ibrahim, a cousin of Said. Ibrahim did in fact have a relationship with a woman called Jamileh. She was his mistress. Ibrahim had died on September 18, 1949, suffering from tuberculosis. The disease had infected his spine, which caused him much pain in walking. Stevenson also learned that Ibrahim had an uncle named Mahmoud. Upon further questioning of Imad and his relatives, Stevenson learned that Imad had never actually claimed to be Mahmoud nor had he ever actually claimed to have been the person who died in the incident with the truck. These were simply suppositions made by his parents, who had tried to put together all the names and places and events mentioned by Imad in a way that seemed most logical to them. Their interpretative errors tend to rule out the theory that they manufactured Imad’s past life story, using information acquired by normal means from persons in Khriby. Stevenson then began operating on the theory that Imad had been Ibrahim in his past life. Things began to fall together. Ibrahim’s mistress Jamileh was locally famous for her beauty and did in fact dress in Western clothes—a red dress and high heels, for example—which would have been unusual for a 66 village woman in Lebanon during the 1940s. Ibrahim was fluent in french, having learned it during his service in the army. Ibrahim did have a close relative named Amin who lived in Tripoli. Amin, a government employee, did have an office in the Tripoli courthouse building, as stated by Imad. Amin was not, however, Imad’s brother, as originally supposed by Imad’s parents when they heard Imad talk of him. It is common, however, for Lebanese males to call close friends and relatives “brother.” Ibrahim had a female cousin, Mehibeh. Imad’s parents had thought she was Imad’s daughter in his previous existence. Ibrahim also had one male cousin called Adil and another called Khalil. Stevenson proposed that the name Imad gave, Talil, was a mispronunciation of Khalil. Both Talil and Adil were originally mistakenly identified by Imad’s parents as sons of Imad in his previous life. Among the other names mentioned by Imad, Toufic, originally identified by Imad’s parents as a brother, and Kemal, originally identified as a son, turned out to be additional cousins of Ibrahim. Salim, originally identified as a son, turned out to be an uncle of Ibrahim, with whom he lived. Ibrahim Bouhamzy did in fact have a sister Huda. Yousef el Halibi, named by Imad as a friend, was in fact a friend of the Bouhamzy family. Ahmed el Halibi, mentioned by Imad, was the brother of Yousef. Ibrahim Bouhamzy was in fact involved in an accident with a bus, of which he was the driver. The accident occurred, however, at a time when Ibrahim had pulled the bus to the side of the road and stopped. He had gotten out of the bus momentarily, when it began to roll and went off the road, injuring some of the passengers. Imad’s statement that the bus accident occurred when he was not actually driving was thus confirmed. Ibrahim had indeed liked hunting and had owned a double barreled 67 shotgun, like the one mentioned by Imad. He also owned a rifle, which he kept hidden. It was illegal for a civilian to own such a gun 32 Imad had described his house as having been in the center of Khriby, near a slope. These details were correct for Ibrahim’s house. The house, according to Imad, had two wells, one dry and one full. In this regard, Stevenson reported: “during the life of Ibrahim there had been two ‘wells’ whose sites were pointed out to us. The ‘wells’ had been closed up since the death of Ibrahim. They were not spring wells, but rather concrete cavities or vats used for storing grape juice. The wells would be used alternately during the rainy season one of these vats became filled with water, but the shallower one did not, because the water evaporated from it. Thus one would be empty while the other was full.”33Imad had talked about a new garden. Ibrahim’s brother Fuad confirmed that at the time of Ibrahim’s death, a new garden was in fact being built. Imad said, correctly, that it had cherry and apple trees. Stevenson saw the trees during his visit to the house. Imad had reported owning a small yellow car, a bus, and a truck. The members of the Bouhamzy family with whom Ibrahim lived did in fact own such vehicles. On March 19, 1964, Stevenson made his third visit to Khriby, this time accompanied by Imad and his parents. They went to 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 290 33 “20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 293 32 68 the house of Ibrahim Bouhamzy, where Imad made fourteen correct recognitions and statements 34for example, he pointed out the place where Ibrahim had hidden his rifle. The place was confirmed by Ibrahim’s mother, who said the place, in the back of a closet, was known only to her and Ibrahim. While at the house, Imad was shown a photograph of a man. Those showing the photograph to him suggested the man was Ibrahim’s brother or uncle. But when asked to say who it was, Imad correctly said, “Me” (Ibrahim). One of the persons present in the house during the visit was Huda Bouhamzy, Ibrahim’s sister. She asked Imad, “do you know who I am?” Imad replied, “Huda” 35Later Huda asked him: “You said something just before you died. What was it?” Imad replied, “Huda, call fuad.” Stevenson stated: “This was correct because fuad had left shortly before and Ibrahim wanted to see him again, but died immediately.” Out of two beds in a bedroom of the house, Imad picked the one in which Ibrahim had died. He also correctly told where it had been in the room at the time of his death, a position different than at the time of Imad’s visit. When asked how he had talked to his friends during his final illness, Imad pointed to a window in the room. Stevenson noted: “during his infectious illness, his friends could not enter Ibrahim’s room, so they talked with him through a window, the 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 299 35 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 301 34 69 bed being arranged so that he could see and talk with his friends through the window.” 36 Imad also told Stevenson and others of an intermediate life, between the death of Ibrahim in 1949 and his own birth in 1958. He said he had passed this brief life at a place called dahr el Ahmar, but he could not remember enough details for Stevenson to conduct an investigation.37 I will share a last case that was investigated by Jim. B Tucker, MD a member of the Division of Perceptual Studies of Virginia University founded by Stevenson in 1967. This is a summary of another past life memory case studied by Doctor B. Tucker (from the perceptual studies division of Virginia University, Medicine Faculty) in his case study paper called “The Case of James Leininger: An American case of the Reincarnation Type”38 “James Leininger is the son of Bruce and Andrea Leininger, a protestant couple in Louisiana in the United States. Beginning at the age of two, he made statements and demonstrated 36 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 300 37 20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation” by Doctor Ian Stevenson, MD, University of Virginia Press, 1974. Page 318 38 I quote several parts of the Public paper published on the official Website of the Virginia University Medicine faculty. The Division of Perceptualstudies.-Link consulted October 20, 2019: https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp content/uploads/sites/360/2017/04/REI42-Tucker-JamesLeiningerPIIS1550830716000331.pdf 70 behaviors that suggested he remembered the life of an American pilot killed during World War II, a young man who has now been identified as James M. Huston, Jr. The case has garnered significant attention, as the Leiningers told their story in several television interviews and eventually wrote a book about their experiences. I also included a chapter on the case in a recent book. This report includes a more thorough review of the documentation of James's statements and behaviors that was made before the pilot Huston was identified, which is critical in assessing the evidence of a past-life connection that the case provides. Though the case has the weakness that James's father was the one who worked to identify the previous personality, the substantial documentation that is available suggests a striking similarity between James's statements and the details of the life and death of one particular pilot James was born on April 10, 1998. As related by his parents the first noticeable incident in the case occurred in February, when he was 22 months old. His father took him to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum outside of Dallas, as they were living in Texas at the time. James was fascinated by the planes and in particular by the World War II exhibit. When they left after three hours, James had some toy planes, as well as a video called “It's a Kind of Magic” about the Blue Angels, the Navy's flight exhibition team. James loved the video, and he watched it repeatedly for weeks. The trip and the video started (or uncovered) his love for planes. This passion may have led to some of the knowledge of planes and flying that James often surprised his parents by voicing. The video, however, was clearly not the source of James's information about World War 71 II, since the Blue Angels group was founded in 1946 after the war ended. James and his father made a second trip to the museum later that spring, on Memorial Day weekend. James was again excited throughout his time there, though he grew quiet in the hanger that housed the World War II aircraft. He stood staring and pointing at the planes, as if in awe. Within two months of the first trip, James developed a habit of saying “airplane crash on fire,” and slamming his toy plane’s nose first into the family's coffee table. He repeated this behavior over and over, producing dozens of scratches and dents on the table. James's father traveled a lot, and when James and his mother would see him off at the airport, James would often say, “Daddy, airplane crash on fire.” This happened repeatedly, despite his father's admonishments. Around this time, James began having nightmares. His behavior during them seems to have involved only screams at first, but then included words as well: “Airplane crash on fire! Little man can't get out.”(In their book, James's parents quote him as saying, “Airplane crash! Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!” but in an earlier writing and an earlier interview, they used the shorter quote.) James would shout this over and over while thrashing about and kicking his legs up in the air. After a few months of this, he had several conversations with his parents about the dreams, usually as he was preparing to go to sleep. He indicated that they were memories of events from the past. He said his plane had crashed on fire and that it had been shot by the Japanese. Two weeks after those statements, James said his plane was a Corsair, which was a fighter plane that was developed during World War II, and he talked about flying a Corsair 72 several times .On August 27, 2000, when James was 28 months old, he told his parents he had flown his plane off a boat. When his parents asked him the name of the boat, he said, “Natoma.” After that conversation, his father searched online for the word and eventually discovered a description of the USS Natoma Bay, an escort carrier stationed in the Pacific during World War II. He printed out the information he found, and the footer of the printout includes the date he did. James's parents asked him a number of times for the name of the little man in his dreams. He always responded with only “me” or “James.” A few weeks after James gave the word Natoma; his parents asked him if he could remember anyone else who was with the little man. James responded with the name Jack Larsen. One day when James was just over two and a half, his father was looking through a book he was planning to give his own father for Christmas, one called The Battle for Iwo Jima 1945.17. His father reports that James pointed to a picture showing an aerial view of the base of the island, where Mt. Suribachi, a dormant volcano, sits, and said, “That's where my plane was shot down” His father said, “What?” and James responded, “My airplane got shot down there, Daddy.” A week after that, James's father talked to a veteran from Natoma Bay who remembered a pilot named Jack Larsen. He said Larsen flew off one day and never returned, so no one knew what happened to him. With the ongoing nightmares, James's parents eventually contacted Carol Bowman, who had written a book about children's past-life memories. They began a lengthy correspondence. 73 Following Bowman's advice, James's mother started acknowledging to him that the events he was describing had indeed happened to him before, while emphasizing that they were in the past and he was now safe. The nightmares then grew less violent and less frequent. James's parents said that when he became old enough to draw, he drew hundreds of battle scenes involving planes. He signed them “James 3.”When his parents asked him about this, he said the “3” referred, not to his age, but to his being “the third James” and he continued to sign his pictures that way even after he turned 4. James may have thought of himself as the third James because James Huston, the pilot, was James, Jr. In June of 2002, James's parents were interviewed by ABCN news for a segment that was to be part of a program called Strange Mysteries. The program never aired, but since I was also interviewed for it, ABC sent me a copy of the segment. At the time of the interview, Huston had not been identified. (…) The items that were included in the report, and their subsequent comparison to Huston's experiences were all correct, or at least partially correct, for Huston (the pilot in question). Following the interview, James's father corresponded with an ABC producer about the name Jack Larsen. She had a contact at the Center for Naval History who found a John M. Larson. Though it was ultimately determined that this man was not the Jack Larsen on Natoma Bay, the correspondence between James's father and the producer is useful as documentation that he was indeed searching at the time for a man with that name. Two months later, James's father wrote a letter to the veteran who had told him that a Jack Larsen had served on Natoma Bay. In the letter, he mentions this John M .Larson, again documenting this part of the search. 74 A month after that, James's father attended his first Natoma Bay reunion. He learned that the Jack Larsen from Natoma Bay had survived the war. Though he was not at the reunion, he was still alive and James's father soon visited him. He also learned that only one pilot from the ship was lost during the Battle of Iwo Jima, a 21-year old from Pennsylvania named James M. Huston, Jr. After the reunion, James's father turned his focus to Huston, as documented by a posting he made on a website looking for information. He learned that Huston did not actually die on Iwo Jima itself. Instead, as the battle continued after the initial assault, he was one of eight pilots from the ship who took part in a strike against transport vessels in a harbor on nearby Chichi-jima, as the Japanese were preparing a buildup of troop replacements and supplies. His plane appears to have crashed exactly as James had described. (….)The aircraft action report for the day that Huston's plane was shot down includes a chart of the paths each pilot took. Jack Larsen, the one name James gave, is shown as the pilot of the plane next to Huston's. As Huston was the only pilot from Natoma Bay killed during the Iwo Jima operation, and as his details closely matched James's statements, his parents concluded that he was the man whose life James had recalled. James's parents said he gave other details as well, but no documentation of them exists that was made before Huston was identified. James's mother said she made notes of his statements but that she either lost them or threw them away after she and her husband wrote their book. James's parents reported that he gave details about his family life that they confirmed with Huston's sister in a phone 75 conversation. I attempted to verify this with the sister. She was 91 years old at the time I contacted her, and she was unable to recall the details of the conversation from some five years before, other than that James's mother asked whether her father was an alcoholic at one time, which he was. James's parents reported that he had knowledge about World War II planes in general and about life on Natoma Bay that impressed them. His fascination with flying and World War II might explain his general knowledge, but not his ability to give details about Natoma Bay that his parents did not know. Again, there is no documentation of those additional statements that was made before Huston was identified. Investigation and Subsequent Development After having sporadic correspondence with James's parents for several years, I spent two days interviewing the family in their home as James was approaching his 12th birthday, talking with each parent and with James himself. I had tried to investigate the case earlier, but James's parents wanted to wait until their book was published before meeting with me. They were completely forth coming once we did meet. I saw the small bookcase of material that James's father had collected about Natoma Bay and related matters. He shared with me all the relevant records about Huston and the ship, as well as a chronology and pictures of the family's experiences. James and both his parents gave written permission to publish using their real names. I was able to observe and interact with James both formally in an interview and informally during a dinner. I found him to be pleasant and co-operative. Though he had hinted he might still have some memories he could talk about when he was older, he did not report any to me. His 76 development seems to have proceeded well, and now 17, he has recently become an Eagle Scout. This case involves a boy who displayed behaviors that suggested he was recalling a traumatic crash. In addition, he demonstrated knowledge about events from 50 years before he was born. A number of his accurate statements were documented before the previous personality was identified, making him part of the limited number of cases that include such records. Several explanations warrant consideration. Fraud must always be considered and often cannot be ruled out definitively. In this case, motivation for a hoax appears unlikely. Though James's parents did eventually write a book about their experiences that was published when James was 11years old, it seems unlikely that this led to a wholesale fraud from the beginning. The uncertain payoff of a book at some point in the future would hardly seem worth a multi-year fraud. A fraud had no other potential benefit and carried a substantial risk of inducing derision from friends and family and even strangers .Beyond that, if James's parents were perpetuating a fraud, they passed up a golden opportunity to present their story to the world during their interview for the ABC News Strange Mysteries program. Instead of telling how their son was remembering the life of the pilot James Huston, they only said that he appeared to be recalling the life of a World War II pilot who had not been identified. A subsequent interview with ABC identifying Huston did not come until nearly two years later, and James's parents had no way of knowing that another such opportunity would occur. A number of people other than James's parents had heard him talk about his World War II life 77 by then, including his aunt whom I interviewed and the first ABC News crew, so either they or little James would have had to be party to the hoax. Given these factors, and my impression of James and his parents after spending several hours talking to them, I view fraud as an implausible explanation for this case. Along with the question of outright fraud, there is the possibility that the memories that James's parents had of the events in the case were unconsciously influenced by the potential for profit from their book, leading them to recall that James's statements and behaviors were more impressive that they actually were. This is one reason for focusing on the items that were documented before Huston was identified, as James's parents had no ability at that point to steer the details to fit with Huston's death. With a fantasy explanation, James's apparent memories of the crash would be the result of his imagination, perhaps triggered by his visit to the flight museum. The intensity of his behaviors argues against this. Though children can have nightmares after being exposed to a frightening stimulus, it seems unlikely that a flight museum would be designed in such a way as to be intensely traumatic to a child. In addition, James's nightmares were much more than a bad dream or two. By the report of his parents and his aunt, he had nightmares multiple times each week, always involving the same scenario. During the day, he repeatedly made the statement, “Airplane crash on fire,” and he displayed what appeared to be post-traumatic behavior expressed in his compulsive play of plane crashes. These types of nightmares and play appear very similar to those that children who have experienced trauma in their current life display, only James's seemed associated with events from the 78 distant past. Such behaviors are common in children who report memories of previous lives. The fantasy explanation also requires that James's statements matched Huston's life purely by chance. Observers may have different thresholds for when they will accept coincidence as a reasonable explanation for correlated events, but the specifics present in this case would seem to under-mine its plausibility. For a child to give an unusual name like Natoma for a ship that was indeed in the place he reported seems remarkable enough. When Jack Larsen's name and the accurate details of Huston's death are added to it, coincidence appears to be an inadequate explanation. Knowledge Acquired Through Normal Means: Is it possible that James learned about Natoma Bay and James Huston through normal means? He could not have learned from the people around him, because they knew nothing about either the ship or Huston when he began talking about them. James had made all of the documented statements by the time he was four years old, so he could not have read about them. Regardless, no published materials about James Huston are known to exist. No television programs focusing on Natoma Bay or James Huston appear to have been made either. There is one slight geographical connection between James and Huston's family. James was born in San Mateo, California, which is approximately 30 miles from San Jose, a city of 900,000 people, where Huston's sister lived. James's family live 79 date the time in Pacifica, another 15 miles away and his parents know of no contact they had with her. The family moved to Texas when James was four months old and then to Louisiana when he was approaching his second birthday. There is no known association in those places with Huston or his family and no obvious way that James could have learned about him through normal means. Psi-Mediated Information Transfer If we accept the evidence that James had knowledge about Huston's life that he did not acquire through normal means, the question of how he did acquire it needs to be addressed. One possibility is that he learned about Huston through psi or super-psi. (Psychic powers) James's parents denied that he showed any other psychic abilities, which would suggest that for a paranormal transfer of information to occur, there would need to be something distinct either about Huston's memories or about the connection between Huston and James. As noted above, there is no evidence to indicate the latter. Keil has proposed the idea that “thought bundles” or a “thought pool” may be emitted when a person dies. Though not a living entity, this pool of information would continue to exist for some time and might get attached to “particular objects and situations.” would then get absorbed somehow by a very young child who would develop apparent memories of the past life. Nahm and Hassler have written a forceful challenge to the model. Among their objections are reports by some of the children of memories of the intermission period between lives, including some in which they reported meeting deceased family members who gave them information they likely could not have acquired through normal means. 80 (James described events from the intermission period, but there is no documentation of his statements that was made contemporaneously.)James's case involved a traumatic death, which might increase the likelihood that a thought bundle would be released. If he did absorb Huston's memories, they might have then produced the nightmares and post-traumatic play that introduced the case. Why James would have absorbed a thought bundle from Huston, however, rather than the many others who died in the war is unclear, and at this point, the conceptual difficulties noted by Nahm and Hassler make such an explanation highly speculative. The documentation in James's case provides evidence that he had a connection with a life from the past. On the face of it, the most obvious explanation for this connection is that he experienced a life as James Huston, Jr. before having his current one. The facts in the case indicate that this explanation warrants serious consideration. Numerous cases of children who report memories of previous lives have been studied over the past 50 years. The idea that they are created through normal means via social and cultural factors is challenged by cases in the West, particularly ones with good documentation such as James's case described here. The nightmares and post-traumatic play that James experienced, which are typical of the behaviors many of these children display, demonstrate how difficult apparent past-life memories can be for children to have. An understanding of the link between the apparent memories and the emotional and behavioral issues these children experience may be helpful to families, particularly in situations in which the parents are inclined to dismiss the possibility of a past-life 81 connection. Awareness of cases such as James's, ones with documentation of a close agreement between events from a life in the past and memories a current child expresses, may lead the parents to be less likely to discount their children's reports and more able to help them through the experience.”39 As we see in this case study made by Jim B Tucker MD, from the Division of perceptual studies of Virginia University, when so many compelling evidences converge, it is hard to deny that this phenomenon is real. When we consider the modern phenomena of OBBE, NDE and past live memories, and the fact that they have occurred uninterruptedly since ancient times until fairly recent cases in the 20th century and the 21st century like the last case I last quoted, we have to acknowledge that consciousness is clearly not limited to the physical body. This makes us understand that when it comes to spiritual knowledge our civilization is really a baby compared to the spiritual tradition of Buddhism, with more than 2500 years of experience dealing with the knowledge left to us by the Buddha and Great Masters from the past. It is clear these phenomena are real and the Buddha- Dharma has more to say about them than all modern scientific studies put together. Of course I quoted the cases above to let you know that this is not a 39 I quote several parts of the Public paper published on the official Website of the Virginia University Medicine faculty. The Division of Perceptualstudies.-Link consulted October 20, 2019: https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp content/uploads/sites/360/2017/04/REI42-Tucker-JamesLeiningerPIIS1550830716000331.pdf 82 matter of a bygone era but in fact the issue of life, death, rebirth and the afterlife is a timeless problem that needs a proper answer; and it is not going away just because we choose to ignore it. Now that we have seen some modern examples of rebirth, OBE’s and NDE’s, we will see what Buddhism has to say about this important issue and how it is related to the teachings on karma. (The Law of cause and effect) 83 The Concepts of being, karma, rebirth and Buddhahood according to the Buddha-Dharma Many questions arise when we carefully think about rebirth. Is there then an eternal soul? Who created those souls and the world around us? What factors determine the characteristics of the next rebirth? How do our actions affect the afterlife? There are many possible answers in different religions, and most of them don’t even recognize these complex phenomena. They say “God made it so” or “Allah made it that way” or “Brahma is the owner of all souls and we belong to him”. Buddhism does not ask us to believe in anything irrational or superstitious. The Buddha rejected the concepts of soul and god very strongly and He openly refuted them many times. But first we need to define three basic concepts that are essential for understanding the Dharma: Being, karma and rebirth. My Dharma teacher Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea uses a very simple and clear example to illustrate what a “being” is according to the Buddha-Dharma. He compares it to a car. When you see a car you never actually see a “car” as such, you see instead different parts like wheels, windows, lights, the engine…etc. So if you separate each individual part of the car, what do you have left? What we call a car is just a name given to an ensemble of elements at a given time. So what is a human being? It is also an ensemble of thoughts, ideas, sensations, and physical components united at a given moment. The main characteristic of this ensemble is that it never stays the same. 84 Everything is in perpetual motion, from spinning galaxies, to the bones in our bodies. What used to be deserts are now seas and vice versa, and what used to be valleys are now snowy peaks. A human being never stays the same. If you compare a picture of you 20 years ago you will see that a lot has changed, even the cells in your body are not the same, your thoughts and feeling have changed dramatically as well. As Rev. Cirlea says: I am not identical with my three year’s old self, and in twenty years’ time I won’t be completely the same with the one I am now. In Buddhism this is called the non-ego or non-self doctrine. All things exists due to causes and conditions, thus they have no nature of their own or an unchanged identity. This is why they are said to be empty. When causes and conditions come together, a certain thing exists, when they disappear, that thing also disappears. When causes and conditions change, that thing changes too.”40 So things are empty of self (Annata) they are impermanent (Aniccam) and they produce suffering because we cling to them (Dukkham).These three ideas: selflessness, impermanence and suffering are very important concepts of Buddhism because they describe the true nature of all compounded things, that is, all physical and mental phenomena in Samsara. If you see around and inside, you will see this is not hard to conclude. But what is the cause of all these movement? : 40 The True Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land, by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, 2015, Craiova. Page 10. 85 “What is causing this ensemble to move? Buddha’s answer is: desire and craving (thirst). Our different desires and tendencies determine us to move towards one direction or another; they change our personal history and generate the karma, the action. Karma is the law of cause and effect. The term “karma” comes from the Sanskrit word “Karman” which means action - acting with thought, deed and word. As a conclusion, there are three types of karma: karma of thought, of speech and karma of action or body. All that we think speak or do will affect our personal history. What we are now represents the result of what we thought, said or did in the past, in another lifetime or in the present life; and what we think, speak and do in the present will create us in the future. We’ve said that what is commonly called “person” is in continuous change and that after ten years, for example, he is not identical with the one he is today. We’ve said that although he is not the same, something still remains; well, this something is the causal continuity. When a man sets a stack on fire and the fire extends to the whole village and burns down the house of another peasant situated at the opposite side of the village, the first peasant could say that he has nothing to do with this disaster, for the fire which burnt the house of the second peasant is not identical with the flame he used for setting his straws on fire. But there is a causal continuity between the first fire and the one which burnt the second peasant’s house. This is how things are concerning the karma. The ensemble in continuous motion, that is the human or nonhuman being, is moved by a desire which generates karma. We 86 are the result of our own karma. Karma may last forever and determines our birth in another life. So we have arrived to what is called “reincarnation”. But from the Buddhist point of view a more appropriate word would be rebirth. When using the term “reincarnation”, the idea implied in it is that there would be a self that is a dependent and unchangeable thing which passes from one body to another. But we have underlined in our presentation that the ensemble named “person” is in continuous motion and transformation, which is why the term “mind-stream” is often used in the Buddhist texts to emphasize this constant changing. So, we see that the word rebirth is more adequate. A man in his daily life dies and is reborn permanently, according to the changes, the tendencies and the desires which occur in his mind-stream and the physical body. We’ve given earlier the example with the age of three years and twenty years. In the moment of death, our personal karma determines the form and the vehicle, that is, the body which the mind-stream will have in the next birth. Our desires need a vehicle to follow them and fulfill them in another life. The environment where we will be born in another life and the shape we will have, depend on the karma. Buddha states that not even a single man can escape his karma: (In the words of the Buddha Shakyamuni) “Not in the heaven, not in the middle of the ocean, not in the mountain caves: there is no place in this world where you can hide from the consequences of your deeds.” The doctrine of karma teaches us that we are completely responsible of what we are and of what we will become. 87 Nobody besides us, be it a god, human or any other being, can be held responsible. We deserve what happens to us, even if it is hard to accept that.”41 So as Reverend Jōshō explains we should not use the term “reincarnation” because this implies there is a soul or an eternal being who passes from one body to the next. The term “mind stream” is more accurate, because this represents a stream or a flow of experiences in consciousness. The karma of body, speech and mind affects a stream of consciousness and then according to the natural law of karma, that particular stream of consciousness, that Samsaric mind stream, is taken to its next rebirth naturally by the force of its individual karma. There’s no need to explain this process by invoking an allpowerful deity. Sentient beings are never judged by outside deities; they are taken to their next rebirth by their own ignorance, evil and delusion. I must mention that Buddhism rejects the notion of an all-powerful being that created the universe and even controls and judges it according to his will because this idea goes against the natural law of karma. We create our own karma and no one can be blamed for it except ourselves. The idea of a creator god is simply not compatible with karma. 41 The True Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land, by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, 2015, Craiova. p 11-12 88 We can ask ourselves: where did it all start? If a person is not limited by a particular physical body, then where does it all start? How does it end? The Buddha answered those questions when He attained Enlightenment, when He sat under the Bodhi tree and was determined to be free from Samsara once and for all. He made the strong determination not to stand up again until he reached Enlightenment. The experience that helped Him understand the way towards final liberation (Nirvana) was contemplating his own previous rebirths and the rebirths of all living beings in the universe using His transcendental enlightened powers42 In the sutras we find that the Buddha used His incredible meditation abilities to explore reality and see for Himself who 42 It must be noted that according to the Mahayana Sutras like the Lotus Sutra and the The Larger Sutra (among many others) The Buddha did not attain enlightenment but actually He explains that He had already attained Enlightenment in a remote past. A Buddha appears in a given world system and He interprets the roll of an unenlightened being first and then He displays His Enlightenment. This is called a form of Upaya (Skillful means). Buddhas and Enlightened Bodhisattvas (Buddhas that manifest themselves as Bodhisattvas such as Maitreya, Manjushri, Samantabhadra or Avalokitesvara) do this in order to benefit beings, because that way they encourage sentient beings to practice the Dharma and show them that if an unenlightened being practices the BuddhaDharma he/she will become a Buddha as well. So the Buddha Shakyamuni, as many other Buddhas and Enlightened Bodhisattvas repeat the story of Shakyamuni ad infinitum in all world systems and samsaric universes for the sake of sentient beings. They are not afraid of samsara as they are beyond birth and death. There are also Buddhas who attain Enlightenment for the first time, but in our world system which is under the spiritual protection of Shakyamuni, He has been a Buddha for many kalpas who manifests Himself in various ways in our particular samsaric universe ( which is called “the Saha-world” in the sutras) The Subject of Enlightened Bodhisattvas is thoroughly explained in the book “Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life” , by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2020, page 24. 89 he had been in previous births, what kind of problems he faced, how he lived and how he died, and what he could learn from those experiences to escape from Samsara, the cycle of birth and death. We also know that He did not use meditation to have fun or just relax. He used His powerful mind as a profound tool to understand reality. This is similar to using a telescope. You can use a telescope to have fun and spy people on the streets or you can use it to look at the moon and the stars like Galileo did, and learn something new and useful. If we use our naked eyes to gaze at the sky we will only see a limited amount of constellations and planets, but when we use a giant modern telescope, with advance computers and software, designed by the best minds, we can see much more and learn from it a great deal. The Buddha did the same, he did not use meditation to have fun or for fame, but to study reality thoroughly and profoundly. The Buddha taught to his disciples that one of the most important transcendental powers that a person can acquire by practicing Buddhist meditation (Dhyana) is the ability to remember past lives consciously. This ability can only be awakened by a hard and prolonged process of meditation according to the Dharma, and its perfection (that is, this ability taken to its perfection. This skill consists of being able to see all past lives of any given being in all parts of the universe) is one of the many skills of the Buddhas, the enlightened ones; they can see ALL their previous lives, and ALL the previous lives of ALL beings in the universe. This amazing spiritual 90 capacity is one of the results43 of Supreme Enlightenment and it can be compared to having a panoramic view of a landscape. If you remain in the ground, in a dense and dark forest, you will remain under the shades of the trees and it is difficult to know exactly where you are if you don’t climb a tree from time to time and gaze at the horizon in order to get a clearer perspective of the land you are traveling through you will be lost very easily. A Buddha can be compared in this analogy to a person that has climbed a high mountain, and from there he can easily see the complete panorama and accurately tell where everything is: that’s the sea, that’s the forest, that river is to the east, that town is to the west, and so on….etc. He can see what the situation is, whereas people that are stuck on the ground can only know a little part of the path they manage to see with their limited view. These cases about rebirth, OBE and NDE I brought up are only the TIP OF THE ICEBERG; what I mean by that is that all those children, women and men who had very real and vivid experiences that defy materialism didn’t have any kind of spiritual Buddhist training. They could only remember ONE past life (and with a fair amount of difficulties), or they left their physical body because of an accident or in extreme situations. The common denominator in these experiences is that these people did not have any CONTROL over what was happening to them at all. A Buddha, on the contrary, has mastered ALL mental powers and he can remember ALL his 43 It is one of the 10 transcendental skills that a Buddha has, which we will explain in the following pages. 91 former lives with total clarity, as it he was seeing them reflected on a clear mirror. The Buddhas have many more powers but for now we will explore this great capacity they have to recall all their former rebirths and those of other sentient beings in all the 6 realms of existence. The Buddha had a profound vision of Samsara that paved the way for His Enlightenment. Shakyamuni Buddha saw how miserable beings are, living and dying over and over again, going to heaven and then to hell, going to the animal realm, then they are humans, then ghosts…ad infinitum. They go from one birth to the next like a blind man in a dark forest, trying to find peace they find war and conflict instead, striving to find pleasure they find pain and agony, longing for heaven they end up in the hell of their own ignorance. What the Buddha saw in this cycle was great misery. But this misery had a clear pattern that helped Him discern what was needed to be free from samsara. It was like a riddle in front of His mind that needed to be solved for the sake of all living beings. The Buddha reached the highest state of consciousness. His mind had a lot of power to see all beings being reborn and dying in different realms of existence. We can only imagine what that must be like; it surely must be overwhelming and revealing. Shakyamuni knew that true Compassion can only be complete with absolute Wisdom. He needed to solve the riddle of Samsara once and for all with his bright state of mind that was like powerful telescope to investigate the vast heavens of Samsaric reality and finally reveal its mysteries. Let’s deeply contemplate this essential moment in the life of the Buddha as recorded in the Maha-Saccaka Sutra: 92 “"When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away & reappearance of beings. I saw — by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human — beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their karma: 'These beings — who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech, & mind, who reviled the noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the influence of wrong views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. But these beings — who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech & mind, who did not revile the noble ones, who held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.' Thus — by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human — I saw beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their karma. "This was the second knowledge I attained in the second watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose — as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute. But the pleasant feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain. "When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. I discerned, as it was actually present, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading 93 to the cessation of stress... These are fermentations... This is the origination of fermentations... This is the cessation of fermentations... This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.' My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, 'Released.' I discerned that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'44 The first thing we notice is how the Buddha describes his state of mind “steady, malleable, bright”. This shows that Shakyamuni was not in a normal state of mind but in a transcendental state of consciousness through deep meditation that he willfully used to explore reality. Now, what did He see? As the sutra tells us He saw all manner of beings or mind streams going up and down the 6 realms of samsara (Hells, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, Asuras/demigods, and devas/celestial beings) according to their karma (actions of body, speech and mind). He saw how beings are ignorant of their actions of body, speech and mind and how those actions reaped results in samsara leading them only to perpetual suffering and anguish. The pattern in this endless process of suffering is desire and craving. This craving is like a deluded thirst, a will to live in delusion. The Buddha saw the three poisons of greed, anger and delusion. As we read further in the sutra: 44 The Maha-Saccaka Sutra, MN 36, translated by Thanissaro Bikkhu, consulted October 21, 2019. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/search_results.html?cx=006639875531220 445029%3A2z3mhfokk-u&ie=UTF-8&q=mahasaccaka&sa=Search 94 “The Blessed One said: "In whomever the fermentations that defile, that lead to renewed becoming, that give trouble, that ripen in stress, and lead to future birth, aging, & death are not abandoned: Him I call deluded. For it is from not abandoning the fermentations that one is deluded. In whomever the fermentations that defile, that lead to renewed becoming, that give trouble, that ripen in stress, and lead to future birth, aging, & death are abandoned: Him I call undeluded. For it is from abandoning the fermentations that one is undeluded. In the Tathagata, the fermentations that defile, that lead to renewed becoming, that give trouble, that ripen in stress, and lead to future birth, aging, & death have been abandoned, their root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump (a type of palm tree), deprived of the conditions of existence, not destined for future arising. Just as a palmyra cut off at the crown is incapable of further growth, in the same way in the Tathagata the fermentations that defile, that lead to renewed becoming, that give trouble, that ripen in stress, and lead to future birth, aging, & death have been abandoned, their root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of existence, not destined for future arising."45 Shakyamuni Buddha concluded that there are two types of beings. Deluded beings(unenlightened) who are attached to worldly conditions: ideas, thoughts, feelings, forms, states of mind (any physical or mental samsaric reality) and undeluded/wise (Enlightened beings) who understand that clinging to anything that is selfless, stressful, and subject to death and change is futile and it only ends in more death, rebirth and suffering within samsara. 45 The Maha-Saccaka Sutra, MN 36, translated by Thanissaro Bikkhu, consulted October 21, 2019. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/search_results.html?cx=006639875531220 445029%3A2z3mhfokk-u&ie=UTF-8&q=mahasaccaka&sa=Search 95 Shakyamuni Buddha saw that THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PLACE in samsara that is free from suffering. (A Buddha that has attained Enlightenment in the distant past like Shakyamuni can pretend to attain Enlightenment as a way to teach others how it is done. He can manifest Himself in many ways to benefit sentient beings, please read footnote number 38 in page 89); The Buddha deeply contemplated how all conditioned phenomena within samsaric existence are like a house on fire and Nirvana is the extinction of all the mental poisons and worldly attachments that lead the mind to be reborn in samsara and thus perpetuate the enslavement to blind passions. He overcame all delusions, and defeated all his inner darkness; moreover, he perfectly mastered all the transcendental powers of a Buddha in order to help sentient beings and finale He became a Buddha, the victorious one; the world honored one, the Supreme Teacher of Gods and Men, the Tathagata, the Blessed one. As we will see later on, a Buddha is not only free from samsara but He has also mastered the six perfections/Paramitas during many lifetimes in the Bodhisattva’s Way46( the Ten Bhumis) 46 The Bodhisattva’s Path is composed of 10 stages or levels called the 10 Bhumis, we will explain them later on as well. A Bodhisattva attains the perfection of The Six Paramitas which are called “The Six Types of Practices by which a Bodhisattva achieves Buddhahood”. These paramitas are are:1.Charity, generosity (dana) 2. Discipline and proper behavior (sila) 3. perseverance (ksanti) 4. diligence 5. meditation (dhyana) and 6. higher wisdom (prajna). The famous Jakata tales of the Buddha Shakyamuni, is a 96 All beings have a Buddha-seed, or a Buddha-nature inside called in Mahayana Buddhism the Tathagatagarbha47, this Buddha-seed is the capacity of all sentient beings to become Buddhas once they purify themselves through the BuddhaDharma. This Buddha nature can also be compared to a Jewel bellow layers of mud and rock; it is already perfect as it is; filled with power, beauty and transcendence but we cannot see it presently due to our kleshas, that is, our mental obscurations. The objective of the Buddha Dharma is to reveal this Buddha-Jewel, that is full Buddhahood, or in other words to clean this jewel from the mud of our mental obscurations so that our Tathagatagarbha can shine and we can finally recognize it as our true nature. A fully Enlightened Buddha has the following 10 transcendental capacities, as explained in the Mahasihanada Sutra (although they are also explained in many other sutras, and they include many more skills, these ones are a summary of the most important ones) 1. Perfect understanding of what is possible and impossible 2. Perfect understanding of the results of actions past, present and future 3. Perfect knowledge of the ways leading everywhere (understanding of all places) compendium of stories of hundreds of his former lives as a Bodhisattva, in which he practices the perfections. 47 For a more detailed explanation of the Buddha-seed or Tathagatagarbha you can go to page 97 4. Perfect knowledge of the different elements of the world (phenomena or dharmas) 5. Perfect knowledge of the inclinations of sentient beings (karmic tendencies) 6. Perfect knowledge of the capacities and potentials of sentient beings 7. Perfect knowledge and mastery over all Dhyanas, Samadhis. (Perfection of Meditation and Concentration) 8. Perfect Knowledge of His own past lives 9. Perfect knowledge of the past lives of all living beings and how they transmigrate from one realm to another in samsara due to their karma 10. The capacity of the destruction of the mental taints. (Perfect Mental liberation from the taints that defile the mind)48 The great practice of the Bodhisattvas leads sentient beings to perfect the Six Types of Practices by which a Bodhisattva achieves Buddhahood the 6 paramitas which are the following :1.Charity, generosity (dana) 2.Discipline and proper behavior (sila) 3.Perseverance (ksanti) 4. Diligence (Virya) 5.Meditation (Dhyana) and 6. Higher wisdom (Prajna). This is thoroughly explained in Mahayana sutras like the Mahaprajnaparamita sutra, the Lotus Sutra, The Avatamsaka Sutra, The Dasabhumika sutra and the Lankavatara sutra and many others. The way of the Bodhisattva is also thoroughly explained in the many writings of the great Mahayana Master Bodhisattva Nagarjuna. On top of that a Buddha has the capacity to master 48 MN, Mahasihanada Sutta, I 70-72, translated by Bikkhu Boddhi, In the Buddha’s words, p 419 98 the three Buddha Bodies: Dharmakaya (the supreme reality beyond name and form), the Sambhogakaya (an individuated eternal body) and Nirmanakaya or bodies of accommodation (which are bodies than can be sent to all corners of the universe in various types of manifestations in order to guide sentient beings according to their various capacities). As the subject of the three Buddha bodies is quite profound and rich we will explain it in detail in the chapter called “The Three BuddhaBodies/Trikaya and the Noble Realms”. By mastering these great 10 transcendental skills of a Buddha and the three Buddha-bodies enlightened beings are finally able to fulfill the 4 Mahayana Vows which are: 1. No matter how perfect a Buddha would be, I vow to become like Him. 2. No matter how profound the Dharma (the teaching) would be, I vow to fully understand it all. 3. No matter how numerous the passions would be, I vow to conquer them all. 4. No matter how numerous the beings would be, I vow to save them all. It is not enough to scape Samsara, we also seed Perfect Enlightenment, which is the Supreme Nirvana of the Buddhas, only when the Buddhist disciples master all these perfections they finally become Buddhas and are finally able to help sentient beings in an effective manner. This is what is meant by Nirvana/Buddhahood/Enlightenment in Mahayana Buddhism. 99 Although we will explain this subject in greater detail in the next chapters, It must be clear by now that in order to be free from samsara we need TREMENDOUS effort, if we are doing it on our own by means of meditation, profound contemplation and self-purification practices. Being a Buddha, a liberated being, an Enlightened one is certainly beyond the realm of human beings (and above and beyond all 6 realms of existence altogether). Now, as we will explain later on (in the chapter devoted to the arduous Path of the Bodhisattva, the path of the beings who aspire to become Buddhas in the future) the Buddha being the Perfect Master of all beings, full with limitless wisdom and unconditional compassion for ALL sentient beings, wants us to be Buddhas, possessing the 10 transcendental capacities that only a Buddha possesses. A good and gentle teacher would never want to be above his students. A sincere Master will always want their disciples to have the same knowledge and skills he/she has; likewise, a Buddha wants us to become Buddhas, because that is the potential tree (Buddhahood) we all have in our hearts (The Buddha-seed, Buddha-nature, the Tathagatagarbha). As we read in the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha says: “That originally I made a vow49 To make all sentient beings my equal Without any difference. Now I have already fulfilled this vow 49 This original vow is directly related to the 4 great Mahayana vows, explained earlier. All Buddhas want Buddhahood for all sentient beings, and they will not rest until all samsara is emptied. This is the great aspiration of all Buddhas. 100 That I made in the past. I will lead and inspire all sentient beings And cause them to enter the path of the Buddhas. If I met sentient beings And taught them till the end the path of the Buddhas” 50 Thus, in Mahayana Buddhism (and also in Vajrayana schools which are a development of Mahayana), we strive to escape from the terrible dangers of samsara not only for our own sake but also for the benefit of all sentient beings. In order to help sentient beings we must develop the full potential of our Buddha-nature by becoming Buddhas ourselves, and in that way we master the 10 transcendental skills of a Buddha in order to perfectly help sentient beings to escape from the bondage of samsara so that they become Buddhas as well. Now if you carefully read the 10 skills that a Buddha possesses it should make you think about how arduous it is to become an Enlightened being. Surely no amount of “take it easy” mentality can lead you to become a Fully Enlightened Buddha like Shakyamuni Buddha or Amida Buddha. As we read in the Maha-Saccaka Sutra, the Buddha saw with His Divine Eye, how beings are reborn in the 6 realms (hells, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras and devas) ad infinitum, and how they suffer terribly in the process By revealing this vast panorama, by climbing to the high mountain of Enlightenment the Buddha asks us to hear His 50 The Lotus Sutra, Chapter II (Skillful means) translated from the chinese of Kumarajiva by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama, BDK English Tripitaka Series, 2017. Pdf version, p 36. 101 teaching. It is like He is saying to us: “From above I could see where all beings come from, where they are and where they are going, you all are in grave danger, scape samsara at once, there’s no time to waste, strive, strive and be free now!” We also read in the Larger Sutra (the larger Sukhavativyuha) how Shakyamuni describes the terrible condition of sentient beings in samsaric existence: “Thus, through the natural working of karma, they (sentient beings in samsara) undergo immeasurable sufferings in the three evil realms51. In successive transmigrations they are reborn into different states and forms; their lifespans are sometimes long and sometimes short. Their transient selves, vital energy, and consciousness transmigrate through the natural working of karma. Although each individual is reborn alone, those bound by common karma come to be born together and take revenge upon each other. So this condition persists endlessly, and until the effect of their evil karma is exhausted there is no possibility of avoiding their enemies. Floundering in samsara, they have no chance of escape or of attaining liberation. The pain that they must undergo is indescribable. Since this law (the law of karma) naturally obtains everywhere between heaven and earth, even if good or evil acts do not immediately bring about reward or retribution they will certainly result in them sooner or later”52 51 The three evil realms are: Hells, Hungry ghosts, and animals. The Three Pure Land Sutras -A Study and Translation from the Chinese by Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Kyoto, 2003. p 48 52 102 The ignorant actions of body, speech and mind, lead sentient beings in the endless cycle of agony and suffering within the 6 realms of existence, that is why it is of vital importance to focus on the Buddha-Dharma as soon as possible so that we can overcome this vicious cycle. According to the Buddha as unenlightened beings we should NOT celebrate the fact that we have a stream of consciousness that did not begin in this life and won’t finish after our death. This is totally the opposite of many “spiritual” people nowadays, especially in new age circles and sadly also in “innovative” Buddhist groups who think samsara is this amazing adventure of the soul, or they think this immortality is to be celebrated. They would say things like “the mind has so much possibilities to express its own creativity”, they seem to be suggesting that the cycle of death and birth in samsara is a lot of fun, when clearly the Buddha and ALL his noble disciples are almost screaming to our hears: The house of samsara is burning, get out or you will die and suffer ad infinitum!. I think if we don’t accept that fear is not something bad on itself we are kidding ourselves big time. Consider you are in the jungle and suddenly a hungry panther starts chasing you to kill you. My friend, I sincerely tell you, you can smile at it all you want; you can try to take it easy all you want…. but in fact, you are in grave danger and if you are not afraid it means you are a fool, it is as simple as that. Now, samsara is even worse than a thousand panthers. It is the fearsome cycle of birth and death and the Great Shakyamuni 103 Buddha, The supreme enlightened being of our world and era with transcendental and precise knowledge of this cycle constantly tells us that indeed we should be worried and transcend this vicious cycle of birth and death in the six realms and develop perfect wisdom and compassion (the perfection of the 6 paramitas) so we have also the transcendental skills to help sentient beings to get from samsara as well. As we will see our Buddha-seed needs a proper environment to grow, and it is quite difficult to make it grow inside the 6 realms of existence, since samsara is full to the brim with ignorance and suffering, and all kinds of distractions. Even if we manage to practice in this difficult environment that does NOT guarantee we will succeed in becoming a Buddha in one lifetime; that is why it is of vital importance to be born in Amida’s Pure Land after death as it is extremely difficult to scape samsara and walk the arduous path to develop the 10 transcendental skills of a Buddha. We will explain the benefits of being born in Amida’s Pure Land in part III of this book, but for now, please consider that the Buddha constantly taught about the dangers of samsara and that the only way out is the path towards Buddhahood which is noble objective of the BuddhaDharma (The Buddhist Teachings). Please, also deeply reflect on the capacities of a Buddha and how far removed they are from mundane human skills. So, to in conclusion we can say until now: A being is a momentary group of sensations and mental formations; the concept of an immortal soul doesn’t exist in Buddhism, rather we have the notion of mind-stream, this is, a stream of individuated consciousness that changes from 104 moment to moment. (And by extension from one life to the next within the cycle of samsara) Sentient beings in the 6 realms of samsara (hells, ghosts, animals, humans, asuras and devas) live and die according to the natural (and self-existing) law of cause and effect (karma). There are three types of Karma: body, speech and mind. Depending on the law of karma sentient beings are reborn in the different realms of samsaric existence. There’s no need of a creator god who dictates or creates the law of cause and effect. The law of karma operates naturally in all universes according to the Buddha-Dharma. Inside each sentient being there’s the potential to become a Buddha, this potential is called the Tathagatagarbha or the Buddha-Nature inside all sentient beings. Buddhahood is revealed as the result of going through the path the BuddhaDharma (the Buddhist teachings) to gain total freedom from samsara. This freedom implies emancipation from the three mental poisons that give birth to samsaric existence (greed, aversion and delusion), on top of that, beings who aspire to become Buddhas most develop the 10 transcendental skills of a Buddha and also the Three Buddha Bodies53; these perfect skills are developed for the sake of all sentient beings. 53 The Three Buddha-bodies are the Dharmakaya (The body beyond all names and forms, the supreme Body that all Buddhas share), the Sambhogakaya, an eternal and specific body that is the result of Buddha’s Vows, and the Nirmanakaya which is the capacity that Buddhas have to emanate countless bodies of accommodation of different sizes and features according to the level of understanding of the beings they try to teach. These Three Bodies will be explained in detail in the chapter on their relationship with the Buddha Realms in page 274 105 Mahayana Buddhism’s objective is to transform a sentient being into a fully awakened Buddha by the mastery of the 6 paramitas, (the 6 perfections) Sila (Morality), Dana (Generosity), Virya (Diligence), Ksanti (perseverance) (Dhyana (Meditation) and Prajna (Wisdom). (This subject will be explained in detail in the chapter on the noble realms of the Buddhas and their relationship with the three Buddha bodies page 274) 106 Dual Dharma teachings and non-dual Dharma teachings Before part II, (which is about the 6 realms of samsaric existence), I wanted to clarify a common misunderstanding related to the concepts of emptiness and non-duality that is quite popularized nowadays. The Buddha taught concepts such as “all things are empty”, “the nature of reality is bliss”, and the unity of all phenomena in the universe, in teachings such as “The Diamond Sutra”, “The Vimalakirti Sutra” or “The Heart Sutra”. Tibetan Vajrayana teachings like Mahamudra and Zogchen also have teachings based on the luminous nature of supreme reality. Another way in which this concept appears, especially in the perfection of wisdom sutras and tantric teachings, is the “equality of samsara and nirvana”. Shakyamuni Buddha and all the Buddhas in the universe have different teachings that are tailored to different minds and particular hindrances. This is the concept of Skillful means (Upaya) in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, that is, the capacity that Buddhas have to manifest their teachings and even their bodies according to the needs and capacities of beings in samsara. The same way a good teacher has different methods to approach different students Buddhas have the skill to use many different methods to teach the Buddha-Dharma to sentient beings. For instance some students learn in a better way by studying with visual aids, others are better at hearing 107 and memorizing, so naturally, a good teacher approaches each student according to his/her different capacities and limitations. Buddhism has a broad spectrum of teachings. One way to classify these vast set of teachings is to divide it in two: 1. Dual teachings and non-dual teachings. Non-dual teachings are in Sutras such as the Diamond sutra or the Heart sutra. These teachings are related to the essential emptiness of all phenomena/Sunyata (form is emptiness, emptiness is form, or the emptiness of all phenomena) and the presence of one supreme non-dual consciousness that one can experience as a Buddha (The Dharmakaya, the supreme body of all Buddhas). In those teachings, you hear Buddhas and Bodhisattvas talk about the fact that Samsara is Nirvana - or that there is no one to save, and no one to be saved - or the fact that all distinctions of thought and ideas are ultimately nonexistent, and so on. In this kind of teachings Shakyamuni Buddha emphasizes that all phenomena are like a dream and that they lack a substance. It is not my intention to talk about this subject, because it is not related to the purpose of this book but we should bear in mind something of CRUCIAL importance about the Buddha-Dharma: The fact is that the Buddha taught both non-dual teachings AND dual teachings. What I mean by dual is that he also taught that we live in a universe that has many different types of sentient beings, as we have seen in the Larger sutra for instance. (The six realms of existence). Shakyamuni also taught that there are millions of Buddhas in transcendental form that exist apart from samsara, and that there are beings that those Buddhas try to save. Even if in some sutras He teaches that in ultimate terms the supreme reality is empty, luminous and perfect, but that 108 does NOT mean he just discards dualistic views about the universe. This should be very well understood. The Buddha taught both dualistic and non-dual teachings as they are both part of different Dharma Doors. The same way a palace can be entered by several doors, the Dharma of the Buddha teaches that we can reach enlightenment by different methods that are adequate to our different spiritual capacities. The Buddha teaches different paths out of compassion. Another good analogy is a pharmacy. You find different medicines in a pharmacy that vary according to the illness. The Buddha gave thousands of different teachings for different students at different times and for different stages on the path to Buddhahood. He dealt with different illnesses and therefore he administered different remedies to sentient beings. So we cannot mix Dharma doors, the same way a person cannot enter a room by two doors simultaneously and we certainly should not combine different medicines (Dharma-methods) because we could end up poisoning ourselves in the process. Many Buddhist teachers nowadays discard the idea of samsara and Nirvana quoting passages of non-dual sutras, and they eagerly say things like…”oh, everything is just an illusion, so there’s nothing to accomplish, there’s no samsara and no nirvana, take it easy” these sort of notions are VERY dangerous, especially for the majority of practitioners, who like you (most likely) and me, are just normal people, living normal lives outside the rigorous ascetic practices and lifestyle that are the requirement for entering the particular Dharma door of non-dual emptiness. These transcendental Dharma teachings express the absolute nature of all phenomena, and to put them into 109 practice requires a great spiritual capacity that very few Buddhist practitioners possess. Talking about emptiness is easy; but to abide in the transcendental states of consciousness that allowed the great masters of the past to actually experience these profound teachings and gain enlightenment through them is quite another. When we read about the Sutra of Tears (the Assu Sutra), or the Maha-Saccaka Sutra, the Buddha was clearly seeing all manner of sentient beings, being reborn, suffering and dying in many planes of existence. He keenly warned us about the dangers of birth and death, and how we should try to scape this vicious cycle fueled by ignorance. He did not apply here teachings about emptiness or supreme reality, on the contrary he was talking about something we all can to a certain extend relate to, he was talking about distinctions and differences among phenomena and not about a supreme non-dual unity. The famous Vajrayana master Padmasambhava, one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers in Tibetan Buddhism said once: “My realization is higher than the sky, But my observance of karma is finer than grains of flour”54 “My realization higher than the sky” means his non-dual realizations on emptiness, reality as illusion, vacuity, and the 54 Article: The Need for Dualistic Practice, (The Power of Positive karma) by Tulku Thondup Rimpoche https://www.lionsroar.com/the-power-of-positive-karma/ 110 luminosity of the ultimate nature of the mind, that are so richly explained in the Zogchen tradition (which he widely taught and mastered) and Tantric teachings that involve complex visualizations and esoteric practices. But in spite of all those lofty teachings, his observance (respect) of karma is “finer than grains of flour” that means, that he still has great respect for essential Buddhist concepts such as karma, and therefore its relation to the dualistic teachings on samsara and the six realms of existence. Another beautiful example of humility and wisdom is Bodhisattva Nagarjuna; the one many call the “Second Buddha”. His Dharma writings are legendary for their sharp and profound wisdom about emptiness. We can safely say he is the great teacher of Mahayana Buddhism, especially when it comes to non-duality and Sunyata (emptiness). But in spite of this well-known fact, as Reverend Cirlea reminds us, quoting Master Nagarjuna himself: “It is a pity that Nagarjuna, the great sage, considered to be the second Buddha after Shakyamuni is known by many only because of his complicated explanations on emptiness, while few know that he was also an Amida devotee, saying in his “Twelve Adorations”: “With reverence I bow my head to Amida, the Sage, The Most Honored One, who is revered by humans and devas. You dwell in the wonderful Land of Peace and Bliss, Surrounded by innumerable children of the Buddhas. 111 “I prostrate myself to the ground and worship Amida, the Holy One.” – This is how he chose to end every verse in his “Twelve Adorations” (Junirai), finishing this hymn by aspiring to be born in the Pure Land. So, he himself had a simple faith in Amida and through this simple faith he was born in the Pure Land (of Amida Buddha)”55 We see that the great teacher Bodhisattva Nagarjuna, who is an unquestionable authority on the subject of emptiness did in fact have great reverence for Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Life and Light, who according to the Sutras, is a real and individuated Buddha who lives in a real and enlightened Land called Sukhavati to the west of our particular samsaric universe; a realm that is clearly described as a real place outside samsaric existence and outside our unenlightened minds. The Sutras make it easy for us to understand that it is a real place that one can be born into after death; it isn’t in any way an esoteric matter. In fact it is said that Nagarjuna who had great faith and devotion for Amitabha was born in Sukhavati, the Land of Utmost Bliss, after he died. He called this method of attaining Enlightenment/Buddhahood through the power of Amitabha Buddha: “The Easy Path” Padmasambhava who taught complex teachings like Zogchen and The Bardo Thodol (the Tibetan book of the dead) was recognized as an emanation from the Crown of Amitabha 55 The Path of Acceptance-Commentary on Tannisho, by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications Craiova, page 90. 112 Buddha, and in many paintings Amitabha Buddha always appears above Padmasambhava. (This is also the case for the famous Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who also has Amitabha at the crown of her head signaling that Amitabha is also her spiritual father. The Dalai Lama is said to be an emanation of Avalokitesvara) There’s a great lesson to be learned here: Even if you have read all the sutras and are very skilled in meditation and Buddhist philosophy, you can still understand the world through the sutras that teach a dualistic view of the world (six realms of existence, the law of cause and effect) and you can also have SIMPLE FAITH in a Buddha outside yourself in an openly dualistic way without any contradiction. Why? Because faith in transcendental Buddhas was also taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni many times, like for example in the Three Pure Land Sutras, which are widely revered texts in Mahayana Buddhism. The same dual teachings are given in the famous Lotus Sutra (who also happens to include teachings about many real Buddhas in different parts of the Universe). We read in this sutra how Shakyamuni Buddha describes numerous Buddhas living in different parts of the universe where they also teach the Dharma like Shakyamuni Buddha does. In this case Shakyamuni describes 16 disciples of a Buddha who lived in a remote past. These 16 disciples (now Buddhas) presently teach the Dharma in different world-systems throughout the 10 directions, one of those 16 disciples (sramaneras) being Shakyamuni Buddha Himself; who is the Buddha in charge of the liberation of our world-system/universe called the Saharealm: 113 “O monks! I shall now tell you that these sixteen śrāmaṇeras, disciples of that buddha Mahābhijñājñānābhibhū, have now attained highest, complete enlightenment and presently teach the Dharma in the lands of the ten directions. There are immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of bodhisattvas and śrāvakas who have become their attendants. “Two of these śrāmaṇeras have became Buddhas in the east. One is called Akṣobhya in the land called Abhirati and the other is called Merukūṭa. In the southeast there are two buddhas. One is called Siṃhaghoṣa and the other is called Siṃhadhvaja. In the south there are two buddhas called Ākāśapratiṣṭhita and Nityaparinirvṛta. There are also two buddhas in the southwest. One is called Indradhvaja and the other is called Brahmadhvaja. In the west there are two buddhas called Amitāyus (Amida)56 and Sarvalokadhātūpadravodvegapratyuttīrṇa. There are two buddhas in the northwest. One is called Tamālapatracandanagandhābhijña. 56 It should be noted that Amida Buddha is described when he was a Bodhisattva called Dharmakara in the The Larger Sutra (The Larger Sukhavativyuha). In this case it is not the ancient Buddha Master of the 16 Buddhas mentioned in this passage of the Lotus Sutra, but the Buddha Lokesvararaja who was the Buddha who in the remote past helped him in his process of understanding de Dharma in order to create his pure land (Sukhavati). In section 9 of the larger Sutra it is mentioned that Dharmakara after receiving this instruction from the Buddha Lokesvararaja dedicated himself during countless kalpas to the practice of paramitas and transcendental abilities to be able to emanate His Great Pure Land. Since all Bodhisattvas worship countless Buddhas, Dharmakara had not only one Buddha as a teacher but many Buddhas in other parts of the universe as well. Shakyamuni mentions here another of the Buddhas that taught Dharmakara Bodhisattva (who later became Amitayus/Amida) in a remote past. Since the Buddhas are beyond space and time it is difficult for us as humans now to understand their entire career as Bodhisattvas in a single timeline. The history of Dharmakara and the characteristics of Sukhavati will be described in Part III of this book. 114 The other is called Merukalpa. In the north there are two buddhas. One is called Meghasvaradīpa and the other is called Meghasvararāja. In the northeast there is a Buddha called Sarvalokabhayacchambhitatvavidhvaṃsanakara. And the 57 sixteenth one is myself, Buddha Shakyamuni , who in this sahā world achieved highest, complete enlightenment.”58 57 These are the words of Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, clarifying the different ways in which we can understand the history of Shakyamuni Buddha according to Shinran and the sutras: There are three perspectives to look at Shakyamuni: 1) He became a Buddha during His life on this earth that we all know from history, 2) He attained Buddhahood countless lifetimes ago, in the incomprehensibly remote past and 3) He was the manifestation of Amida Buddha. All three perspectives are true, depending on which sutras you chose to read. In many sutras the first situation is presented, in others the second is taken as a profound truth (for example, the Lotus Sutra, - Life Span chapter), and the Larger Sutra is interpreted by Shinran Shonin as to clearly show the third situation in which the true reason for the appearance of Shakyamuni in the world was to teach the Dharma about Amida Buddha’s salvation (Amida Dharma).Because Shinran Shonin is our Founding Master (of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist School) we should try to interpret all the other two through his perspective. Here is how we should do that. Shakyamuni was manifested by Amida countless lifetimes ago in the distant past. Since then He constantly goes to various worlds playing the role of attaining Enlightenment and turning the Wheel Of Dharma. Among the various Dharma Gates He has taught during many lifetimes in which He played this role was the Amida Dharma or the Path of Salvation offered by Amida Buddha. When He came to our Saha world He did the same – He played the role of attaining Enlightenment and taught many Dharma Gates, especially Amida Dharma which actually has been the very reason Amida manifested Him in the first place. Thus, when He said in some sutras like the Lotus Sutra that He attained Buddhahood countless lifetimes ago He is talking about two things: the moment when He was manifested by Amida and any moment in the distant past when He was playing the role of becoming a Buddha to turn the Wheel of Dharma. 58 The Lotus Sutra, translated from the chinese of Kumarajiva by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama, BDK English Tripitaka Series, 2017. Pdf version, p 129. 115 (Some of these Buddhas like Amitayus/Amida Buddha and Aksobhya are well known in the sutras as they have close karmic connections with our world.). So, we see that Shakyamuni mentioned 16 different Buddhas in different parts of the universe; and that’s only in this small section of this particular sutra (The Lotus Sutra). There are billions upon billions of Buddhas, with their distinct characteristics and in different world-systems that have particular features as well. The Mahayana sutras mention thousands of these Buddhas in different parts of the Universe. Amida Buddha (Amitayus), the Buddha of Infinite light and Life of the Western Pure Land of Utmost Bliss, is by far, the most important Buddha mentioned in the sutras, as He emanated His Pure Land, where all beings, no matter how evil or spiritually incompetent, can go in their next rebirth and there attain Buddhahood swiftly, as long as they entrust themselves to Him, Say His name and wish to be born in His Pure Land, thus Amida is praised by ALL Buddhas throughout the ten directions. (Since His method of salvation is the most effective to save sentient beings and lead them to Buddhahood) We read in the Smaller Sukavativyuha (Busetsu Amida Kyo in Japanese, or also called the”smaller sutra”): “Śāriputra, just as I praise the inconceivable virtue of Amitāyus, so do the Buddhas in the eastern direction as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, such as Akṣobhya Buddha, Merudhvaja Buddha, Mahāmeru Buddha, Meruprabhāsa Buddha, and Mañjusvara Buddha. While 116 dwelling in their own lands, they extend their long, broad tongues and, encompassing with them the universe of a thousand million worlds, pronounce these words of truth: Sentient beings should accept this sutra entitled ‘Praise of the Incon- ceivable Virtue and Protection by All Buddhas.’ “Śāriputra, there are in the southern direction Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, such as Candrasūryapradīpa Buddha, Yaśasprabha Buddha, Mahārciskandha Buddha, Merupradīpa Buddha, and Anantavīrya Buddha. While dwelling in their own lands, they extend their long, broad tongues and, encompassing with them the universe of a thousand million worlds, pronounce these words of truth: Sentient beings should accept this sutra entitled ‘Praise of the Inconceivable Virtue and Protection by All Buddhas.’ “Śāriputra, there are in the western direction Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, such as Amitāyus Buddha, Amitaketu Buddha, Amitadhvaja Buddha, Mahāprabha Buddha, Mahāprabhāsa Buddha, Ratna- ketu Buddha, and Śuddharaśmiprabha Buddha. While dwelling in their own lands, they extend their long, broad tongues and, encompassing with them the universe of a thousand million worlds, pronounce these words of truth: Sentient beings should accept this sutra entitled ‘Praise of the Inconceivable Virtue and Protection by All Buddhas.’ “Śāriputra, there are in the northern direction Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, such as Arciskandha Buddha, Vaiśvānaranirghoṣa Buddha, Duṣpradharṣa Buddha, Ādityasaṃbhava Buddha, and Jālinīprabha Buddha. While dwelling in their own lands, they extend their long, broad tongues and, encompassing with them 117 the universe of a thousand million worlds, pronounce these words of truth: Sentient beings should accept this sutra entitled ‘Praise of the Inconceivable Virtue and Protection by All Buddhas.’ “Śāriputra, there are in the nadir buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, such as Siṃha Buddha, Yaśas Buddha, Yaśasprabhāsa Buddha, Dharma Buddha, Dharmadhvaja Buddha, and Dharmadhara Buddha. While dwelling in their own lands, they extend their long, broad tongues and, encompassing with them the universe of a thousand million worlds, pronounce these words of truth: Sentient beings should accept this sutra entitled ‘Praise of the Inconceivable Virtue and Protection by All Buddhas.’ “Śāriputra, there are in the zenith Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, such as Brahmaghoṣa Buddha, Nakṣatrarāja Buddha, Gandhottama Buddha, Gandhaprabhāsa Buddha, Mahārciskandha Buddha, Ratnakusumasaṃpuṣpitagātra Buddha, Śālendrarāja Buddha, Ratnotpalaśrī Buddha, Sarvārthadarśa Buddha, and Sumerukalpa Buddha. While dwelling in their own lands they extend their long, broad tongues and, encompassing with them the universe of a thousand million worlds, pronounce these words of truth: Sentient beings should accept this sutra entitled ‘Praise of the Inconceivable Virtue and Protection by All Buddhas.’59 59 The Three Pure Land Sutras -A Study and Translation from the Chinese by Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Kyoto, 2003 p 93-94 118 Indeed, the Buddha taught about emptiness, but as we have seen in several sutras, He also taught about the 6 realms of samsara, karma, and He gave many teachings where hundreds of other Buddhas in different parts of the universe are mentioned; and most importantly, He gave many teachings on Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Life and Light, the Master of the Western Pure Land, where Shakyamuni encouraged us to be born many times: “Seek your own liberation and then turn to saving others; straightforwardly aspire to be born in the Pure Land and accumulate roots of virtue. However hard you may practice in this life, it can only be for a short while. In the life to come you will be born in the land of Amitāyus and enjoy endless bliss there. Being forever in accord with the Way, you will no longer be subject to birth and death and be free of the afflictions caused by greed, anger, and ignorance. If you wish your life to be as long as a kalpa, a hundred kalpas, or ten million koṭis of kalpas, it will be just as you please. You will dwell in effortless spontaneity and attain nirvana. You should each diligently seek to realize your aspiration”60 We see that Shakyamuni Buddha is teaching here about the advantages of being born in Amida’s Pure Land; a specific place that is clearly not here and now, or something abstract that simple people can’t relate to. He is simply saying “go there after death, your next rebirth should be in such a good place, 60 The Three Pure Land Sutras -A Study and Translation from the Chinese by Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Kyoto, 2003 p 46-47 119 where you will be free from your afflictions and attain Enlightenment swiftly”. I insist: Nothing non-dual is implied here. (this is not complicated but yet greatly profound indeed) The Buddha taught advanced practitioners about emptiness and the non-dual nature of samsara and nirvana, because the minds of those advanced Bodhisattvas were already capable of a level of contemplation that very few beings possess, and all of them already knew the vital importance of dual teachings related to karma and samsara. The Buddhas never teach randomly. They always take into account the level of understanding that the audience has. So please, I sincerely ask you to consider your true capacities and don’t skip the dual-teachings that Shakyamuni also imparted, because the teachings on karma, samsara and Enlightenment are actually the basis upon which the Buddha-Dharma is integrated as a cohesive group of teachings. If we start to play with sophisticated or abstract concepts it will be quite easy to go astray and we won’t get much benefit from studying the Buddha-Dharma; on the other hand, if we take into account our true capacities and study the most essential and basic teachings that Shakyamuni Buddha gave related to karma, samsara and Buddhahood, we will be benefited from them in the way He intended. Please don’t be confused by the different Buddhist teachings. Superb Buddhist Masters like Bodhisattva Nagarjuna and Enlightened beings like Padmasambhava teach us that even the wisest of the wise can have simple faith, and that nondual Dharma teachings and dual Dharma teachings have BOTH great value. The thing is: what kind of teaching is actually useful for simple people like us? 120 II SAMSARA AND NIRVANA 121 Preliminary reflection on the Buddha-Dharma and modern research In part I we looked at some compelling research cases that strongly suggest that we are way more than our physical bodies. OBE (Out of body experiences), NDE (Near death experiences) and past live memories in small children point to the basic truths of rebirth and karma as taught by Shakyamuni Buddha and His noble disciples. If our minds are not limited to just one body, this opens the distinct possibility of an infinite past and an infinite future of suffering according to the teachings on Samsara as taught by the Buddha. As I said earlier, the continuity of consciousness is not something to be celebrated because the Dharma facts about reality are impermanence, non-self and suffering. Samsara is a dark place, because it is not inhabited by Buddhas (Enlightened beings) but by samsaric beings (unenlightened beings). Even if we only accept the human realm that we see with our physical senses as a future place for rebirth, just consider human history: famine, wars, debauchery and madness, are not very hard to find (in the past and also presently), and even if you happen to be reborn as a millionaire in Switzerland you will eventually die and be reborn again according to your karma. The law of impermanence rules Samsara, so how can you expect to be happy in the human realm if death, suffering, sickness and impermanence mercilessly thrash rich and poor, good and bad alike? The Buddhist teaching on rebirth and the 6 122 realms of samsaric existence insist that we don’t disappear, or melt with nothingness when we die but in fact all great the Buddhas and the great Buddhist masters from the past and present tell us in unison that we continue wandering on and on from birth to death ad infinitum …with all our suffering and ignorance on the suitcases of our minds that we foolishly carry to the dangerous streets of Samsara over and over again. Even if you only consider the human realm as a possible realm to be reborn in just think about this very carefully: You can be reborn in conflict zones like the Middle East or in poverty stricken countries in Africa (which happen to possess very dense populations). Even if all your noblest and wildest dreams come true in the human world, they will all be erased by the law of impermanence like sand castles destroyed by waves and contrary to what today’s silly “seize the beauty of life” ideologies tell us, our consciousness will carry on, and the problem is that it has many, and I mean MANY, places to go. In fact, according to Shakyamuni it is very common for humans to be reborn in non-human realms. These places are no picnic AT ALL. Some of them are far worse than the human realm like the hell realms or ghost realms and some are deceitfully attractive…. like the realms of heavenly beings and Asuras, which are so filled with entertainment and pleasure than leaving them becomes hell itself, and as you will see the Buddha says that being reborn there is a total waste of time. Now, you might say…ok, so my consciousness will carry on, and I get animals are on the table of possibilities for a future rebirth, but where on earth are those other realms like hell or heaven? Aren’t they symbols? Heavenly beings? Hell? Didn’t ancient cultures make those up to scare or inspire people? 123 This is a deep and rich subject, and it will require that you take a hard look at a rich body of evidence both inside and outside the Dharma of the Buddha. As I have constantly said, the Dharma is addressing reality itself and it has NOTHING to do with folklore or superstitions. As I was investigating these kinds of phenomena during my own spiritual journey I felt like I was walking alongside the Buddha and He was showing me the vastness of samsaric existence, and how dangerous it actually is. The Dharma clearly explained to me how my stream of consciousness was not limited to this present human existence, and after reflecting about the world and the research I quoted above I became convinced about the cycle of rebirth. Then, in my own study of the Dharma I discovered that the human realm was not the only realm of existence in Samsara. Where to look first? I wanted to explore realms that where above the realm of human beings. Please, consider the following advice very carefully before you read the research cases I will quote in this section, this of ESSENTIAL importance, I cannot stress this enough: Please bear in mind that the world that we can see and touch is limited by our karma and that whatever we experience in our stream of consciousness is a LIMITED spectrum of all the things that exist out there. According to the Dharma only the Buddhas know all realms of existence completely and accurately. We, as unenlightened beings can only experience other realms in a very foggy way. That’s why the sacred Buddhist texts are of such vital importance: If we only take the realm that we see and conceive to be real and as the only one that can exist, and we base our 124 knowledge about the horizon of possibilities just on opinions that vary according to culture and history, then our knowledge will be distorted. So it is essential that you interpret the following modern research about non-human phenomena according to the teachings of the Buddha, otherwise it is just a waste of time and you will be only confused afterwards. On the contrary if you consider the following research and you associate it and see it through the lens of the teachings of the Buddha and His great Disciples, then you will start to understand the concept of Samsara and you will no longer consider it a myth, but as the essential problem that the Buddha manifested in this world to solve. To acknowledge the existence of higher and lower realms of existence beyond the human realm is something that most of our modern society ignores and sadly something that many Buddhist are starting to ignore as well, so i am sharing the following modern studies to make you see and understand that we are not only more that our physical bodies but that there are vast and numerous realms of existence beyond our human realm as well. If we deeply consider Buddhist wisdom and modern research we will understand that there are many realms of existence that we can be born into according to the law of karma. (The Law of cause and effect) These investigations were carried out by many competent professionals and have clearly corroborated many of the basic Buddhist teachings, but, I insist, the best materials you can find to study the realms of samsara are the Buddhist sutras and the commentaries of the great 125 Buddhist Masters of the past, as they have profoundly explained all realms of existence in great detail. I will provide now an analogy that helped me in my path of discovery and faith in the Buddhist path; I hope it can help you too. The Analogy of the experienced Forester: Imagine there is an experienced forester who has taken care of a forest for decades and you arrive to a village nearby that you recently discovered. All the people in the village trust the forester. They know he has taken care of the forest for decades and he is pretty good at it. You then decide to take a look around and see the countryside. All the people in the village tell you that the forest is dense and that one can easily get lost there. So the Forester offers his help to you. You accept and you commence to walk up a mountain alongside with him. The forester shows you a forest area that’s far away, extending high above misty mountains. But you can see only a small part of the trees, because the mist covers the rest of the trees and the forester tells you that the weather will get even more terrible so he safely takes you back where you started. Then, you keep walking down another path bellow the mountain and you end up near a very steep rocky mountain. The forester then tells you that if you keep walking down you will encounter some caverns that are extremely dangerous. You can only see some rocks that indicate the path to the caverns. The forester then takes you back to the village safely. There he tells you all types of details about the mountains that are above the misty place where you could not go because of the mist and 126 he also tells you about the dangerous caverns. He tells you stories about all the people that have gotten lost due there due to their curiosity. They got lost time and time again trying to go up and down the mountain range. He insists on how dangerous it is to go for a walk without a guide who knows the area like the palm of his hand. Of course you believe him because you know that the villagers trust the forester and he led you back safe and sound to the village. He also gives you a map and lantern as a gift. Let me explain this analogy: The Forester is the Buddha, and the mountains and forests he knows about are the different and vast realms of Samsara. When you tried to go up the high part of the forest is like trying to know the higher realms of samsara (like the many types of celestial beings/Devas) the mist is your own ignorance and your limitations as a spiritual practitioner. The Dharma can allow people to see all the realms of existence but this is only for people that are fairly advanced on the path to Buddhahood. Nevertheless we can see some parts that are not covered by the mist. (Those are the phenomena that point to higher realms of existence that I will talk about later on) Of course the Buddha knows all levels of existence and if you have faith in the Dharma you will accept what the Buddha teaches even if you yourself can’t see all the vastness of samsaric universes. When the forester takes you down to the path that leads to the rocky caves, this represents the lower realms of existence (Animals, Ghosts, and hell realms), there you can only see the beginning of the path, that means that there are some parts of those lower realms that you can see like the animal realm and some parts of 127 the ghost realms and bardo realm (as I will explain also later on). When the forester takes you safely to the village and gives you a map and a lantern this is the Buddha inviting you to study the Dharma and have faith in it. Of course the forester did not just talked to you about the caverns and the misty mountains and you happened to have blind faith in him. All the villagers trust him. The villagers represent all the Sangha (the community of Buddhist masters and followers). All the great masters of the past have followed the teachings and advanced on their path to enlightenment thanks to the teachings of the Buddha. Their reputation is great and their wisdom is famous and venerated throughout the centuries (Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Padmasambhava, Milarepa, Tsongkhapa, Honen, Shinran, Rennyo…etc.). They all can attest to the fact that samsara is a real threat and that it has many lower and higher realms of existence that become visible once you walk a significant part of the path that leads to liberation/Nirvana/Buddhahood. Another factor that allowed you to trust the forester/the Buddha is that you actually walked with him and even if you could not see all the misty mountains or the deep caverns, you did see some part of them. So this little part you managed to see represents in this analogy the strong evidence for the continuity of consciousness that I previously brought up both from within and outside the Dharma, and it will also include some other research about non-human realms of existence explained by Buddhist teachings. Of course for the majority of Buddhists with strong faith in the Dharma (as it has been taught for millennia) the testimony of the Sangha and the depth of the teachings is enough, and I certainly think that is the best 128 approach to learn about the teachings on rebirth and samsara, because ultimately we most always go back to the Dharma even if we read about modern investigations that can be explained in Buddhist terms. Buddhist followers also rely on personal testimonies, like teachers they know that are spiritually cultivated and the blessings they feel from praying to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (visions are also common in many Buddhist practitioners around the world, and they can also be related to similar experiences that Buddhist followers have had for many centuries so this creates a golden link of faith and trust in the Buddha-Dharma). All these ways to approach the Dharma I consider to be the best path to awaken faith. Nevertheless, when I take into account what I see nowadays in this skeptical times is that people are not paying attention to the Dharma, and sadly they are not paying attention even to reality itself, so they bluntly deny the existence of rebirth, karma and the realms of samsara, and as I have explained, the Buddha came here to this earth in order to guide us out of samsaric existence, not just to give us temporary happiness. The same way a doctor is there to heal us from his/her patient from sickness, and not to play poker in the ER, the Buddhas come to free us from samsara and lead us to Buddhahood. So I think that considering this modern research, done on those little parts of the mountain that we can see for ourselves is a good tool to lead our minds and hearts to the core teachings of the Dharma and it can make us realize that Buddhism is not an Indian, Chinese, Japanese or 129 Tibetan phenomenon (as so many modern religious historians claim), but that in fact the Buddha-Dharma transcends cultures and it is speaking about timeless questions such as death, suffering and the nature of reality. 130 Far beyond the realm of human beings In Buddhism Asuras are sometimes described in the sutras as part of the lower realms because of their envy and proneness to war and conflict. They are also obsessed with opulence and weapons. Although they are sometimes put in the lower realms category, they are far more powerful than human beings. According to the Buddha the Asuras are in constant conflict with the devas/celestial beings/the gods, and they were actually kicked out of one of the lower heavens of samsara due to their pride and malice. (There are numerous heavens in Buddhist cosmology as we will explore later on) Some lower Devas of the Kamadhatu (world of desire) and Asuras (demigods) are said to live and drive what is called a Vimana, or a flying palace. In the case of the heavenly realms beings are said to live long lives of thousands and millions of years (and even more than that), they can also rule vast domains like several world systems and they can move easily in between several worlds, although they also have limitations given that they are still mortal and unenlightened beings. Compared to humans, devas and Asuras are certainly vastly more sophisticated and advanced. Of course the realms of devas are ENOURMOUS and the majority of devas live in high realms of existence and therefore their involvement with regular humans is minimum. This situation changes when enlightened beings such as the Buddha Shakyamuni choose to 131 manifest in the human realm61. It is said when the Buddha was preaching the Dharma, millions and millions of celestial beings from all parts of the universe where also listening to his teachings and many came to see him personally since they also wanted to listen to the Dharma. The Buddha also traveled many times to the heavenly realms to teach the Dharma. So the Devas are all over the place in the sutras, and some of them have a keen interest in the Dharma. But for the most part devas tend to be also very prideful and conceited. It should be clear that Buddhism is not only destined for human beings and that the Dharma teaches that there are many types of non-human beings that enjoy (transient) pleasures and advantages that are way beyond the human realm. Being reborn as an Asura is the result of envy and jelousy combined with some good karma, like the development of some spiritual skills mixed with pride and malice. (Being born as a celestial being is the result of morality, virtue and discipline combined with the mental poison of pride. In the case of the higher gods it is due to the cultivation of several levels of meditative absorption Dhyana, but they cling to the ego so they still die and are thus 61 All the information that I have regarding these aspects of Buddhist cosmology are found in Josho Adrian Cirlea’s Book “The Four profound thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma”, Dharma Lion Publications, 2018, which is available for free on Amidaji website. It is easy to find all of his books here: http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/p/the-true-teaching-onamida-buddha-and.html Another good source is a slide presentation I made based on Reverend Josho Sensei’s books about the 31 planes of existence and Amida’s Pure Land. This is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLoq-f6DjNk&t=12735s 132 reborn later in the lower realms. We will describe all 6 realms of samsaric existence according to the Dharma later on.) Invoking the previous analogy of the forester once more, I will try to show the reader a little bit of the misty mountains, that is, the higher realms of existence. Before I give a detailed explanation of all the realms of existence that Buddhism recognizes and their characteristics I want to show some remarkable facts about the world we live in that clearly show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there are in fact, higher and more sophisticated beings in the cosmos. I consider this is useful to reduce the ego of modern society that has gotten to the point where some scientists think that we are the best species in the known cosmos. Many people have come to blindly believe our society has figured it all out in terms of cosmology or technology. I started to read about life in other parts of the universe, because it opens up many more possible worlds of existence for a stream of consciousness to be reborn in. When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree he saw all his innumerable past lives and he did not see a beginning for rebirth. As He said, with his incredible mental strength he was capable of going many contractions and expansions of the universe back in time to contemplate how beings are reborn and how they die within the cycle of Samsara, so definitely he lived in other planets and universes62in the past because the planet earth we presently inhabit is clearly not as old as the universe itself. 62 The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, Pages 40-42 133 According to the Buddhist teaching, there are an infinite number of world systems where rebirth takes place. These were classified into three categories: 1.One small universe, which is traditionally called “a small one thousandworld”. It consists of one thousand worlds. Each single world (sometimes called “a Sumeru-world”) contains the various realms/dimensions of hells, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, Asuras and gods. 2.One middle universe, which is traditionally called “a medium one thousand-world”. It consists of one thousand small universes (or “a thousand small thousand-worlds”). 3.One large universe, which is traditionally called, “a great one thousandworld”. It consists of one thousand middle universes (or a thousand medium thousand-worlds). These various worlds pass through and endless cycle of formation, existence, destruction, and annihilation after which they are again formed, come to existence, are destroyed, annihilated, and so on. The four periods of cyclic changes are called “kalpas”: 1.Period (kalpa) of Formation or generation (vivartakalpa) 2.Period (kalpa) of Duration or existence (vivarta-siddha kalpa) 3.Period (kalpa) of Destruction (samvarta kalpa) 4.Period (kalpa) of Annihilation (samvarta-diddha kalpa) Each of these periods lasts 20 medium or intermediate kalpas36 (antara kalpa). Four periods of 20 medium kalpas each, is 80 medium kalpas. 80 medium kalpas is one great kalpa (mahakalpa). So, one cosmic cycle composed of the four periods above is called one great kalpa. Some scholars say that one kalpa is the equivalent of 1,000 yugas, or 4,320,000,000 years. One Buddha may assume responsibility for the spiritual care of one large universe (“a great one thousand-world”), which then becomes that Buddha’s field of action, or “Buddha-field” (Buddhakshetra in Skt). This is also called a “Buddha-land”. The one large universe in which we ourselves live together with many kinds of visible, invisible and non- human beings, is called “Saha”. The sutras say that an infinite number of such large universes, or Buddha-lands, exist in the ten directions. As they are inhabited by beings in various stages of spiritual development, it should not be confounded with the Pure Land (Sukhavati), which is an Enlightened realm (outside of Samsara) manifested by Amida Buddha. 134 Of course only until fairly recently science admitted that life outside planet earth was not only likely but it is in fact a mathematical certainty considering the vast amount of stars and galaxies that were discovered in the 20th century alone. The advent of modern astrophysics like the groundbreaking discoveries made by Edwin Hubble (one of the greatest astronomers in history) clearly made us aware that the universe was far vaster than modern western civilization could have ever imagined. Just less than two centuries ago most of the scientific community believed that the Milky Way galaxy we live in was pretty much all there was in the universe. If you go further back in history most religions thought that earth was at the center of the universe. So we can see that these new discoveries reveal that our civilization is just one among many that live in the cosmos. Exo-planets (planets outside our solar system) have been discovered by the hundreds just in this decade alone, and many of them possess water, atmospheres and possibly even vegetation just like our planet earth. According to many scientific organizations there might be billions upon billions of planets similar to planet earth in our galaxy alone. 63. According to the drake equation (an statistical equation to determine how many intelligent civilizations there are in our universe, according to our scientific understanding) there could be as many as several hundred thousand intelligent civilizations 63 NASA, official webtsite, article on exoplanets https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1600/a-hubble-first-water-vapor-found-onhabitable-zone-exoplanet/ 135 in our milky way galaxy alone 64 . Please consider that according to modern astrophysics there are at least several billion galaxies in the known universe. So even according to simple statistics based on common knowledge shared by modern science it would be very strange if intelligent life did not exist outside the confines of our little planet earth, which orbits a relatively tiny star in a remote area of a medium sized galaxy. The truth that Buddhism teaches is that the universe is not only full with all kinds of life…it is REPLETE with all manner of sentient beings, and most of those life forms are way more sophisticated than we humans are now. This is a very wellknown fact that is acknowledged by classified projects and intelligence agencies within almost all governments and militaries worldwide. We are not alone in the universe and we never were. The sky has literally been screaming to us for centuries that there are thousands of intelligent civilizations of humans and non-humans that visit the earth and live inside the earth. This is a fact that many people ignore, and by doing so they are literally putting their heads under the sand and avoiding one of the great scientific scandals of our time. Buddhism has known about this since the very beginning. As we will see the Buddha taught about an infinite number of universes, each one with billions of world systems containing a huge variety of samsaric beings in different grades of spiritual development. The Buddha not only knew about existence of 64 Astro bio: Astrophysics and Astrobiology e-magazine: https://www.astrobio.net/alien-life/at-last-how-many-alien-civilizations-arethere/ 136 life in other planets and galaxies (which modern science has only knows about for less than 2 centuries) but He also mentioned life in different universes and dimensions beyond the physical realm (this unseen realms are far bigger than the realms we manage to see with our 5 senses). UFO’s (Unidentified flying objects) or UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) are not mentioned in the sutras, nevertheless the vastness of Buddhist cosmology does explain that intelligent life does exist in all worlds. I must clarify that I really don’t think it is essential to study phenomena such as UFO’s to study Buddhist cosmology since by just having faith in the sutras and studying them sincerely everyone can see that the Buddha taught about millions of universes replete with conscious life forms in many stages of spiritual development. The reason I will bring this subject to the table is that many people believe that UFO’s are “mysterious” or that Buddhism has nothing to say about this matter. Another reason is that many Buddhists nowadays put into question the core truths found in the Dharma about Samsara and Buddhist cosmology. They think science has “figured it all out” and that believing in higher realms of existence is a superstition of a bygone era. Well…nothing could be farther from the truth. The UFO phenomenon has been thoroughly studied for more than 7 decades and very few people are paying attention to it. Buddhism has A LOT to say about this phenomenon, and in my opinion the Buddha-Dharma could put many people’s mind to rest because materialist and limited worldviews simply can’t handle such a phenomenon in a wise way. Skeptic people who call themselves Buddhist can 137 also learn a great deal from this phenomenon as it could show them that there are higher realms of existence far more sophisticated than our human realm, opening the possibility for them to understand samsara as a fact rather than superstition or folklore. Before explaining this subject I want to clarify that the variety of the phenomena associated to UAP/UFO’s defies a simple explanation. I cannot honestly say they are just Asuras or lower devas as explained in the sutras (although some of UFO cases seem to point out that way), as we will see, many powerful spirits as described in Buddhist cosmology can assume many shapes and sizes, and this phenomena can also point to other human civilizations that inhabit other parts of the cosmos or other dimensions; either way, the fact is that whereas many philosophies and non-Buddhist religions are quite limited by their narrow conceptions of what is possible, Buddhism on the other hand describes the universe in 31 planes of existence, 6 types of beings and an infinite number of universes, each containing all the planes of existence simultaneously, so there is plenty of room for these phenomena in Buddhist cosmology. It is clear that the complexity of non-human phenomena that are being experienced by many people around the globe (be it forest spirits, UFO’s, angels, demons, ghosts) and sometimes even recorded in audio and video defy a simplistic explanation. We cannot put all these different types of phenomena in the same bag. (for instance a deva is not a ghost, advanced interplanetary human civilizations are not Asuras, and Asuras are not ghosts). It is not my intention to present a thorough analysis of each plane of existence in this book, as it is both beyond my knowledge and the purport of this text; all I want is 138 to point out that there are more powerful, intelligent and sophisticated beings in the universe that are different to our own present modern civilization, and that the evident existence of those powerful beings (be it other human beings, Asuras, lower devas or powerful pretas/spirits) should make us think about these three very important points related to the Buddha-Dharma: 1.) They are just other types of samsaric beings which may live longer, have more knowledge than us humans, and have more abundance and power; nevertheless they are going to die and be reborn according to the law of karma. 2.) According to the Buddha-Dharma we live in a multidimensional samsaric universe that has room for all kinds of delusions; including the delusion of having power, live longer and have superior wisdom and capacities than are far superior to our present human civilization’s advancements or/and to our individual skills as spiritual practitioners, nevertheless, whatever these skills may be they are clearly inferior to the incredible skills of a Buddha, which, as we have seen, is a being that is free from all 31 planes of samsaric existence altogether, and can freely exercise transcendental skills with perfect wisdom and compassion for all beings. 3.) As deluded sentient beings within samsaric existence if we don’t follow the Buddha-Dharma and yet we still practice virtue and other forms of meditation we may end up being reborn in these higher positions within the mind-game of samsara only to find ourselves dying 139 again and perpetuating our enslavement to the three poisons (greed, anger and delusion). So it is really not that important if UFO’s are all Asuras, other human beings from another world-system, powerful deceiving spirits or lower devas/gods or just more advanced humans (or a combination of all these types of beings as I personally think is the case), but the fact is that these beings and these vehicles (whatever they are) are simply above the skills of our human civilization and more importantly the scientific confirmation of higher realms of existence should inspire Dharma-followers to read about the richness of Buddhist cosmology, which clearly explains all the many realms of deluded-existence that a being can experience in samsara. According to the analogy I made earlier: Experienced Forester, learning about these non-human phenomena is like seeing a little bit of the misty mountains with our own eyes. Even though our karma hinders us from accessing the totality of reality (even samsaric reality), it is he case that things DO happen in our human realm that lead us to hear or see a little bit of what happens in the floors above and below in the jailbuilding of samsaric existence. Of course, the small sections of samsara that we can see with our physical senses are very LIMITED. Even our eyes cannot see all the electromagnetic spectrum, and some animals like owls and cats can see a great deal more than us. Now imagine all there is outside the realm of our present consciousness…it is something quite vast if you deeply reflect about it. It is like a frog that lives inside a little bog (and has never in its life left it) and suddenly sees a river…it would be mind-blowing, now imagine this same frog 140 seeing the ocean…another level of realization for this frog. Our case is similar in a way: the Buddhas teach us that our samsaric universe is vast in ways that cannot presently see with our senses nevertheless it is positive in my opinion that we see some “glimpses” of a vaster reality. It personally helped me a lot to realize the existence of these phenomena as this makes it easier to recognize how narrow our present human consciousness is in relationship to the totality of samsaric realms it can inhabit. This can also be useful when we relate it to the law of karma and the cycle of rebirth as this is yet another prove that when we die we have, many, and I mean, MANY options for delusion, both subtle and coarse. Now, having made that clear, we can now explore some basic characteristics of UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), As you will see UAP’s/UFO’s have been the focus of extensive and intensive research by almost all the major military powers and intelligence communities of the world including the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon in the U S but also in all Europe, Asia Latin America and Australia. Famous military personnel, pilots, scientists, astronomers and even astronauts have recognized the existence of other-worldly vehicles that visit our planet on a daily basis. The body of evidence is so huge; it’s so rich and abundant that it is quite difficult to summarize. The problem with UFO’s is the exact opposite to lack of evidence; we are actually drowning in cases that point to the existence of these phenomena. It is estimated by one of the best known civilian scientific organizations that investigate this phenomenon that there were almost 5000 studied UFO cases 141 just between 2016 and 201865 Most of them in North America, if we include the reports in other parts of the world the numbers would go much higher. Even the figure 5000 is just a lot, if you consider they are the cases that researchers managed to investigate and corroborate. Combining all the cases from the 1940´s until now, the total number of studied cases could easily be hundreds of thousands (and that’s being really conservative). UFO’s are constantly seen over nuclear facilities, military areas, in high altitudes, under the ocean and even under the earth; they have been seen in all 5 continents and in remote areas where human beings barely go and also in major modern cities like Paris, Moscow, LA, Sao Pablo and New York City. They have been seen by astronomers, meteorologists, pilots, astronauts, navy personnel, and aeronautical engineers. Thousands of cases also include radar, video and audio evidence. So, to deny such a voluminous amount of data and call the UFO phenomenon a giant hoax defies basic common sense. Some of the characteristics of the extraterrestrial vehicles that visit earth can be described for you to have a general notion of what we are dealing with here. (I will nonetheless provide some specific cases later) As the famous Canadian UFO researcher and nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman says: 65 Official website of MUFON organization. A UFO research investigation network founded in 1969 in the US. One of the most important and respected UFO research organizations worldwide. https://www.mufon.com/stats-updates.html 142 “Many flying saucers have been observed to be capable of hovering motionless, of moving straight up and down both rapidly and slowly, and back and forth without turning around. Some moved at extremely high velocity (thousands of miles per hour as observed visually and on radar) horizontally. Frequently there were reports of the Unknowns making very sharp turns at very high speeds. Often there is a glow around the object unlike any produced around conventional aircraft, balloons, missiles, etc., except upon missile reentry. Sometimes the color and brightness of the glow are observed to change as the velocity changes. Usually the flight pattern is very different from that of conventional aircraft, i.e., steady high speed coupled with very short periods or very high acceleration or deceleration rather than long periods of relatively low deceleration and acceleration such as our vehicles normally use. This difference is very important since it is much easier to avoid capture or destruction when one can apply very rapid changes of velocity and direction and because the shorter the duration of the acceleration, the higher the acceleration rate which can be withstood. Since the single most important aspect of a flying saucer from any government’s viewpoint is its potential for military utilization especially back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, one has to say that the Unknowns could not have been manufactured on Earth. If they have been, no Earth nation would now be building F-15, 16, 17, 18s or MIG 25s or 29s, or Mirage 5s, etc.(these are advanced aircraft) These data, coupled with the abduction cases, creature reports, physical trace cases, etc., clearly indicate that some of the Unknowns are manufactured vehicles whose origin is somewhere more technologically sophisticated than Earth, since we have only had technology for about 100 years on a planet having had life of some sort for over a billion years in a galactic neighborhood at least 10 billion years old. Considering the huge times 143 available prior to when we began space travel, it would be extraordinary if our planet has the most advanced civilization in the neighborhood. In terms of where I think these ET vehicles originate, I would have to say in nearby solar systems. After all, there are about 1,000 stars within 55 light years of us. At least 46 are single, non-variable sun-like stars which could very well have planets and support life either originating there or migrating and colonizing from older civilizations. Star Systems like Zeta Reticuli that are only 37 light years from Earth and only a few light weeks from each other and just happen to be about 1 billion years older than the sun could be one of the sources for these vehicles.”66 UFO’s have been seen doing all manner of maneuvers that defy the basics of our human understating of the laws of physics. For instance they can go faster than the speed of sound without making any noise and also disappear into thin air if they wish to. The evidence suggests that these vehicles are not produced by our modern civilization. As Friedman states, these objects have been studied very carefully by the military because they can easily invade sensitive military bases and of course that is seen as a national security emergency. Many official documents released by the intelligence community reveal that UFO’s have been studied CONTINUALLY at least for more than 70 years and the thing is that this groundbreaking 66 The Case for the Extraterrestrial Origin of Flying Saucers Stanton T. Friedman Nuclear Physicist / Author / Lecturer 79 Pembroke Crescent Fredericton, NB Canada E3B 2V1 Copyright 1995 You can also read the first chapter in this book by Friedman called Flying saucers and Science: http://docshare02.docshare.tips/files/31517/315171293.pdf 144 scientific research is not available for people outside the intelligence community and private contractor companies. Nonetheless efforts were made to make these secret archives available in the public domain. Friedman further states: “From a government and military viewpoint the most significant aspect of visits to planet Earth by technologically sophisticated vehicles is the potential for military utilizations by Earth-based groups of that technology. Surely the first government to be able to duplicate the hyper maneuverable high-speed flights of flying saucers will use that capability for the delivery of nuclear and other weapons and for defense and attack purposes. In the real world of the late 20th century, these potential information gains from the careful scientific investigation of flying saucers—in the air, crashed, or captured—greatly overshadow any philosophical, religious, or humanitarian concerns of the general public. One need only note that collectively the countries of planet Earth now spend about 750 billion dollars on military items each year, down from 1 trillion at the height of the cold war. Is it really any wonder that governments do not want to reveal whatever sophisticated scientific data they have about flying saucers? While there have been frequent accusations in the past about a government cover-up of UFO related data obtained through military and intelligence channels, there is a growing body of documentation to support those charges. For example, Dr. Bruce Maccabee has obtained well over 1,000 pages of UFO related correspondence and sighting reports from FBI files, despite the fact that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime head of the FBI, often wrote that the FBI is not now nor has ever been collecting information about UFOs. A Freedom of Information (FOI) suit against the CIA, begun by Ground Saucer Watch, but pushed to fruition by Citizens 145 Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), with most of the effort coming from Berkeley researcher Brad Sparks, has forced the release of over 900 pages of UFO-related items complete with deletions, and admission of the existence of at least 57 other UFO-related documents not released. None of the released documents were classified higher than SECRET though my visits to 15 archives have established that there are loads of TOP SECRET documents out there. Sparks has indicated that in just the first ¼ of the released documents there were references to over 200 other UFO related documents not yet explicitly revealed, released, or acknowledged by the CIA. Future legal actions are expected to greatly swell the amount of available information from the CIA, NSA, and a variety of other intelligence agencies not generally accountable to the public or press.”67 So if you really consider that UFO’s are only important for crazy cult followers or wackos, think again. UFO’s have been perhaps the most important thing that has ever happened to the international intelligence community. Of course it is also about money and power. UFO’s are certainly not fueled by gasoline and the military admits they are way more sophisticated than our best technology, so studying these vehicles and extracting exotic technology from them has been an ongoing interest of many people deep within the military and a handful of private companies linked to the intelligence community. Consider how huge this is for the political world we live in. Those documents that Friedman writes about PROVE beyond a 67 Ibídem 146 shadow of a doubt that the military has a keen interest in extraterrestrial civilizations. Even if there weren’t any cases reported worldwide (which is a total fallacy, considering the monumental data collected by MUFON and other research organizations throughout decades of scientific research) those documents would still prove that UFO’s are very real to the military and the intelligence community. 68 Those documents are now part of the public domain and they can be easily understood by anyone. I highly recommend a short 10 minute video made by the famous US Military historian and UFO historian Richard Dolan which is on the footnotes bellow. It is a short summary of all the documents that the American intelligence community revealed. They are by no means all the documents they have, but they do reveal a lot of what is going behind UFO secrecy. I must point out that those documents are by no means contentious historical documents. They are acknowledged by the agencies that released them to the public against their will, so hoaxes or fabrications are out of the question. The documents have many missing parts and they do not contain all they know nevertheless they still prove the phenomenon is taken VERY SERIOUSLY by the intelligence community and the industrial military complex worldwide. 68 If you wish to watch a short 10 minute video about those documents, watch the famous and respected historian Richard Dolan, talking about UFO secrecy and the documents released by the CIA that confirm that UFO’s have been studied by them for decades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaxtKeWKPBs (the title of the video is The UFO cover up in 10 minutes) 147 I will share now three important cases. As you will see these cases had multiple witnesses and verifiable data (radar, military witnesses, videos, and audio) which make very hard to discard as mass hallucinations or just explained by man-made tech. The Phoenix lights case 69: (May 13th, Phoenix, Arizona, US 1997): The Phoenix lights case is one of the most important cases in recent UFO history because it involves several thousand of witnesses in an entire city (Phoenix, Arizona, US) that saw a gigantic spaceship that was almost two American-football stadiums in size. The event was so huge that the governor of Arizona Fife Symington70 made statements about the case and confirmed its veracity and several members of the police and military where involved since it was seen by almost an entire big city. There’s video and audio about this case that has been analyzed by several sources proving its authenticity71. I will quote now a short article about the case, but in case you want to take a deeper look at it there are several documentaries about 69 quoted from the article that summarizes the basic aspects of this case written by Arjun Walia the articles is based on the work of respected researchers such as UFO historian Richard Dolan. Link: https://exonews.org/former-governor-of-arizona-tells-the-truth-aboutthe-phoenix-lights-could-have-been-extraterrestrial/ consulted in October 23, 2019 70 Interview with former Arizona Governor Fife Symington on the Phoenix lights case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Fh0g5wJ7A 71 News report and some footage of this case in Phoenix Arizona. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npeCDLsyJwE 148 the case on the internet If you have doubts about the cases don’t take my word for it and please investigate for yourself and realize the authenticity of this phenomenon. Fife Symington, the former Arizona Summary of this UFO case 72: “It began with Luke Air Force Base, the media, the National UFO Reporting Center, the Governor’s office, and the police receiving a number of reports from people in Nevada of a very large craft hovering in the sky. Some people were reporting it as a boomerang formation of lights. The object (or objects) began moving south towards Arizona where even more people would see it. Again, people were not reporting just lights hovering in the sky; they were reporting an actual solid object, a craft of some sort, spanning the size of one or two football fields. The witness reports detail lights, sometimes multiple lights, in a pattern that ranged from a few all the way up to a dozen, all in some sort of organized formation. Witnesses reported them as white and in some cases they were orange, red, or yellow. Reports indicate that at some point, the lights moved at very rapid speeds, while at others, they moved slowly and were also reported to hover. Some people described it as a huge, wedge-shaped craft with five lights on it. Some people claim that it passed directly over their heads and even hovered there for extended periods of time. 72 https://exonews.org/former-governor-of-arizona-tells-the-truth-about-thephoenix-lights-could-have-been-extraterrestrial/ consulted in October 23, 2019 149 People reported seeing, again, a large solid object, even going into detail about certain features they could spot on the craft. “It was a giant V, and the right side of the V went over us, the left side was a couple blocks over.” – One (out of thousands) of the witnesses said. Again, this object has been described as massive, the size of one to two football fields. There were a number of these types of descriptions from people who witnessed the object. These types of reports came in at a time where it was much easier to make out the object or objects that were in the sky, as there was still some daylight. It was not until later that evening at approximately 10 pm when people in Arizona witnessed something truly spectacular. As UFO researcher Richard Dolan describes it: “People in Phoenix were treated to an amazing display of hovering lights over the city. These lights appeared to be motionless and in perfect formation. They were truly an astounding sight to behold: an enormous semi-circular string of lights in the night sky.” Mass Media Attention: Despite the fact that the event had been photographed and recorded by multiple residents in Phoenix, there was no media coverage of the event until over half a year later. When the public affairs office at Luke Air Force Base announced that the lights were flares launched from an aircraft, the story became quite large and attracted a boatload of media attention, from mainstream news all the way to alternative media. 150 Consider for yourself – this craft (or crafts) was reported multiple times and at different time periods, and appears to have been in the sky for a prolonged period of time, starting (as mentioned above) in Nevada and then working its way over to Arizona. Again, it was seen and reported by thousands of people, and when mainstream news got ahold of it, millions of people were able to view the video footage. How can flares stay up hovering in the sky in perfect formation for hours? What about all the reports of a very large craft? The explanation coming from the air force just doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? “Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.” Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source as quoted by the New York Times) Fife Symington, the Governor of Arizona at the time, even held a press conference that featured a large and costumed alien mocking all of the UFO enthusiasts, but it seemed goodhearted in nature and, according to him, was done to lighten the mood. (years later Fife Symington gave an interview in which he confessed it was done to stop people from calling the local authorities and to dilute the general fear of the population; he himself witnessed the gigantic lights over Phoenix city that night, and he confessed that they were indeed “otherworldly” and that the military explanation did not convince him). What is interesting to note, however, is that Fife was keeping something to himself – he actually witnessed the event, and the former Air Force veteran spoke out years after the event 151 (when his stint as governor ended) saying in a CNN interview: “If you had been here 10 years ago, standing out here and looking out there at the lights, you would have been astounded, you would have been amazed. I suspect that unless the Department of Defense can prove otherwise, then it was probably some form of alien spacecraft. It was enormous and it just felt otherworldly, in your gut you could just tell it was otherworldly.” The footage, as well as the pictures, have been analyzed by a number of experts and many have come to the conclusion that there is no possible way that what people were seeing in Arizona that day were just flares, and this seems to be pretty obvious given the witness testimony coming from thousands of people. That being said, there are a few experts who have publicly stated that the explanation coming from the Air Force is probably true. Something definitely extraordinary and inexplicable happened here. Perhaps there was a reasonable explanation but it was concealed, but there is no way to know. It’s also important to note that there was a great deal of pressure put upon the Phoenix City Council not to investigate this event. “It even led to the ouster City Council member Francis Barwood, the one member who called for a genuine investigation.” – Richard Dolan.” It should be noted neither the US military nor the Arizona State authorities have ever offered credible information about this case. Until this day, people in Phoenix know what they saw. The thousands of citizens, police officers and military personnel that witnessed the event combined with all the 152 abundant audio and video material the attest to the objective reality of this remarkable case. New York times Article about the Pentagon and UFO research (2017) and the famous “tick-tack” UFO (2004) seen by the US Navy: Another important case and also a new body of evidence is the ground-braking article written in the New York Times, in 2017 about the official revelations of the Pentagon that show that many millions of dollars have been spent by the US government and private industries to investigate UFO’s. I base myself here on a very good article made by military historian Richard Dolan that summarizes the New York Times article73: The main article, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” offered several bombshells. Mainly, that the Pentagon, from the end of the George W. Bush presidency and through at least the first term of Barack Obama, spent millions of dollar investigating UFOs. Granted, $22 million over roughly five years is less than a pittance in Pentagon numbers. But that anything was spent at all is significant. We are talking from 2007 until (officially) “the 2012 timeframe,” in the imprecise words of a Pentagon official. 73 Richard Dolan, American Military Historian and UFO researcher: https://www.richarddolanpress.com/single-post/2018/01/01/The-Pentagonand-UFOs-Assessing-the-Revelations 153 The program’s name was also typically vague---Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification (AATI). It was managed by a career intelligence officer named Luis Elizondo, who has been very straightforward about the program and the incredible nature of what it analyzed. According to Politico, which also published an article on this that came out soon after the Times pieces, Elizondo “described scores of unexplained sightings by Navy pilots and other observers of aircraft with capabilities far beyond what is currently considered aerodynamically possible.” Moreover, he said, these occurred near nuclear facilities, ships at sea, and power plants. Clearly, this is not random but intelligent. According to Elizondo, "We had never seen anything like it." Recovered UFO Materials: UFO skeptics, as ever, wave all this away. Still, isn’t anyone curious about the revelation that the program contracted out to Bigelow Aerospace to study “metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo [who managed the program] and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena.” In any normal world, this would prompt a massive, collective, “whow.” But the bland statement is buried within the article in the Times. Most people seem to have missed it. For years, researchers have argued that U.S. military agencies (and several other national militaries) have recovered and studied UFOs. Indeed, a number of declassified documents, to say nothing of a virtual avalanche of testimony, have at least supported this claim. So now we have it acknowledged in the 154 New York Times itself, although couched in disclaimers (“Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said...”). Even with the disclaimers, however, don’t we want to ask what exactly constitutes these “metal alloys and other materials”? This is a reasonable question. We are talking about, quite literally, recovered UFOs. What, if any, were the conclusions generated by Bigelow Aerospace regarding these materials? Effects of UFOs on Human Biology: That revelation was followed by another one: “Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes.” There has been a lot of quiet talk about this over the past few years. Former U.S. Airman First Class John Burroughs, from the well-known Rendlesham Forest case of December 1980, has experienced documented and life-threatening physical after-effects from his encounter with a landed UFO. He was also the investigator who first recognized the immense value of the declassified U.K. report from the late 1990s known as the Condign Report, which discussed at length physical effects on human beings from UAP --- that is, UFOs. So, these are things that researchers essentially already knew, but now the New York Times confirms that U.S. taxpayers funded, via the Pentagon, studies of such physiological and biological effects. Again, we want to know: what conclusions, if any, were found? More to the point, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to flesh out this story? 155 We don’t yet know all the UFO cases studied by the AATI Program. But at least one high profile encounter has now reached us: the November 2004 incident involving the USS Princeton one hundred miles off the coast of San Diego. This was the theme of the other article published by the New York Times on December 16. Briefly, Commander David Fravor and Lt. Commander Jim Slaight were each flying F/A-18F Super Hornets on a routine training mission. It turned out that for the previous two weeks, the Navy had been tracking extraordinary unidentified objects that would appear at 80,000 feet, dive to 20,000 feet, stop and hover, then drop out of radar range or shoot straight up. Now something once again appeared on Navy radar, and Fravor and Slaight were ordered to investigate. The weather was clear and perfect. Fravor got in the closest and saw a whitish object he described as “tic tac shaped” hovering 50 feet above churning water. He estimated it to be about 40 feet long. As he initiated a circular descent and approached the object, it ascended as if to meet him. He then dove straight at the object, at which point it sped away nearly instantly. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Fravor didn’t give an estimate of the object’s speed, but he did describe it as accelerating from a dead stop just over the water to an altitude of 12,000 feet and being out of sight, all within two seconds. He would only state that its speed was “well above supersonic,” or “like the bullet out of a gun.” Just for fun, we can do our own rough estimate of the speed, based on his information. During the interview, Fravor stated that there was more than fifty miles of visibility that day, with “easy” visibility of ten miles. It’s 156 reasonable to think the object travelled at least ten miles within two seconds, and perhaps over fifty miles. If you take the more conservative estimate of ten miles, that translates to 300 miles per minute, or 18,000 mph. If you want to be more liberal with the data, just multiply by five. Incidentally, Fravor added the object displayed no exhaust or discernable method of propulsion. He could only conclude that the object was “not from this world.” Silence from the Hierarchy: And yet, as far as has been reported, no one seemed to care about these events. In his interview with Politico, Elizondo pointed out that "if a Russian 'Bear' bomber comes in near California, it is all over the news. These are coming in the skies over our facilities. Nothing but crickets." His observation is spot on. If such technology were Russian or Chinese, the U.S. would be losing its collective mind. And yet, no one seems to believe it’s Russian or Chinese. Which begs the obvious question: to whom does this tech belong? Something “beyond next generation,” as Elizondo put it. If I think about what that phrase means, it would seem to be something vastly beyond not only what we currently have, but what we can imagine doing for the foreseeable future. And yet, there it is, easily outperforming some of our top fighterinterceptors. Can we really think that no one in the military hierarchy cared about these events? I believe that there are those who very quietly care a great deal. But why stir the pot, so to speak, when there is absolutely nothing you can do about it? On a 157 related note, can we realistically think that, given the extraordinary nature of these events, and the truly incredible implications of the technology encountered, that no other funding has been allocated to study or deal with it? There is a reason Elizondo was only hearing the sound of crickets. (It is) because the study of UFOs continues to be revolutionary. It always has been, and this is why the most intense levels of secrecy have surrounded it since the Second World War. Bigelow, the Pentagon, and MUFON: A few other random thoughts arise from all this. It’s interesting that while Bigelow Aerospace was contracting with the Pentagon to analyze physical pieces of UFOs and more, it also had a relationship with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), in which Bigelow’s organization provided money to MUFON to assist in on-site investigations of UFO encounters and sightings. The relationship ended acrimoniously. MUFON members believed Bigelow was simply using the organization to siphon its best cases while Bigelow appears to have been unsatisfied with the ragtag and sometimes less-thanprofessional nature of MUFON’s investigations. Probably both sides had a point, but the reality is that Bigelow’s relationship with MUFON now appears in a new light, as part of a larger effort to obtain hard data about UFOs.”74 74 Richard Dolan, American Military Historian and UFO researcher: https://www.richarddolanpress.com/single-post/2018/01/01/The-Pentagonand-UFOs-Assessing-the-Revelations 158 As Dolan suggests UFO’s are not only UP THERE. The military and private high tech companies have actually recovered some technology from these vehicles and it is very likely they have also recovered several bodies of the beings that drive these sophisticated machines. There’s big money to be made here. If a company manages to put its hands on advanced ET technology, would you think they would be telling everybody about it? These guys think only about money and power, really ask yourself, What’s the economic gain in doing that? Those kinds of secrets are worth billions of dollars so you can be pretty sure those people profiting from these kind of exotic-tech-research are not going to tell the public about extraterrestrial technology that easily if they are not forced to do so. UFO’s have also been seen thousands of times hovering over nuclear plants and nuclear weapon research facilities which shows a concern from their part about the destructive capabilities that our current human military technology has. These vehicles of course are being driven by intelligent beings. There are many thousands of direct encounters with a wide variety of beings that ranges from very tiny beings to giant creatures that don’t look human at all. Other beings look very similar to human beings; and some identical. As my intention is only to prove that there are far more sophisticated beings than human beings in the universe, I will only quote one of the most studied cases about abductions. These civilizations have a keen interest in human biology so they sometimes take people on board and study their bodies. 159 As if all the data provided by the military, scientists and historians throughout more than seven decades pointing to the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations visiting earth weren’t enough, the many cases of abductions add even more direct evidence on human biology. I will quote here perhaps the most famous abduction case in recent history: An Abduction case: Betty and Barnie Hill 1961 (USA, New Hampshire) 75: “In 1985, David Webb published a study of abduction reports. Out of 300 abduction cases, he found that 140 were well investigated, with no signs that there was any hoaxing and no signs that the witnesses were mentally deranged (Webb 1985). The first abduction case to attract wide attention involved Betty and Barney Hill (Clark 1998, pp. 489–499). On September 26, 1961, Betty wrote a letter about a UFO encounter to Donald E. Keyhoe, a former Marine Corps major who was then serving as the director of NICAP, the National Investigating Committee on Aerial Phenomena. NICAP referred the case to Walter N. Webb, an astronomer in Boston who was also a UFO investigator. Webb conducted a series of interviews. Betty Hill was 41 years old at the time of the encounter. She was a social worker employed by the state of New Hampshire, 75 Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, , Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p. 487-491. I also based my knowledge of this case on this lecture by Stanton Friedman: Kathleen Marden-Stanton Friedman Alien Abduction: The Betty and Barney Hill Case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8vUMZwjzOs 160 and did volunteer work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Barney Hill, 39 years old, worked as a dispatcher at the U.S. post office in Boston. He was also on the board of directors of a local poverty relief program and served as an advisor to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. On the evening of September 19, 1961, the Hills were driving from Quebec, Canada, to their home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As they were driving through New Hampshire, they saw a bright light in the sky. It crossed the moon, and then it began moving toward them. As a precaution, Barney stopped the car, got a pistol from the trunk, and started driving again. Betty looked at the object with binoculars. Now its flight path was lower and closer to the car. She saw a spinning disk shape, with a row of lighted windows along the edge. Barney suggested to his wife that the object might be an airplane, but when he himself looked through binoculars he didn’t see any wings, and they didn’t hear any sound of airplane engines. They stopped again. The object had moved farther away, and they saw it pass behind a mountain peak a mile away. They started driving, and the object moved closer again. It descended in a clearing on their right, hovering about 100 feet in the air. It was no longer spinning. It appeared the size of a four-engine airplane. Barney stopped the car on the road and got out to look at the craft through binoculars. The object moved silently from one side of the road to the other, still hovering at 100 feet from the ground. Then it began to descend. Through his binoculars, Barney could see in the craft’s windows several humanoids 161 moving about inside, and looking out at him. Then, all except one of the humanoids left the windows and busied themselves with what appeared to be control instruments. The craft then moved towards Barney, approaching to within 75 feet. Barney could see the one humanoid that remained at the windows staring intensely at him. He felt that the humanoids wanted to capture him. So he ran back to the car, shouting, “They’re going to capture us.” When he got into the car, he immediately drove away. Near a place called Indian Head, the couple heard a loud beeping sound, apparently coming from the rear of the car, and at the same time the car shook. Barney and Betty experienced a tingling feeling and, overcome by drowsiness, entered a semi-sleep state. After some time, they again heard the beeping sounds. They were still driving in their car, but had lost track of time. They noticed they were in Ashland, about 35 miles from where they heard the first set of beeps. Gradually, they returned to normal waking consciousness. At home, the Hills felt uncomfortable. Barney thought there might be something wrong with his lower abdomen. Betty noticed a pink powder on her dress. They could not clearly recall what had happened after they left Indian Head, where they had seen the saucer hovering close to the ground near their car. Barney reported the sighting to an Air Force officer at Pease Air Force Base. Project Blue Book listed the case as one with insufficient evidence to form any judgment, but noted the planet Jupiter as a possible explanation. Betty noticed a dozen round marks on the trunk of the car, and when she put a compass over the marks, the needle started spinning, although the needle remained steady when the compass was held over other parts of the car. 162 In the weeks after the incident, Betty Hill had a series of vivid troubling dreams. In November, she recorded her memories of the dreams in great detail. Here is a summary of her accounts. Betty and Barney were taken by the aliens through the forest to the craft. One of the aliens told her they were to be examined and then released. Inside the craft, Barney was led away to one room, and Betty remained in another. There she was examined and tested in various ways by the aliens, who also took some tissue samples. After the examination, Betty conversed with one of the humanoids. During the talk, she saw a book in a strange script and a three dimensional star map, showing the home of the humanoids. Afterwards, Barney was brought back into Betty’s presence. As they were being escorted out of the craft, Betty was carrying a book in the humanoids’ script. She wanted it as proof of their existence. But the humanoids intervened and took the book away. The humanoids also told her she would not remember what took place inside the craft. The humanoids took Betty and Barney to their car. They stood by their car and watched the craft lift off and depart. They then got into the car and continued their drive home. During an interview with NICAP researchers that took place on November 25, the Hills realized that their whole journey should normally have taken about four hours. Instead, it had taken seven hours. Even allowing for the stops that the Hills remembered, there were about two hours of “missing time.” The Hills tried to reconstruct their memories of the entire journey, but they found they had only vague memories of what happened between Indian Head and Ashland. Betty began to wonder if her strange dreams were the explanation for the 163 missing time. Meanwhile, a circle of warts formed on Barney’s lower abdomen, and he had them removed surgically. He also began to experience anxiety attacks and an old drinking problem came back. To deal with these problems, he began seeing a psychiatrist. Later the Hills tried hypnosis to recover their memories of the missing time and thus explain their dreams and uneasy feelings. From January to June 1964, the Hills visited Benjamin Simon, a Boston psychiatrist who practiced hypnosis. Barney was the first to undergo hypnosis. He was hypnotized alone, away from Betty, and Simon instructed him to forget anything that he recalled under hypnosis. Barney’s recollections under hypnosis were as follows. After observing the UFO at close range, he and Betty got back into their car and drove away. At the point where they heard the beeping sounds for the first time, near a place called Indian Head, he drove off the highway (Route 3) into the forest, against his will, as if controlled by some higher power. He saw six humanoids on the small road, who motioned him to stop. The humanoids told him to not be afraid and to close his eyes. With his eyes closed, he could feel himself being led out of the car and then up a ramp. When he opened his eyes, he was inside the craft, in a place he described as an “operating room.” He again closed his eyes. He underwent a medical examination, during which he felt a cup being placed over his groin, to extract a semen sample. After the examination, with his eyes still closed, he was led out of the craft and down the ramp. When he opened his eyes, he 164 saw his car and then Betty. He didn’t know why they were there. They drove twenty miles back to Route 3, and after driving down Route 3 for some time heard the beeping sounds a second time, near a place called Ashland. Betty also underwent hypnosis, and her recollections basically matched what she reported from her dreams, and were also consistent with what Barney reported under hypnosis. They later estimated their onboard experiences had taken about two hours, which accounted for the missing time. Barney and Betty believed that the humanoids communicated with them telepathically. Simon tried to convince Barney that his experiences recovered under hypnosis were derived from his recollections of Betty’s dreams. But Barney Hill rejected this explanation, pointing out that his experiences contained elements not found in Betty’s dreams (such as his being stopped on the forest road by six humanoids). In any case, the treatment by Simon was successful, in that the Hills felt relieved of their anxieties. Afterwards, newspapers began to report on the Hill case, and in 1965 their experience was the subject of a book titled the interrupted Journey, by John G. Fuller. There is some corroboration for the Hill incident. There was a radar sighting of a UFO near the landing approach to Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire on the night of the Hill sighting, although not exactly in the same area where the Hills had their encounter. An amateur astronomer, Marjorie Fish, produced a three dimensional map of stars near our sun that matched the star map drawn from memory by Betty Hill. From the information supplied by Hill, Fish determined that the points of origin for the humanoids were the stars Zeta 1 165 Reticuli and Zeta 2 Reticuli. In December 1974, Terence Dickinson, editor of the journal astronomy, wrote for that publication an article about the star map. Dickinson asked scientists to give their opinions, and many were intrigued by the apparent match between the map and the actual stars. Throughout the next year, the magazine carried letters from scientists debating the merits of the star map.” Cases like that of the Hill family are not unique. Researchers Bud Hopkins and David Jacobs have made intensive research on several hundred abduction cases that reveal that people are not having hallucinations but they are having an actual experience that involves non-human beings. John E. Mack, a famous Harvard Psychiatrist has also done great research related to the abductions and it is clear that there are genuine abduction cases where sane people are just taken out of their beds and precise surgical/medical procedures are performed on them. These surgical procedures are very precise and they can´t be explained as mere hallucinations since several thousand people a year report similar cases and they have similar scars on their bodies. Doctor Roger Leir, MD,76 has also made incredible research on abductions and he has discovered implants that are left inside the bodies of abductees. These implants have amazing electromagnetic properties and they seem to interact with the human body in remarkable ways. 76 Mutual UFO network, MUFON channel: Alien Implants and physical Evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l96E5rdahX4 166 The national press club event 2001. The Disclosure Movement organized by Doctor Steven Greer.77 There have been several attempts to get this vital information about the world out to the public. One incredible effort was made to push the US government and military to release the information they possess was made in 2001 by Doctor Steven Greer, MD. (I highly recommend watching the national press club panel in Washington which is easy to watch, the link is below in the footnotes of the previous page. The quality of the witnesses testifying is excellent and the scientific analysis is rigorous.) On Wednesday May 9th, 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses came forward at the National Press Club in Washington DC to establish the reality of UFOs or extraterrestrial vehicles, extraterrestrial life forms, and resulting advanced energy and propulsion technologies. The weight of this first-hand testimony, along with supporting government documentation and other evidence is solid proof that the ET phenomenon is a reality. These witnesses include many people who worked in the pentagon, CIA, NASA, and the NSA. Others are ex-pilots and high profile intelligence personnel, and even ex defense ministers who are whistleblowers that claim to have evidence that definitely proves the reality of ET’s and their technology. 77 Official website of Doctor Steven Greer organization: https://siriusdisclosure.com/evidence/ Full national Press Club Event, Washington DC, 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKDQ_dpdOjE 167 Doctor Greer has more than 61 recorded interviews that are available for free-online, where you can see for yourself how dozens of ex-generals, navy personnel and high profile defense contractors speak about all they know about the ET reality. More than 800 whistleblowers are on Greer’s archives. Many of them are afraid to be interviewed in person because it is dangerous for their lives and families. I think that with the evidence about ET’s I have provided so far it should be concluded that. Conclusion: UFO’s are real and they have visited earth in the past and they are visiting it presently world wide -Many intelligence and military entities like the NSA, CIA, and the Pentagon, along with other militaries and private techcompanies worldwide have shown a keen interest in UFO’s for economic and socio-political reasons. -The civilizations of the various beings that might be behind those sophisticated vehicles are way more advanced than our present human civilization. A small summary until now: I first wanted to talk about how important the concept of Samsara is in Buddhism by quoting the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha Himself. Then to the best of my ability I offered some research that strongly suggests that we are more than our physical bodies, and that we have a stream of consciousness that survives bodily death, and also that precedes the present life we are living. So the infinite future of our 168 consciousness and its infinite past are clearly not celebrated by the Buddha, as we saw in several sutras where he constantly warns us about the dangers of the cycle of birth and death. Now, Samsara has many realms of existence (basically 6 realms: Hells, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras and devas). But before talking about these realms of existence I needed to make clear that what we are talking about resonates deeply with what we see in our world. I hope that gradually you come to realize that our human realm is just one among many possibilities in the vast realms of samsaric existence. We are like a small branch of a bigger tree which is also part of a larger forest and a way bigger world. To think that our little human civilization is the only thing there is out there is like an ant colony that thinks that the only thing there is in the world is their colony. They are oblivious to the vastness of the jungle, mountains, oceans…etc. Humans tend to be like that. The fact is that just through the limited understanding of modern science we have been able to accurately conclude that the physical universe we inhabit is so vast that our planet dwarfs in comparison; moreover, life in the universe seems to be fairly common; as in our galaxy there are many similar planets to our own. Buddhism goes many steps further in this direction and says that in fact the physical universe is just the world that our minds can perceive (this is only what our karma allows us to see) and that even beyond all those inhabited worlds we can conceive with our 5 senses there are even vaster realms of existence beyond what our limited karmic window allows us to experience. The human and animal world we can experience (as vast as it is) it is still tiny. This is 169 like the story of the frog who was visited by a fish. The fish told the frog that the bog he inhabited was tiny if it is compared with the ocean. The frog laughed and said: “Ah, my bog is supreme; how dare you say there is something bigger, are you saying the ocean is like a big bog?”, the fish tried his best to explain that you could not compare the bog with the ocean. Then the frog managed to go visit the ocean with the fish and he fainted (or died, depending on what version of the story you read)...The fact is that many humans are like the frog in this story; even if we are told that the universe is bigger than we can conceive we still think in terms of what we are accustomed to. Scientist look for planets that resemble the earth because that is the only way science can conceive life until now (that is, with the presence of a certain atmosphere in a planet with water and oxygen)…which is ok; but the Buddha asks us to be less human-centric and realize that conscious life does exist beyond the boundaries of our human minds and it is not related in any way to the way we conceive life in this tiny world we inhabit. This is like the frog trying to understand what the fish was saying by using his bog as the standard. One can only wonder what the little frog felt when he it finally dawned on him that his bog was not a proper measure to understand the ocean AT ALL. So, as you have seen, first, I briefly mentioned what we call ET’s and their vehicles because they are sometimes talked about in our modern culture and I think it is a good introduction to the subject of other realms of existence different than the one we are living in right now. Please bear in mind that however sophisticated those human and non-human civilizations are (Asuras and lower devas) they are still part of this samsaric 170 universe and according to the teachings of the Buddha however long they may live or however powerful or sophisticated they may be, they will also die and be reborn according to their own karma. Although I still did not grasp the full scope of samsaric existence in terms of all the six realms the Buddha taught about I still was quite surprised to see the vast amount of evidence that supported the existence of more sophisticated beings beyond the human realm. Now let’s take a look at some traces of other realms of existence. Research about the spirit world. The reality of beings that communicate with human beings after physical death. The Buddha talked on numerous occasions about the Hungry Ghosts (pretas), he spoke about them with pity and concern, because he saw that those spirits where truly miserable: hungry all the time, greedy to the point of insanity and also extremely deluded. Even powerful ones only cause trouble and misery according to the Buddha, and people who are reborn as hungry ghosts are led there due to their stinginess and greed. As I mentioned earlier, at the time of the Buddha there were several philosophies that denied such phenomena existed, so clearly the Buddha included the ghost realm because he knew ghosts where very real; a true possibility of rebirth for us in the endless cycle of suffering of samsara. Sometimes pretas can remember their former lives quite easily and they can wander around the places they used to live in when they were human beings and can even communicate with their former relatives. 171 Almost all traditional cultures have tales about ghosts and spirits. Of course one could argue that it is all superstition but there are some similarities in which cultures divided by time and space have come to strikingly similar conclusions about ghosts and departed spirits. Even on a merely intuitive level I’ve always had some notion that there is such a thing as a ghost realm just by hearing so many sources saying exactly the same thing. It seems silly to say such things but sometimes when you enter into a room you definitely know there’s something good or bad about it and you cannot explain why, and I have had my share of spooky experiences that always left me with a uneasy feeling about what had just happened. Of course it could be the case that just from personal experience and intuition you know that so many people throughout history haven’t just made up spooky stories to scare children, but that, there might be something to them, even if you cannot explain it clearly. I want to present now some research made in the 20 th century that reveals, that non-human beings (who remember their past lives) that communicate with living human beings are not just superstitious stories. As you will see many prominent scientists during the last decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century took the matter of spirits and mediums very seriously and they came to validate this phenomenon. The following cases involve a systematic research made in many cases by prominent scientists and researchers of the time. Several mediums contacted beings that remember their recent human lives. These beings had recently died and they gave complex messages to several people in 172 different places. The following cases also include a rich body of correspondence made by different mediums and people who communicated with the same spirit from a departed human being. As you will see these cases are related to each other, and a clear pattern emerges that corroborates the existence of the continuity of consciousness after death, the likeliness of the existence of the world of pretas who remember their past lives as explained in the Buddha-Dharma. I will only quote the following cases to show that human beings that die continue to exist in other realms of existence and they can sometimes communicate with their former loved ones. So, there is a continuity of consciousness after death as these streams of consciousness clearly remember their former lives as human beings Communication from beings that used to be human78: Several prominent scientists have investigated communications from departed humans. If their reports are accepted, we find ourselves in possession of evidence for some part of the (a) multilevel cosmos/cosmic hierarchy of beings (Samsaric planes of existence) (…) Evidence of departed intelligences continuing to have contact with terrestrial humans comes from a variety of sources, including mediums. William James, a prominent American scientist of the early twentieth century, and one of the founders of modern psychology, was especially impressed by the 78 I will base myself here on a summary of this cases made in Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Science Philosopher and Anthropologist, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 409-415 173 mediumship of Mrs. Piper. During her trances, Mrs. Piper’s normal personality was apparently replaced by that of her “control,” a long departed spirit called Phinuit, who spoke through her, revealing paranormal knowledge of living persons. However, not everyone was convinced that Phinuit either existed or was the source of Mrs. Piper’s revelations about the living. For example, Richard Hodgson, of the American Society for Psychical Research, at first favored the hypothesis that Mrs. Piper was obtaining her knowledge telepathically from living persons. But in March 1892, Mrs. Piper’s communicator Phinuit was replaced by George Pellew, a young man who had died in a riding accident a short time before. One hundred fifty living subjects were introduced to Mrs. Piper when, in trance, she was under the control of Pellew. Out of these subjects, Pellew, speaking through Mrs. Piper, recognized thirty, and these thirty happened to be only those who had known Pellew when he was alive. Pellew conversed with them in a familiar fashion, demonstrating extraordinary knowledge about them. This convinced Hodgson that Mrs.Piper was indeed in communication with a departed spirit, George Pellew Hodgson himself died on December 20, 1905. By December 28, messages from him were supposedly coming to Mrs. Piper. William James believed that the evidence suggested Hodgson, or perhaps some remnant of him (…), was communicating with Piper. The messages communicated by Piper from Hodgson, and others, were sometimes garbled, observed James. He nevertheless said that “there would still appear a balance of probability…that certain parts of the Piper communications really emanate from personal centers of memory and will, 174 connected with lives that have passed away”. More specifically, he said, “Most of us felt during the sittings that we were in some way, more or less remote, conversing with . . . a real Hodgson” James said about the Piper communications: “When I connect the Piper case with all the other cases I know of automatic writing and mediumship, and with the whole record of spiritpossession in human history, the notion that such an immense current of experience, complex in so many ways, should spell out nothing but the word ‘humbug’ acquires a character of unlikeliness. The notion that so many men and women, in all other respects honest enough, should have this preposterous monkeying self-annexed to their personality seems to me so weird that the spirit theory immediately takes on a more probable appearance” Frederick Myers, a leading member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), died in 1901. In that same year, Mrs. Margaret Verrall, the wife of the English classical scholar A. W. Verrall, took up automatic writing to let Myers communicate through her. In automatic writing, a medium allows her hand to form letters and words spontaneously. After some months Mrs. Verrall began getting cryptic messages signed by Myers, some with quotations from obscure Latin and Greek works. In 1902, Mrs. Piper, in Boston, also began producing similar writings signed “Myers.” These contained allusions to Mrs. Verrall’s writings. Mrs. Verrall’s daughter, Helen Verrall, also began receiving writings, without seeing her mother’s. Helen’s writings contained allusions to the same topics. Piper and the Verralls began sending their writings to 175 Alice Johnson, secretary of the SPR. In 1903, Mrs. Alice Kipling Fleming, a sister of Rudyard Kipling, also began receiving messages from Myers through automatic writing. She began sending them to Johnson, under the name “Mrs. Holland.” Johnson filed them away, but in 1905 she began comparing the messages from all the writers and noticed some interesting correlations among them. Johnson and other investigators concluded that these “cross correspondences” were deliberate attempts by Myers to demonstrate his survival) Purported communications from dead persons through mediums are sometimes explained away by appealing to telepathy. A medium engaging in automatic writing may consciously or unconsciously tap into memories of various living persons who knew the dead person and thus obtain the confidential information that appears in the messages. In other words, although the information in the message may have been acquired by paranormal means, the information might not be coming from a surviving spirit. One might therefore ask, “How could a dead person attempting to communicate with the living overcome this objection?” H. F. Saltmarsh, in his book on the Myers communications, explained: “Suppose a message in cryptic terms be transmitted through one automatist [receiver of automatic writing], and another message, equally incomprehensible, through a second at about the same time, and suppose that each automatist was ignorant of what the other was writing, we have then two meaningless messages entirely disconnected with each other. Now, if a third automatist were to produce a script which, while meaningless taken by itself, acts as a clue to the other 176 two, so that the whole set could be brought together into one whole, and then show a single purpose and meaning, we should have good evidence that they all originated from a single source…Telepathy between the automatists . . . would not explain these facts, for none of them is able to understand the meaning of their own particular fragment, and so could not possibly convey to the other automatists the knowledge required to supply the missing portions. In most cases [involving the Myers communications] the puzzle… has been solved by an independent investigator, in fact, frequently the automatists themselves have remained in ignorance of any scripts but their own.” In other words, the cross correspondences among the independent communications, each apparently meaningless on its own, reveals the action of a departed intelligence. Here is an example of such a cross correspondence. Early in 1907, Mrs. Margaret Verrall got a communication from the departed Myers that mentioned “celestial halcyon days.” This inspired her to telepathically send back to Myers a Greek quotation from Plotinus: autos ouranos akumon, which means “the very heavens waveless” In the passage in which this phrase occurs, Plotinus had said that the soul, in order to attain enlightenment, must be peaceful, that the earth, sea, and air should be calm, and “the very heavens waveless.” Verrall knew that Myers had used this Greek phrase as a motto for a poem he had written about Tennyson. She also knew that he had included an English translation of the phrase in his book Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. Mrs. Verrall telepathically sent the phrase to Myers on January 29, 1907, in the presence of the medium Mrs. Piper. 177 On January 30, Mrs. Verrall noticed the names of the trees “larch” and “laburnum” appearing close to each other in a communication to Mrs. Piper from Myers. She recalled that these trees are mentioned in a poem by Tennyson, “In Memoriam.” The verse that mentioned larches ended with the line “the sea-blue bird of March.” This is the kingfisher, and another name for the kingfisher is halcyon. According to ancient legend, when the kingfisher nests by the sea around the time of the winter solstice, this causes the seas to become calm and waveless, recalling the phrase from Plotinus, autos ouranos akumon (“the very heavens waveless”). Mrs. Verrall believed that Myers was deliberately responding to her by introducing these subtle allusions into his communications with Mrs. Piper. On February 25, Mrs. Verrall received another phrase from Tennyson: “the lucid interspace of world and world.” On February 26, the communication from Myers contained the above mentioned quotation from Plotinus (autos ouranos akumon) written in Greek characters. The script also contained these words: “And may there be no moaning of the bar—my pilot face to face.” This was a reference to Tennyson’s poem “Crossing the Bar.” The names of Tennyson and Browning were also in the script. On March 6, Mrs. Verrall’s script from Myers contained many references to calm, including a passage from “In Memoriam” by Tennyson: “And in my heart if calm at all. If any calm, a calm despair.” In her final script in this series, produced on March 11, one can, according to Saltmarsh find allusions to Plato and Tennyson, with “phrases about unseen and half-seen companionship— voiceless 178 communings—unseen presence felt.” Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam” is about the poet communing with a departed friend. That these particular references should appear in the Myers scripts is, of course, meaningful, especially in the context of the complicated connections between Plotinus, Tennyson, the Greek phrase about the stillness of the heavens, and the many references to stillness and calm that appeared in the scripts. Some of these connections were discovered long after the scripts were produced. Cross correspondences to these references in the communications to Mrs. Verrall occurred in separate communications received by Mrs. Piper. On March 6, 1907, these words from Myers appeared in the Piper communications: “Cloudless sky horizon, followed by a cloudless sky beyond the horizon; in the waking stage following came the words: moaning at the bar when I put out to sea . . . Goodbye. Margaret.” Mrs. Verrall’s name was Margaret. The references to calm heavens and the bar are strikingly similar to images in the scripts of Mrs. Verrall, which are references to Tennyson’s poems “In Memoriam” and “Crossing the Bar.” According to Saltmarsh (1938, p. 77), neither Mrs. Piper nor the person sitting with her during this session, Mr. Piddington, had enough knowledge to bring these obscure literary allusions together on their own. Saltmarsh also said, “As regards Mrs. Verrall, it must be noted that she had not grasped the significance of the combination of quotations from ‘In Memoriam’ and ‘Crossing the Bar’ until after this sitting with Mrs. Piper.” So that means it would not have been possible for Mrs. Piper to access this information from Mrs. Verrall’s mind by some kind of telepathic process, 179 indicating that the best explanation for the information was the surviving persona of Myers himself. On April 29, Mrs. Verrall sat with Mrs. Piper, whose scripts revealed not only words connected with “halcyon days” but also some mysterious and apparently disconnected references to Swedenborg, St. Paul, and Dante. On the next day, Myers, in a script produced by Mrs. Piper, said the Greek quotation from Plotinus reminded him of Socrates and Homer’s iliad. The connection between Plotinus, who lived in the third century ad, and Socrates, who lived in the fourth century bc, and Homer, who lived in the eighth century bc, was not immediately apparent. On May 1, Mrs. Verrall’s automatic writing session produced the words “eagle soaring over the tomb of Plato.” Mrs. Verrall recalled that Myers, in his book Human Personality, had used this phrase to describe Plotinus. Investigating further, she found that in the epilogue to Human Personality, Myers had mentioned a vision of Plotinus. Just before this comes the story of how Socrates had a vision of a fair woman dressed in white robes. (This story is from Plato’s Krito.) The woman in the vision of Socrates recites a line from the Iliad of Homer. Saltmarsh (1938, p. 78) notes: “A further, and even more significant discovery was made. On the same page that contains the phrase ‘eagle soaring over the tomb of Plato,’ there is a list of ‘the strong souls who have claimed to feel it’ (ecstasy) and among these, after Plotinus and before Tennyson occur Swedenborg, St. Paul and Dante.” So here we can see that elements in the scripts of one medium gave clues to the meaning of elements in the scripts of another medium, which at first appeared meaningless, showing all the elements 180 were known to Myers and associated by him in particular ways in obscure passages of his written works. Finally, on May 6, 1907, SPR member Mrs. Henry Sidgwick was about to ask Myers the name of the author of the Greek phrase originally sent to him by Mrs. Verrall. But Myers interrupted her inquiry, saying, through a script recorded by Mrs. Piper, “Will you say to Mrs. V. [Verrall] Plotinus?” Myers then said this was “my answer to autos ouranos akumon” Explaining the significance of this case, Saltmarsh says: “It seems to me to be one of the best examples which we have of the complex type of cross correspondence. The knowledge shown in the Piper sittings was completely outside Mrs. Piper’s own range, also was unknown to the sitter, Mr. Piddington and to Mrs. Verrall, but it had been in the possession of Fred Myers and was characteristic of him. The answers given were allusive and indirect, and thus avoided the possibility of explanation by direct telepathy; moreover, on more than one occasion the scripts themselves gave guidance to the investigators by supplying the necessary clues which led them to discover the associations, as, for example, when the phrase ‘eagle soaring over the tomb of Plato’ directed Mrs. Verrall’s attention to that part of Human Personality where she found the unlikely association between Plotinus, Socrates, Homer, Swedenborg, etc.” Saltmarsh studied a huge amount of the Myers cross correspondence scripts, which accumulated over thirty years from many different mediums. He pointed out, “Were we to find in the scripts of several automatists one or two scattered cases of cross correspondence, we might 181 reasonably attribute them to chance coincidence, but should they occur in large numbers, the tenability of that hypothesis is much lessened. Further, when this large number of cross correspondences is accompanied by definite indications of intention, and indeed, by explicit statements in the scripts that they are parts of a planned experiment, then explanation by chance alone can be confidently rejected” And this is indeed the case with the Myers material, from which I have selected only one of hundreds of examples. That leaves survival of the Myers personality after death as the best explanation for the cross correspondences. The list of intricate cross correspondences in the communications received by various mediums in this particular case goes on and on. Interested readers should consult Saltmarsh’s book related to the Meyers case to get an idea of their full impact. Sir William F. Barrett a physicist and Fellow of the Royal Society, was a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. He investigated an interesting case of communication with the dead. During the First World War, Mrs. Travers Smith, wife of a prominent Dublin medical doctor, and Miss C., daughter of another medical man, were attempting, with others, to establish communication with the dead through an ouija board. In using an ouija board, one places one’s fingers lightly on a movable pointer, and the spontaneous movements of the pointer toward letters printed on the board spell out words. Miss C.’s cousin, an officer in the British Army, had been killed in France a month before the sittings. During one sitting, the name of the dead officer was unexpectedly spelled out by the ouija board. Miss C. then asked, “Do you know who I am?” In reply came her name and the following message: “Tell mother to give my 182 pearl tie-pin to the girl I was going to marry, I think she ought to have it.” None of the sitters knew of this engagement. They asked for the name and address of the girl. The full name of the girl was given, along with an address in London. But when the sitters sent a letter to that address, it was returned as undeliverable. The sitters concluded the message had not been genuine. Six months later, the sitters learned from personal papers of the deceased officer sent by the War Office that he had in fact been engaged to the very lady whose name was given by the ouija board communication. She was mentioned in the officer’s will. The officer had, however, never mentioned her to any of his relatives. Among his personal effects there was a pearl tie pin. Barrett noted “Both the ladies have signed a document they sent me, affirming the accuracy of the above statement. The message was recorded at the time, and not written from memory after verification had been obtained. Here there could be no explanation of the facts by subliminal memory, or telepathy or collusion, and the evidence points unmistakably to a telepathic message from the deceased officer.” Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851–1940) made important contributions to research in electromagnetic radiation and radio communications. He also documented a famous case of communication with a departed human, his son Raymond. In his biographical encyclopedia of famous scientists, Isaac Asimov wrote about Lodge: “He became a leader of psychical research, and is one of the prime examples of a serious scientist entering a field that is usually the domain of quacks.” I don’t agree with Asimov that psychical research is the domain of quacks. The number of serious scientists conducting 183 psychical research, and getting positive results, is quite impressive. It is Asimov’s statement that seems rather quacklike. Lodge (1916, p. 83) wrote: “I have made no secret of my conviction, not merely that personality persists, but that its continued existence is more entwined with the life of every day than has been generally imagined; that there is no real breach of continuity between the dead and the living; and that methods of intercommunication across what has seemed to be a gulf can be set going in response to the urgent demand of affection.” On September 17, 1915, Lodge received news of his son Raymond’s death in military action in Europe during World War I. On September 25, Mrs. Lodge was having a sitting with a medium, Mrs. Leonard. At that time, Mrs. Lodge’s identity was unknown to the medium. The medium and her guests were sitting at a round table. The medium would begin to recite the letters of the alphabet until the table tilted. The letter sounded at the moment of the tilt would be recorded, and then the process would be repeated until a message was spelled out. (This may seem less quaint in light of today’s handheld internet communication devices, which compel one to spell out messages in ways hardly less cumbersome and time consuming.) From the standpoint of spiritualists, the tilting of the table was accomplished by the departed spirits. Skeptics would claim the medium controlled the table and composed messages using surreptitiously obtained information about the living and the dead. To counter such doubts, one has to demonstrate that the medium had no knowledge of the persons involved, as appears to be the case here. During her 184 anonymous séance with Mrs. Leonard, Mrs. Lodge received the following message from a spirit called Raymond: “Tell father I have met some friends of his.” Mrs. Lodge asked for the name of one of these friends. Raymond gave the name Myers, the departed psychical researcher, who was in fact known to Lodge. On September 27, Lodge himself showed up for a sitting, which had been arranged anonymously through a Mrs. Kennedy. According to Lodge, Mrs. Leonard did not know his identity. At this sitting, the communication with departed spirits was not through table tilting, but through the medium’s contact with her control, a young girl named Feda. When the medium went into trance, and came under the control of Feda, Lodge was told that there was present a young man, whose description matched Raymond. Feda said through Mrs. Leonard: “He finds it difficult, he says, but he has got so many kind friends helping him. He didn’t think when he waked up first that he was going to be happy, but now he is, and as he is a little more ready he has got a great deal of work to do” On September 28, Lodge and his wife together attended a sitting with Mrs. Leonard. The communication was through table tilting The first spirit contacted was named Paul, who said, in answer to a question posed by Lodge, that, yes, he had brought Raymond. The next message from Paul said, “Raymond wants to come himself.” Lodge asked Raymond to give the name of an officer. Lodge was anticipating that he would give the name of Lieutenant Case, who was one of the last persons to see Raymond alive, after he was wounded. Instead, Raymond spelled out the name Mitchell. Mrs. Lodge later said, “Raymond, I don’t know Mitchell.” 185 Raymond answered, “No.” Lodge then asked, “Well, that will be better evidence?” Raymond said, “Yes.” Lodge asked, “Is that why you chose it?” Raymond again replied, “Yes.” Raymond then gave three letters: “a,” “e,” and “r.” The medium said, “No, that can’t be right?” But the letters continued coming, spelling out the word “aero plane.” Lodge asked, “You mean that Mitchell is an aero plane officer?” The answer was a firm “yes.” Also, Lodge asked Raymond to give the name of a brother. The tilting table gave the letters “n,” “o,” “r,” “m,” and “a.” Lodge interrupted the communication, thinking that the intended name, Norman, was a mistake. During this session, Lodge asked Raymond how he was working the table. The message, received letter by letter, was, “You all supply magnetism gathered in medium, and that goes into table, and we manipulate” The name “Mitchell” given by Raymond in connection with the word “aero plane” was quite significant. No one present at the sitting knew an officer of that name. Lodge conducted extensive research, and for weeks obtained no results. Relevant personnel lists had not yet been published. Lodge eventually did obtain some information about Mitchell: “After several failures at identification I learnt, on 10 October, through the kind offices of the Librarian of the London Library that he had ascertained from the War Office that there was a 2nd Lieut. E. H. Mitchell now attached to the Royal Flying Corps. Accordingly, I wrote to the Record Office, Farnborough; and ultimately, on 6 November, received a post card from Captain Mitchell.” In his letter to Lodge, Mitchell said “I believe I have met your son, though where I forget” The name “Norman,” of no apparent significance to Lodge and his wife when they heard it, turned out to be a name that Raymond used in a 186 general way to refer to his brothers, especially when they were playing field hockey. This information was supplied to Lodge later by his surviving sons, who had not been present at the sitting. The practice is believable to me, because I, and children in my neighborhood, jokingly used to do the same thing when I was young, using names such as “Holmes” to refer to almost anyone.79 If you take this well-studied cases and put it together with the millennial cultural and religious traditions that acknowledge the existence of ghosts and spirits I think that it is clear that the fact that there are streams of consciousness that continue even after physical death and they have the ability to communicate with living humans from another realm of existence. Following the analogy of the forester this would be like seeing a little bit of the path that leads to the rocky caverns (the lower realms of existence within samsara) and seeing a little bit of the misty mountains was the evidence I gave about otherworldly vehicles that are way more sophisticated than our present human civilization. 31 floor jail building analogy: We can also compare this to a 31 floor building (the 31 planes of existence according to Buddhism) we are living near the bottom of the building. If we live, let’s say in the 79 I based myself here on a summary of this cases made in Human Devolution, by Michael A. Cremo, Science Philosopher and Anthropologist, Torchlight Publishing, 2003, California, USA., p 409-415 187 5th floor, it is more likely that we feel the disturbance of the neighbors having a party on the 6th floor rather than the neighbors that live on the top of the 31 floor building. And in a similar way, it is more likely for us to notice the guy watching a soccer game downstairs than a small kid playing on the first floor. Samsara is the same; beings that have closer vicinity in samsara might actually see each other more easily and have a closer connection. For example human beings don’t see high celestial beings (like Brahma-devas), but sometimes they do under special circumstances. It is more likely for them to see a Buma Deva (gods of nature)80 or a ghost. At any rate it doesn’t matter even if the rich guy in the last floor of samsara, the penthouse, comes to visit us with expensive wine…the building is the building, samsara is samsara and beings here only suffer because we are all ignorant and foolish beings, who keep making the same mistakes over and over again….death, rebirth, death, rebirth, there’s no end. So being in touch with the Buddhas 80 Gods of The Earth or the Buma Devas (The Earth Gods) are devas that live in our forests, lakes, mountains, caves, trees and the sea. These gods have been recorded by almost all traditional cultures of our world. In Buddhist cosmology they live with us along with the animals in our realm. They are just in between the first kamadhatu heaven and us, so they are devas that are more easily seen by human beings due to their vicinity in samsara. Actually these Buma Devas share the same space, as they are the gods of nature and forests. Since these beings live longer than humans, they claim the dominion of vast portions of the land, and since they have been living for thousands of years in the same area it is their home for them. This is another reason why our present destruction of the environment due to human greed and ignorance is quite painful not just for the animals that we can see but also to a great number of Buma devas that inhabit and protect forests, lakes, mountains…etc. 188 is the best, as they don’t discriminate between floors, that is, between spiritual capacities, they are always like a loving mother always ready to take care of us and lead us to enlightenment using loving and compassionate skills to free our minds and hearts from the bondage of samsaric existence. Please keep in mind that even if we are now humans, according to the Buddha’s teachings we have been all kinds of beings in the infinite past, so an insect will not stay an insect forever and even the highest god will fall from that state and eventually become another beggar in the streets of samsara. In the next section we will explore the “big picture” and learn what the Buddha-Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) have to say about all the 6 samsaric planes of existence and the worlds beyond samsara. 189 Essential characteristics of the 6 realms of Samsaric existence Using our analogy of the forester, this following Dharma Teachings are like reading the detailed map that the forester (the Buddha) has given you as a gift. You got a glimpse of some parts of the higher and lower realms that have a connection to our present human existence, now we will study what a person who knows the vast worlds of samsara like the palm of his hand has to teach you. The most important aspect of the Buddhist way to understand the universe is the concept of consciousness and karma. Each realm of existence reflects the minds of the beings that inhabit each realm, in other words, there’s a correspondence between the realm of existence that a being inhabits and its level of consciousness. Beings (the individual streams of consciousness) go from one realm to another due to their karma (their actions of body, speech and mind). According to the teachings of the Buddha the only way out of samsara is the Dharma as taught by the Buddhas, NO OTHER WAY, is recognized to be effective in order to become an enlightened being except for the Buddha-Dharma. The Buddhas are the only beings who have totally eradicated the three poisons from their minds: greed, aversion and delusion and replaced them with perfect and omniscient wisdom and compassion. 190 According to the teachings of the Buddha the various realms within Samsara are like a building complex divided into three principal sections. -Kamadhatu (The world of desire): The world in which beings act and react according to the stimulation of the 5 senses. -Rupadhatu (The world of Form): the world of the high devas who indulge themselves in several levels of meditative bliss of the 4 Dhyanas. -Arupadhatu (The world of no-form)81: The world of the highest devas who are trapped in the 4 highest Dhyanas (the formless Dhyanas), the highest levels of meditation within samsaric existence. Apart from Samsara there are 4 Noble Realms which are nonretrogressive, that means that beings born in the 4 noble realms cannot be reborn again in samsara and are assured of Buddhahood in the future as they continue to practice and study the Dharma in this noble realms. In Mahayana Buddhism the final objective is not only to be free of samsara for oneself but also for the benefit of all sentient beings, therefore the objective is to become a Buddha. 81 This is based on the explanations made in these books by Rev Josho Adrian Cirlea: The True Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land, a, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2015 pages 25-42. And the section on Samsara from the book “The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018. 191 -The realm of Arhats -The realm of Pratyekabuddhas -The Realm of Bodhisattvas -The Realm of Buddhas The following descriptions of the 6 realms of samsara will be based on Rev. Josho’s Cirlea book “The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma”.82 In which many sutras and commentaries are used, especially the works of Bodhisattva Nagarjuna, Bodhisattva Vasubandhu and Master Genshin (the 6th patriarch of the Jodo Shinshu School) I will quote this book and offer some commentaries of my own; nevertheless Buddhist cosmology is a vast subject so I recommend the reader to study the book of Reverend Josho directly as it contains a good description of each realm as explained in the sutras and commentaries of the patriarchs. Kamadhatu is the realm of desire. All beings that are reborn in Kamadhatu are influenced by various obscurations related to the senses, in other words, Kamadhatu beings are attached to various sense objects that vary from the gross to the subtle. Kamadhatu is composed of the following realms: 82 “The four profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma” by Rev Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2018, this book along with all the other books by Reverend Cirlea, can be downloaded for free in Amidaji Temple’s Website here: http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/p/the-true-teaching-onamida-buddha-and.html 192 -Hells -Hungry Ghosts -Animals -Asuras -Humans -Kamadhatu Devas. (Heavens in the world of desire/Kamadhatu) The way in which beings are born in these realms can be briefly summarized as follows: According to the Buddha-Dharma there are ten transgressions 1) To kill 2) To steal 3) To engage in sexual misconduct 4) To lie 5) Idle chatter 6) Speaking ill of others 7) Using harsh speech 8) Greed 9) Anger 10) Delusion/to maintain, spread or support wrong views (contrary to the Buddha Dharma) If a being commits any of the 10 transgressions and is motivated by cruelty, this leads it to be born in hell. If you commit any of the transgressions motivated by greed, you are born as a hungry ghost /preta, if you are motivated by instinct and ignorance, you are born as an animal, if you have some positive karma (generosity (dana) and morality (sila), combined with any of the mental poisons without any particular 193 dominance of a mental poison, you are born as human. If you commit any of the ten transgressions motivated by envy combined with virtue (doing good to humiliate others or to show your own superiority), you are born as a demigod / asura, if you practice virtue (morality and generosity) but still you cling to pride and sensual pleasures, you are born as a deva / god of the realm of desire (kamadhatu). There is another karmic cause that leads to being born in the the three lower realms and that is the intensity and time related to one of the 10 transgressions. If such an action is committed it is extremely serious but it is committed for a lifetime, for example stealing bicycles or cheating people, this leaves a more lasting mark on the mind, just as if we water the land for longer it will remain more wet. If a transgression is committed for less time, it leaves a less marked mark on the mental stream of a sentient being. If the intensity of a transgression is very intense and prolonged this results in birth in one of the hell realms if it is less intense in the ghost realm and if it is milder in the animal realm. The same is true of positive karma: practice of virtue (sila) and generosity (Dana) in the realm of the gods of kamadhatu, the more intense and prolonged virtue and generosity is practiced this will result in birth in a highest heaven of kamadhatu (as we will see there are 6 heavens in the world of desire) and if meditation is practiced (Dhyana) the higher the degree of Dhyana (there are 8 Dhyanas 4 that correspond to the heavens of Rupadhatu and 4 that correspond to the heavens of the Arupadhatu) the higher the heaven you are reborn in the Rupadhatu or the Arupadhatu, and therefore, the greater the pleasure and longevity that are enjoyed. However even if a large amount of positive karma is 194 accumulated this is still combined with the three poisons (greed, ignorance and aversion) then we are only moving within the samsara-prison-building-complex to places the offer merely a momentarily relief from suffering in samsara but ultimately this positive karma leads beings to the lower realms since the devas of kamadhatu and arupadhatu do not cut off the three poisons at the root of samsara but only repress them for a limited time. Only by putting the Buda-Dharma into practice can beings be free from samsara, otherwise positive karma is just burnt away in mind games in the 6 realms. Nevertheless it should be noted that all Buddhas encourage us to be moral and compassionate since this attitude allows beings to be reborn in the three higher realms (humans, asuras and devas) where at least beings have the chance to encounter a Buddha and practice the Dharma, otherwise in the lower realms this is very hard as the lower realms (hells, hungry ghosts and animals) the suffering (as we will see) is so great they cannot focus on anything but their own obscurations. The devas of Rupadhatu and the devas of Arupadhatu are very powerful and blissful due to their meditation skills (the Dhyanas), as we will see; the higher their level of meditation, the higher the heaven in which they inhabit and also the longer their lifespans; likewise, the lower the hell, the longer beings remain there and the more suffering they experience. Humans and animals do not have a fixed lifespan, however their lifespan is much shorter than that of gods and demigods. Then beings are led to the various realms of existence depending on their karma (actions of the body / karma of the body, states of mind / karma of thought and words / karma of speech). All beings go from one realm to another depending on their karma. As we 195 will see, each realm of existence has a particular karmic tendency that leads the beings who have cultivated that karmic tendency to be reborn there. All these realms of existence, from the lowest to the highest, are part of the cycle of life and death, since none of the beings trapped in samsara are Buddhas due to the fact that they are still trapped in the cage of the three poisons: greed, anger and deception; even the highest devas are deceived by their egos and will eventually die and be reborn according to their karma in the lower realms; and then this cycle continues. This is a brief summary of the general relationship of the Law of Karma (cause and effect) and how the mental currents transmigrate from one kingdom to another in samsara In the following pages we will see this process in more detail in each one of the six realms of samsaric existence The Hell realm: All things in Samsara are created by the various minds of the beings that inhabit each realm of existence. I want to do a little experiment with you the reader, right now: Imagine the worst nightmare that you have ever had in your entire life. Now try (if you can) to combine that horrible thought with other terrible nightmares and terrible thoughts and images you have experienced throughout your life. (If you are actually trying to do this, remember this is ultimately just to make a point and with the intention to benefit you). Now it gets even trickier: Try to imagine a combination of all the worst nightmares of all the people in this world at the same time. What would that be like? 196 Well… it would be simply: HELL. It would be something too terrible to conceive and even more so to experience. The main characteristic of the different hell realms is that its inhabitants have all the mind poisons simultaneously and they are afflicted by them incessantly without a moment’s rest: greed, aversion (anger), and delusion are always in their mindstreams. If your mind is overcome by greed, anger and delusion 24/7, your mind is like a living hell. You can compare this to the mind of a serial killer-sociopath. There are people that even in a human body enjoy doing evil and hurting others for fun, they may have had the good karma of being born as a human but their minds are already showing signs of the place where they will go after death. What would it be like to step into that person’s mind? As my teacher Josho Adrian Cirlea said once: (I am paraphrasing)”Some people’s minds are already in hell even if they have a human body”. What do you think it would happen if a bloodthirsty person like Hitler or a hardcore Satanist dies? Their mind is already in hell, so they naturally are born into one of the various hell realms. The Buddha teaches that people in Hell are tortured to death and then their bodies are regenerated, again and again, so the pain they suffer is beyond words to describe. I remember once a lecture I saw about a Chinese Pure land Master who said that he knew many fellow Buddhists who had had the chance to willingly go to one of the hells during their meditation practice (to benefit hell beings) and others had gone there by accident. He said that the Hell realms where too ghastly even to look at them for a second. This is also the case with high level practitioners like Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu who had first-hand experience contemplating the various hell realms due to their meditation 197 skills. We shouldn’t think they were being metaphorical when they talked about hell. According to the Sutras and the Commentaries there are many terrifying beasts and so called “Hell Wardens”, (hell torturers). As Reverend Cirlea says: “Those are not beings reborn there, but in fact they are manifestations that come directly from the minds of hell-beings” We must bear in mind that there are no eternal punishments in Buddhism. All beings that are reborn in the various Hell Realms will eventually be reborn somewhere else, once they have expiated their evil karma. There is no supreme god who judges beings in Buddhism. An ignorant mind condemns itself to the torture of suffering again and again. The wound and the blade are all ours and no one, except for us, is to be blamed for it. People nowadays tend to ignore or deny the existence of hell in Buddhism. Some do it because they just don´t believe in rebirth and karma, and others do believe in it, but they are afraid of scaring people away from temples by openly speaking about these realms. The fact is that the Buddha mentioned hell constantly in the sutras and he did so because he saw how beings are born there and how they suffer terribly. As samsaric beings we have been already in hell many times in the past, because as the Sutra of Tears and the Maha-Saccaka Sutra state, “Samsara has no discoverable beginning”. So, as we are now exploring the full scope of samsaric existence then we can point out to the fact that our mind stream has no beginning and that it has wandered 198 aimlessly in the cycle of birth and death for eons. This is of course a pill hard to swallow, and even hard to conceive, but the Buddha constantly reminded his disciples’ things to the effect of “be mindful, pay attention to what I say, if you don’t get out of the cycle of birth and death, you will end up in hell once more”. Even more terrifying than that is how the Buddha emphatically taught many times that hell is very easy to go to while being reborn as a human, a demigod or a celestial being is hard, and I mean incredibly HARD. It is like climbing a steep mountain. Cultivating the positive karma to be born in a higher realm in samsara requires relentless effort and commitment while falling is quite easy if you are not careful. The Buddha said in the Pansu Sutra: “Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, "What do you think, monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?" "The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It doesn't even count. It's no comparison. It's not even a fraction, this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail, when compared with the great earth. "In the same way, monks, few are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn among human beings. Far more are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn in hell. "Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' 199 Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'" Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, "What do you think monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?" "The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It doesn't even count. It's no comparison. It's not even a fraction; this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail, when compared with the great earth. "In the same way, monks, few are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn among human beings. Far more are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn in the animal womb... in the domain of the hungry ghosts. ... "In the same way, monks, few are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn among devas. Far more are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn in hell... in the animal womb... in the domain of the hungry ghosts. ... "In the same way, monks, few are the beings who, on passing away from the deva realm, are reborn among devas. Far more are the beings who, on passing away from the deva realm, are reborn in hell... in the animal womb... in the domain of the hungry ghosts. ... "In the same way, monks, few are the beings who, on passing away from the deva realm, are reborn among human beings. Far more are the beings who, on passing away from the deva 200 realm, are reborn in hell... in the animal womb... in the domain of the hungry ghosts. "Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress…. This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"83 The Buddha mentions the hell realms and the other lower realms (animals and pretas/hungry ghosts), as a dire warning to all of us. It is very easy to be born in the lower realms, so it is clear that beings don’t go to the higher realms that often, on the contrary, as Shakyamuni says, there are very few beings who after being reborn in the heavenly realms, are then reborn again in heaven, or even as human beings. What actually happens is that beings fall down very easily from heaven the way a rock easily falls from a high mountain and hits the ground. Being lazy and evil is way easier than cultivating virtue; due to this simple fact of life (being lazy is easier than being virtuous) the vast majority of beings wander aimlessly from life to life, rebirth after rebirth, death after death, in the worst neighborhoods of the city of samsara; the lower realms: hells, hungry ghosts and animals. Evil is the common bread of samsara and beings are drawn to the lower realms the same way the earth attracts rocks to the ground. Reverend Josho also says: 83 Pansu Suttas: Dust translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. SN 56, 102-113 https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.102-113.than.html 201 “There are eight hot hells and eight cold hells. According to Shakyamuni, and various Buddhist masters who explained them, these eight hells have their own adjacent or neighboring hells (utsadas): (quoting master Vasubandhu in his work: Abhidharmakossabhasyam,) “There are eight hells there that I have revealed, difficult to get out of, full of cruel beings, each having sixteen utsadas; they have four walls and four gates; they are as high as they are wide; they are encircled by walls of fire; their ceiling is fire; their sun is burning, sparkling fire; and they are filled with flames hundreds of yojanas high.” Other types of hells are also the temporary hells (pradesikanakara in Sanskrit), which were created through the actions of one being, two beings, or many beings. As Master Vasubandhu explained, their variety is great and their place is not fixed, so they can be found in rivers, mountains, deserts, and elsewhere. 84” According to the sutras and the treatises of the great Buddhist Masters like Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna and Genshin, there are mainly 16 hells (8 cold hells and 8 hot hells), other neighboring hells near those principal hells and also that are ephemeral based on the mind streams of fewer people. (or even one person) I will quote some examples from the masters of the tortures and sufferings of some hell realms: 84 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, Dharma by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Lion Publications, Craiova 2018. 8184 202 (Talking about one of 8 hot hells, Master Genshin says in his work Ojoyoshu :) Excerpt explaining some details of the The Hell of the Asembly or the Rounding up and Crushing Hell: “In this hell are numerous iron mountains arranged in pairs so as to face each other. There are in this place various ox-headed and horse-headed hell wardens who are armed with all sorts of pronged iron sticks and clubs which serve as instruments of torture. With these they drive the sinners before them and make them pass between the pairs of mountains, whereupon these mountains come together crushing the victims till the blood oozes out and covers the ground. Then again there are Iron Mountains tumbling from the sky which crush the sinners into fragments like grains of sand. Sometimes the victims are placed upon a rock and crushed with another rock.”85 Other hells are way more terrible like the Avici Hell, who is the most fearsome hell in all samsara. Master Nagarjuna explains that hell in the following way: “"Just as among all kinds of happiness The cessation of craving is the king of happiness, So among all kinds of suffering The suffering of the Avici Hell is most fierce. The suffering of being viciously pierced With three hundred lances for a full day Cannot compare, cannot even be mentioned, With the least sufferings in (this) hell”86 85 Ibidem Letter to a Friend, by Nagarjuna as quoted in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I, by Tsongkhapa, as quoted by Rev Cirlea in The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards 86 203 In his work “The Four profound thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma” my sensei Reverend Cirlea explains the hell realms in great detail quoting the sutras and commentaries of several great Buddhist Masters. So I highly recommend that you check his books and all of his works, because they are very clear and full with quotes from the best Dharma sources. 87He also explains in greater depth each realm of existence quoting the sutras and treatises from great Buddhist Masters such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu Genshin and Tsongkhapa. One striking thing about the hell realms is the length of time that beings remain there. According to the Dharma beings can be in hell from several thousands of years, to hundreds of millions of years, or a whole intermediate kalpa88 (the lower the Amida Dharma, By Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, page 91 87 You can download these books on official website of Amidaji Temple here: http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/2018/08/suggestedorder-of-reading-my-texts-and.html 88 In traditional Buddhist cosmology, kalpas are unfathomably long periods of time. Though they come in different sizes, even a “regular” kalpa is beyond huge: 16,000,000 years. A “great kalpa” is almost 1,300,000,000,000 years. Sometimes these enormous lengths of time are described in colorful metaphors, such as: longer than the time it would take to fill a cube that is 16 miles wide and 16 miles high with mustard seeds, at the rate of one mustard seed every 100 years; longer than it would take, at the same once-a-century frequency, for the brushing of an eagle’s wing against a mountain to wear that mountain away; longer than it would take for a turtle (one who appears, again, once every 100 years) to randomly poke its head through a ring floating on the ocean’s surface. 204 hell the more time beings stay there is the general rule of the hell realms and this also applies to the heavens in the opposite way, as we will see, the higher the heaven the longer lifespan that beings possess) So it goes without saying that we should by all means stay away from such woeful realms and strive to be free once and for all from samsara. These are the 8 hot hells and the 8 cold hells, they are the main hells in samsara, but please bear in mind that there are hundreds and hundreds of Utsadas (neighboring hells near the main hells) and there are limitless ephemeral hells as they are created by specific mental obscurations of fewer beings or just one being: The 8 Hot hells: 1. The Reviving Hell or the Hell of repetition: where beings kill each other with weapons of all sorts 2. The Hell of the Black Rope: where the principal torture is being hanged from a rope over a big relentless fire. 3. The Hell of the Assembly or the rounding up and Crushing hell: where beings are tortured by being crushed by huge rocks and other inconceivable tortures 4. The Hell of Lamentations: where beings are burned and tortured in horrific ways by being thrown into huge fires and tortured by being impaled in horrific ways. Kalpas relate to the nature of the universe itself, describing immeasurably long cycles of creation and destruction. Like modern science, ancient Buddhist cosmology described a universe of almost infinite size, variety, and duration. 205 5. The Hell of Great Lamentations: Where beings are put in metal sheds with double walls blazing with fire and they are also beaten mercilessly with weapons. 6. The Hell of Scorching Heat: Where beings are burnt in a fire so powerful that it could destroy our world in the blink of an eye according to the commentaries of the Masters. 7. The Hell of Great Scorching Heat: Where beings are burnt in an even hotter fire and envy the fires of the previous hells. It is so hot the fires of the other hells seem like snow to them. 8. The Hell of Avicci: It is a hell so tremendously painful and horrific that it cannot be described properly. It is said that if a person read the full description of what happens in this hell that person would die from horror. It is the lowest and darkest place in all samsaric existence. It is said that is so filled with flames that beings there don’t see each other and only experience relentless and ceaseless agony; this is why it is also called the Hell of Suffering without Interruption. And the 8 Cold Hells89: 1.Hell of Blisters (Arbuda):In this hell various ice blisters erupt on the body of the beings while they are submerged in extremely cold water or blasted by the wind. 2.Hell of Burst Blisters (Nirarbuda): Here the blisters become open sores. 89 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, Dharma by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Lion Publications, Craiova 2018. p 104-106 206 3.Hell of Clenched Teeth (Atata): Here the teeth of the beings are tightly clenched due to extreme cold. Master Vasubandhu explains that “atata” indicate the noise that the damned make under the bite of the cold, thus the name of this hell. 4.Hell of Lamentation (Hahava): In this hell the beings greatly lament while their tongues are paralyzed and find it difficult to breathe or scream. This hell too, has its name after the specific noise made by the tormented beings. 5.Hell of Groans (Huhuva): Here the voices of beings are cracked and long groans escape from their lips. It is again a hell named after the sound of pain specific to those born there. 6.Hell of Utpala-like Cracks (Utpala) or the Blue Flower Hell: The skin of beings born there is blue and splits into four petalslike pieces. 7.Hell of Lotus-like Cracks (Padma) or the Lotus Flower Hell: Here the red raw flesh of beings becomes visible, and the cold makes it split into eight pieces, which makes it look like a lotus flower. 8. Hell of Great Lotus-like Cracks (Mahapadma) or the Great Lotus Hell: Here their flesh turns dark red and splits into sixteen, thirty-two and then into innumerable pieces, thus looking. The hell realms are quite vast; I have only provided a brief summary of these realms for the reader to understand the basic elements.”90 90 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, Dharma by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Lion Publications, Craiova 2018. p 104-106 207 The Realm of Hungry Ghosts (Pretas): The hungry ghost realm (also called Pretas) may not be as terrible as the hells, but it is surely full with great anguish and pain. The cases we quoted earlier about disembodied spirits are most likely pretas who can remember their former life as a human being. People are born there mainly due to their greed. If a being develops attitudes of stinginess, and he or she only thinks about how to take advantage of others and rob them, they will most likely be born as a preta/hungry ghost in their next life. Robbers, corrupt people, liars and hoaxers sometimes do such evil deeds because they want money, power, sex, drugs or influence. So they will reap the result of their actions by being reborn in a realm that is inhabited by like-minded beings and thus suffer a great deal because of that. The lifespan of pretas ranges from 400 years to several thousand years (depending on their specific karma).There’s a great variety of ghosts, some of them are miserable and other ghosts are quite powerful (they have great influence over others). Some even can rival the Asuras and lower devas in influence and power. What leads sentient beings to be reborn as ghosts is greed. Most ghosts are always striving to drink and eat, but they are constantly tormented by their deformed bodies which make it very painful to move. When they manage to drink something it burns their little mouths and inner organs and causes them great pain. According to the treatises of Masters such as, Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna and Genshin, hungry ghosts can have a 208 wide range of physical appearance that range from ugly and deformed looking animals to fat and sometimes gigantic creatures with huge bellies and tiny heads and mouths. The realm they inhabit is caused by their deluded minds, what appears in the human realm as a river; to a ghost it is like a repugnant pus-filled swamp. Some comments point out that given the fact ghosts are so greedy they get in constant strive with each other, and the stronger ghosts always beat the smaller ones and make them suffer terribly. Even if our human realm is filled with greed as well, at least we see sometimes some gestures of kindness (however imperfect), and you can see many people engaging in selfless acts motivated by love and care for others (like doctors without boundaries, people giving food to the poor, many nonprofit organizations and charitable projects). Imagine a world where that is unheard of, and there’s not a single second in which your mind is not overcome by the lowest and darkest greed and where beings are constantly tormented by unfulfilled desires. Bodhisattva Nagarjuna described the pitiful existence of Hungry ghosts like this: "Some, with bellies as huge in size as a mountain, Connected to mouths, the mere eye of a needle, Are tortured by hunger, not having the capacity to eat even the tiniest lump of filth thrown away. Some, with bodies just skin and bones, and naked, are like the withered trunk-tops of palmyra palm trees; While some blaze 209 flames from their mouths in the sphere of the night. Having to eat blazing sand as their food, poured into their mouths."91 Other ghosts live alone and they are filled with vengeful thoughts. They only cause problems wherever they go. In some cases they may try to influence human beings and hurt them, because of past life grudges or just because people invade their space. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we should be mean to them, after all, beings in samsara suffer and they hold their life dear, the same way we are attached to our bodies and the place we happen to live in. In most Buddhist monasteries there are always offerings to the hungry ghosts. For example in most traditional temples before monks eat their meal, they offer a little bit of rice to feed the hungry ghosts. In Tibetan Buddhism they have elaborated rituals where they offer water to the hungry ghosts, and the monks wear a special hat to cover their eyes, as it is said that some ghosts are afraid of the white color in human’s eyes. So as you see Buddhism this is not like other religions where ghosts are exorcised or scared away. Buddhism is about compassion and wisdom, spiritual practices that many monks do, in Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, always take into account hell beings, hungry ghosts and animals, as they know how much beings suffer there, and how much they need to be blessed by the Buddha-Dharma. That way they can get out of those realms as soon as possible. 91 Letter to a Friend (bShes-pa'i springs-yig, Skt. Suhrllekha) by Nagarjuna, translated by Alexander Berzin, 2006, http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level6_study_ major_texts/suhrllekha_letter_friend_nagarjuna/letter_friend.html 210 In the vast rounds of samsara it is a certainty that we have all been in the lower realms many times, and as the Mahayana saying says: “All sentient beings have been a loving mother to us in previous lives” so instead of feeling contempt for the lower realms, Buddhism encourages compassion and loving kindness towards them. I must point out that some ghosts can actually be quite dangerous and destructive, and it is important not to hate them but to be mindful of them and leave them alone for the time being until their delusions are weakened and they manage to get reborn in a higher realm due to positive karma. There’s a special category of Ghosts that were great spiritual practitioners in former lives (even in Buddhism), they could have gained Siddhis (supernatural powers) through ascetic practices, but sadly they were overcome by pride and greed so after they died those deluded mind-streams were born as powerful ghosts which have tremendous influence on other beings. As Reverend Cirlea points out in his comment, you can compare this to human beings who are rich, clever and powerful in the world. Being blinded by their skills and power they may become so blinded by them that they might even think they are the owners of other people, and feel like kings or gods momentarily. These powerful ghosts are called gyalpos, in the Tibetan tradition and due to their power they can disguise themselves as Bodhisattvas or even Buddhas, (or any form they choose in order to influence other people). They always do it for their selfish and greedy motives. Sometimes they like to impart their 211 so called “wisdom” and perform miracles to dominate other beings. As Reverend Josho says: “These kinds of pretas (Hungry ghosts, specifically Gyalpos) can also perform miracles and offer visions to make people trust them and obey them. In my opinion, the Abrahamic/monotheist religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) were caused by such powerful pretas with imperialist tendencies. All of these religions were founded around visions, miracles and a central authoritarian "divine" figure who pretends total submission from his believers. The jealousy of the "god" of Old Testament is clearly expressed in the first of the ten commandments and in other passages of the same text. This is also accepted in Christianity: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." Also in the Quran there are many passages like that, but I quote here only a few: 212 “Follow what thou art taught by inspiration from thy Lord: there is no god but He: and turn aside from those who join gods with Allah.”(Qur’an 6:106) "The worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who reject Him: They will not believe." (Qur’an 8:55) “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves" (Qur'an 48:29) “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.” (Qur’an8:12)92 There are many other passages for example in the book of Leviticus from the Old Testament where this so called “god” instructs people to kill lambs and doves and to burn the blood of other innocent animals in the altar. Then he instructs priests to burn the blood and organs because that smell is “pleasing to the lord” there he also claims that all the fat of these poor animals is his property: “…both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he is to remove with the kidneys. Then the priest will burn the food on the altar as an offering made by fire, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the LORD’s. This is a perpetual statute for the generations to come….” (Leviticus, 3:16, Berean study bible) 92 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018 p. 118119 213 Sadly many other cultures like the Greeks started worshiping this kind of malevolent spirits and offered them burnt meat and blood constantly like you see in the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which is so admired by western countries. The Aztecs for example offered human sacrifices to their so called “gods” and also many other cultures have child sacrifices sometimes motivated by visions of gods who eagerly demanded blood and meat. These malevolent beings are clearly not heavenly beings/devas (which do exist according to Buddhism, and have some limited virtues, although they are still samsaric beings subject to birth and death) but lowly malevolent spirits/gyalpos taking advantage of people. Even if these beings sometimes teach morality such as the basic moral teachings present in Judaism, Islam and Christianity, this is due to their mixed karma which allowed them to have basic notions about morality in the past. This karma is also the reason they are powerful even after being born in a low realm like the realm of ghosts/pretas, and the reason they can manipulate people with their skills. But that does NOT mean they should be worshiped or venerated. As the passages above state they are jealous, vindictive, and violent towards people they do not consider worthy. This is a clear sign that these types of beings are samsaric to the bone and they will fall into even lower realms when they die if their attitude doesn’t change. As we have seen many non-human beings can live way longer than human beings, so many people throughout history have thought that if these types of spirits can live for several thousand years then it means they are immortal. This is a grave mistake. Think of a bee or a fly for instance; those beings live less than months, some insects only get to live a week, so a human being 214 compared to them is long lived. Even If they perform miracles or produce visions, these beings are clearly promoting anger, envy, jealousy and vengeance; this fact means they are samsaric beings afflicted by the poisons of greed, anger and delusion, and therefore they are still trapped in the cycle of birth and death. All samsaric beings die, no matter their skills or longevity, so if such flawed and malevolent and blood-thirsty beings like Allah, Jehovah, Zeus or an Aztec “god” or whatever name they call themselves by, are telling people they are immortal and all powerful, this is a warning sign that tells us that a powerful preta is trying to take advantage of people and manipulate them. These beings should not be hated but since they pose such a great threat to people’s minds, it’s better to stay away from them and hope they change their attitude in future rebirths so that they can repent and take refuge in the Buddha-Dharma. Buddhas, on the contrary, have infinite Wisdom and Compassion, and they are concerned with all forms of life: a hell being, a tiny animal, an insect, a human being, or a prideful god, all of them are seen by the Buddhas with EQUAL COMPASSION, so they never discriminate and try to teach beings; clearly not by force, violence or insults, but with skillful means. As Reverend Cirlea says: We clearly see the difference between such angry spirits dominated by the need for attention and a Buddha who has indiscriminative Compassion for all beings, no matter if they 215 accept His teachings or not! A Buddha does not need the attention and worship of others, He is not affected if beings love Him or despise Him. Praises or critiques do not influence Him. All He does for unenlightened beings arises from His pure Wisdom and Compassion: "The Buddhas of the ten quarters think compassionately on sentient beings just as a mother thinks of her child." Also, how do all Buddhas try to convince us to entrust to Amida Buddha? Clearly, not by force, nor terror, and not by threatening to destroy us and our children to the third and fourth generations: "Shakyamuni and all the other Buddhas Are truly our compassionate father and mother. With various compassionate means they lead us to awaken Supreme Shinjin (faith in Amida Buddha) that is true and real”93 So there’s a great difference between the Buddhas and other beings like samsaric gods or these malevolent ghosts who claim to be “creators of the world” and “judges of the universe”. How arrogant this is indeed. As Reverend Josho wisely teaches it is very important to have a role model in our lives, because we will end up possessing the qualities of the persons we admire. If we follow samsaric beings we will end in samsara one way or the other. If we follow the path of the Buddhas they will lead us to be free from samsara and become Buddhas like them. The Buddhas don’t want us to be inferior to 93 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018 p. 120 216 them they want to share their wisdom and compassion with us so that we may also become like them and in that way we can help all sentient beings to be free from samsara. The Animal Realm: According to the Dharma the reason people are reborn in the animal realm is due to delusion and ignorance. If you carefully contemplate them, animals are guided by their instincts and they cannot understand complex ideas however clever an animal like a dolphin or a trained dog can be. They cannot read, study, or follow the Dharma for example. If you see a cat you will notice that its mind is constantly moving from one object to the next aimlessly (like humans but in a more frantic manner), they are scared about the same things and they behave in a careless way. Of course they also have feelings and can even be noble hearted, but they are afflicted by ignorance and delusion most of the time. Being reborn as an animal is a terrible thing if you consider all the suffering that animals endure in our world. They are constantly exploited for their meat, skin, bones, eggs, milk, etc. Most of the animals in our world are not living in homes but they live as homeless animals in the streets or in slaughterhouses where they undergo great pain and anguish. Even if a being is reborn as a pet in a rich family, chances are that they are not going to be a Buddhist family (since Buddhism is not the most practiced of religions, due to the fact that it is currently outnumbered by Islam and Christianity) or even particularly moral people, so pets are usually pampered 217 and therefore most of the time no good karma is gained by them (they cannot see a Buddhist image or statue, or hear beneficial mantras that can cause a connection between their mind-streams and the Dharma a thus create the seeds for their future liberation from samsara). If a being happens to be reborn in the jungle they are in for a deadly competition game, where only the strong survive, and suffer the mercilessness of weather: droughts, floods and storms, just like human beings, but in worst way because they live in the wild where a good shelter is hard to come by. Ignorance and being driven by basic instincts is what leads mind-streams to be reborn in this lower realm. For example, a person that only thinks about sex, food and alcohol, is already behaving like he or she is an animal. His/her stream of consciousness can only conceive basic concerns about survival and animalistic pleasure. This kind of people have no real interest in what happens after they die, or in the meaning of existence, or in any other deep matter whatsoever, so consequently once the karma that has brought them to be reborn in the human realm is exhausted and their physical body dies, their minds will go (most likely) to the animal realm. This concludes our brief overview of the lower realms: Hells, Pretas/Hungry Ghosts and Animals. The realms of Hell, Pretas/hungry ghosts and animals are the three lower realms of existence. They are classified as such because the pain that is experienced in these three lower realms is tremendously strong 218 The Human Realm: The Human realm is not considered a lower realm because if it is seized properly a human life devoted to the Dharma can have good results. It is easier for humans to realize the impermanence of life and aspire to scape samsara because in other realms of existence like the heavenly realms the pleasure is too intoxicating or in the lower realms the pain is just too great to focus on the Dharma. If a human life is wasted in mundane pursuits then it is as useless as any other rebirth in the lower or higher realms of existence. What leads beings to be reborn here is generosity and some degree of moral virtue combined with all the three poisons with no particular poison being the dominant one. The suffering of human beings can be classified into 8 types: 94 1. The suffering of birth: from the very moment we exit our mother’s womb we are crying, and the reason we die is because we are born. Birth is the beginning of aging and death. We experience various sufferings in our mother’s womb, whatever she drinks and eats, can affect us. For example, if our mother did not take care of herself during pregnancy this can lead to various degrees of suffering for the fetus that can later lead to various mental and physical problems for the child. Another idea we should bear in mind is that if you look at the frequency of child mortality throughout history it is staggering. Less than two centuries ago children and babies died very 94 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018 p. 129-144 219 frequently. According to historical statistics 26.9% of newborns died in their first year of life and 46.2% died before they reached adulthood. Two estimates that are easy to remember: Around a quarter died in the first year of life. Around half died as children. What is striking about the historical estimates is how similar the mortality rates for children were across this very wide range of 43 historical cultures. Whether in Ancient Rome; Ancient Greece; the pre-Columbian Americas; Medieval Japan or Medieval England; the European Renaissance; or Imperial China: Every fourth newborn died in the first year of life. One out of two died in childhood. Of course the situation has gotten significantly better with the progress in medicine but the truth is that millions of babies still die at birth or not long after in poverty stricken parts of the planet. It should be noted that most of the world´s population still does not have access to clean water, medicine and basic education. 95 2. The suffering of old age: As the Buddha says in a verse: “I spit on you, old age — old age that makes for ugliness. The bodily image, so charming, is trampled by old age. Even those who live to a hundred are headed — all — to an end in death, which spares no one, which tramples all.”96 Many people today tend to do poetry with the beauty of childhood or old age, but if you take a look around (as Rev. Cirlea wisely says) the world is filled with abandoned old people who were forsaken by their 95 Statistics taken from the professional statistics website (Max Roser, director, Oxford University): https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality 96 Jara Sutta (Sutra on old Age) translated by Thanissaro Bikkhu SN 48: 41https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.041.than.html 220 own families. When people get old all their former beauty vanishes, and their mind and bodies deteriorate very easily. People suffer a great deal due to old age both physically and mentally. 3. The suffering of sickness: Plagues and sicknesses have been the daily bread of human history. Just simple infections have claimed the lives of millions in all places and eras. When people become seriously sick they tend to lose their appetite for things they used to enjoy. Some diseases make people depressed and unhappy so they make the mind suffer greatly as well. As the Buddha says in verse: “In deep winter, wind and great blizzards Take the vigor from the grasses, shrubs, trees, and herbs. In the same way, disease takes the vigor out of living beings; It breaks down their faculties, Physical appearance and strength. It will drain a great fortune in wealth and grain to the last. Disease constantly humiliates living beings; It harms them and is contemptuous of beauty. It torments them, like the sun beating down from the sky" 97 4. The suffering of death: Death separates us from what we have loved all our lives, death turns to ashes whatever mundane goal we may try to achieve. If Dharma has not been studied and interiorized death comes like a blizzard at night and it breaks our sanity into pieces. Many People die in anguish in hospitals, because they haven’t thought about death , and when death 97 Lalitavistara Sutra as quoted in in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I, The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018 p 134 221 stares at them they are completely clueless, therefore visions and hallucinations can darken the heart, or if they have put their faith in false samsaric gods or spirits they have a false sense of bliss and comfort, but in reality they are going to a samsaric realm that only provides temporary relief and ends in death as well. As the Buddha says: Death makes the powerful weak. Death takes you away, as a river carries away a log. People go alone, unaccompanied, with no companion Powerless because their karma has its effects. Death seizes myriad living beings, As sea-monsters seize swarms of creatures, As an eagle seizes a snake, or a lion an elephant, As fire takes hold of grass, trees, and swarming creatures. 98 Death reveals the impermanence of the samsaric world; its lack of substance. Those who are attached to family, relationships, reputation, pleasures, ideas or plans, are bitterly betrayed by their ignorance when death approaches for they must part with everything, and if they don’t prepare for death by studying the Dharma they will go empty handed, with no wisdom or protection whatsoever to their uncertain rebirth which will be most likely a lower realm. This is very sad. 6. The suffering of encountering what is unpleasant: 7. The suffering of departing from what is pleasant 8. The suffering of not getting what one wants: 98 Lalitavistara Sutra as quoted in in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I, The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018 p 135 222 These three types of suffering can be summarized together as they are related: In Samsara, due to the characteristic of impermanence and suffering that we find in all conditioned phenomena, hardly anything goes the way we expect. So, you for instance, if a person gets married and is totally in love with a partner suddenly the winds of impermanence might blow and death can claim the life of his/her spouse, the same applies to sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. Even if your loved ones are healthy, your relationship may be severed due to various unforeseen circumstances like a country in turmoil, disease, economic problems or various undesirable aspects in their (or our own) personalities that can create great suffering in body and mind. Whatever that is valued by us, be it a business, project or relationship can be altered or torn to pieces by impermanence at any moment, so whatever used to be pleasing turns into a burden, a friend can become your enemy, and a loved one can become a painful memory, and so on. Pain and pleasure are just two sides of the same coin in samsara: pain leads to pleasure, and pleasure to pain, and all is erased by death at the end leaving us empty handed…and the process continues…birth, death, happiness, sorrow, and then, all this cycle ultimately leads to confusion and anguish .We never get what we want in exactly the way we wished, or if we do get what we always wanted it is impermanent and it will ultimately lead to more suffering when we have to part with whatever we have gained, the moment old age, sickness and death come knocking the door unexpectedly. 223 8. The sufferings of the 5 skandas . As Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea says: “(…) All the physical and mental elements of a being are classified in five types of skandhas (“aggregates”): 1) form (a generic name for all kinds of matter and the body), 2) feeling or sensation, 3) perception, 4) mental formations (mental states), 5) consciousness or mind. For unenlightened beings all these five are causes of delusion and suffering. Our body organs may fall sick and create pain, we may experience hunger, thirst, too much heat or too much cold, etc. Also our feelings and sensations are the basis for attachment and aversion which is a cause for various pains. Perceptions are subjective experiences, and are the basis for disagreement and controversy, leading to conflict among people. The non-virtuous states of mind include ignorance, desire, anger, pride, envy, deceit, stinginess, laziness, forgetfulness doubt and harmful beliefs but also the drowsiness, agitation and distraction people may experience during practice. These too, are a cause for suffering. Referring to consciousness or mind, in Buddhism we speak about the Eight Consciousnesses which are generated when our senses encounter their objects: 1) consciousness of sight, 2) consciousness of hearing, 3) consciousness of smell, 4) consciousness of taste, 5) consciousness of touch, 6) consciousness of mind, 7) impure (mind) consciousness, 8) the Alaya (storehouse) consciousness. 224 The meaning of the first five types of consciousness that we have is easy to comprehend, so I will not dwell upon them. The consciousness of mind integrates the perceptions of the five senses in concrete images and takes decisions concerning the exterior world. The impure (mind) consciousness is the source of clinging and so the origin of the sense of ego as well as of the other illusions which are born from the fact that we take as real something which is merely apparent. This of course, leads to suffering. The alaya consciousness or storehouse consciousness is the place where all the actions and experiences in this life and the previous lives generated by the seven consciousnesses are stored as karma, being the only consciousness which comes along with every birth. This consciousness influences at the same time the workings of the other seven consciousnesses. We take this alaya consciousness with us in all our births in the various realms of existence. It contains the seeds of various types of karma, and it is the storehouse of the habitual evil karmic tendencies that we have cultivated for eons. Because of the karmic seeds contained in the alaya consciousness one may die a premature death, be stricken with unexpected disease or inexplicable misfortune, overcome by strong desires, aversions and obsessions, can think and do things that one should never even imagine, etc. Such is the strength of the alaya consciousness! When Master Shinran (founder of The Jodo Shinshu Buddhist School in Japan) is recorded as saying in chapter 13th of Tannisho: “a person may not wish to harm anyone and yet end up killing a hundred or a thousand people”, he is in fact 225 referring to the influence of past karma contained in the alaya consciousness, (….).” 99 Human birth has indeed a lot of suffering but not to a degree that makes it impossible to listen to the BuddhaDharma and awaken the aspiration to be free from samsara and attain Buddhahood. Hell beings, pretas and animals, as you have seen, are so burdened with suffering that they cannot even concentrate on anything but their own afflictions and mind poisons. A human life is precious and it is part of the thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma and more specifically to the salvation offered by Amida Buddha. (as we shall see later on in Part III of this book) The Realm of Asuras: The realm of Asuras is sometimes considered a lower realm because beings there are constantly overcome by envy, pride and anger. They are more powerful than humans and they enjoy abundance and skills that make them superior to beings in the lower realms. According to reverend Cirlea: “Although they (Asuras) experience various pleasures and abundance which are far superior to those of humans and even rival those of the gods, they are constantly tormented by anger, jealousy, quarreling and fighting. Beings in the human realm 99 Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 142144 226 who are more spiritually advanced than others, but who strongly manifest these characteristics will be born among the Asuras. In their own realm, Asuras divide themselves in various groups and territories and fight never ending wars, while also, because they envy the pleasures of the lower realms of the gods, start useless conflicts with them, which they eventually lose”100 Historical records show that many cultures have legends about heavenly battles amongst gods and demigods or angels and fallen angels. The Buddha said that the Asuras are always seeking battles against some types of devas (gods). I consider this is a good example of how useless it is to possess power and ignorance at the same time. No matter how powerful or skilled a being is, if he/she is ignorant of birth and death, samsara and nirvana (ignorant of the Dharma) he will just die and be reborn in samsara. Every kind of power, riches, or mundane knowledge is considered as impermanent and useless in samsara. All beings from the lowest hell to the highest heaven are ignorant beings; all of these abundance and luxuries are just like toys and distractions to play with inside the jail of birth and death. According to Master Genshin’s explanations on the realm of the Asuras/demigods: “The creatures of this realm which are fundamentally superior live at the bottom of the great sea north of Mount Sumeru”, and 100 Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 145 227 2. “the inferior creatures of this realm dwell among the rocks of the high mountains which lie between the four great continents”.101 Surely having abundance and power is NOTHING compared to the real issues ALL beings truly face: death, suffering and rebirth. When it comes to the Dharma whatever distracts us from those key issues is just not worthy of our attention and efforts. People may feel bedazzled by heavenly mansions, lights, epic heavenly battles and opulence but this is a waste of time in Buddhism. Samsaric beings are slaves of their minds and egos, no matter how magnificent they seem to be. The true heroes are the Buddhas, who have been victorious against the true enemies of living beings: Delusion, Aversion and Greed. (The Three Poisons) The Kamadhatu heavenly realms/The gods of the realm of desire: Kamadhatu devas enjoy health, long lifespans (that range from several thousand years to even more than a million years depending on the heaven), beauty and prosperity. You can imagine this as having a great party with wine, sex, expensive cars, shows, divine and elegant music and great food, 24/7 for years on end. Now, what I just said is just a human idea of pleasures, now try to multiply that kind of atmosphere millions of times: That’s being a deva. 101 Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 145147 228 As you will see the realms of devas are the vastest realms of samsara and they have a wide range of variety. Devas are attached to very subtle pleasures that include refined sense objects in the case of the six Kamadhatu heavens, but they also include attachment to non-enlightened meditative absorption (Dyana) like the case the heavens of the rupadhatu and arupadhatu in which beings are absorbed in meditative bliss all the time: the higher the level of Dhyana the higher the heaven and the lifespan and skills of the being born there. What leads sentient beings to be born in the six kamadhatu heavens is virtue (good karma) combined with pride and attachment to refined sensual pleasure, this positive karma mixed with delusion is what leads beings to be born in these pleasurable (yet momentary) realms of existence. Many religions emphasize morality and virtue to be born in heaven among the gods, like Brahma worshipers in Hinduism, whose highest goal is to be with the “creator of the universe” in his abode “forever”. Of course in Buddhism Brahmas are just samsaric beings (rupadhatu devas) which sometimes can become deluded by their own power. According to Master Nagarjuna: “If the practitioner has not been able to cut through lust, he will be reborn among the six classes of gods of the desire realm [kamadhatu] where the five objects of enjoyment are excellent, subtle and pure. If he has been able to cut through lust (raga), 229 he will be reborn among the gods of the two higher realms [rupadhatu and Arupadhatu].”102 The essential quality of kamadhatu devas is their addiction to refined sense pleasures. Kamadhatu heavens are replete with heavenly mansions and sophisticated pleasures of all kinds: Heavenly maidens, music, fragrances and intoxicating beauty of all shapes and sizes. Devas live all the time surrounded by these conditions and they become addicted to them. Their positive (but yet unenlightened) karma leads beings to be reborn there but they still are trapped by the belief in a separated self (ego) and the craving for sense gratification (however refined). As the Buddha explained many devas are born in the lower realms after they die. I will not go into so much detail about each the six heavens of the World of Desire (Kamadhatu) and their inhabitants, but mainly three of those Kamadhatu heavens are of particular importance for Buddhists. One of them is Trayatrimsa, the heaven of the 33 gods. Named after 33 important chief divinities who rule that heaven. Sakka or also called Indra in other texts is the king of that heaven. Sakka is important because he became one of the Buddha’s disciples and he became a protector of the Dharma. Although devas are prone to pleasures and distractions some of them have a keen interest in the Dharma and some may even chose 102 Maha-prajna-paramita-sastra, Lamotte, volume 3, p. 1162. 230 to practice the Dharma in the heavenly realms they inhabit. According to the Buddha, Sakka was the god that expelled the Asuras from Trayatrimsa heaven long ago in a battle. So you can see that the Buddha is the teacher of both devas (gods) and men, included a renowned heavenly ruler like Sakka (the devaking of the heaven of the 33 gods/Trayatrimsa), came to ask Shakyamuni Buddha to teach him the Buddha-Dharma. Many deities and even demons can be taught the Dharma and in some cases they can turn their minds from their evil ways and become protectors of Buddhism. That is the case of Padmasambhava who is said to have battled and subdued the demons and mountain deities that were worshiped in the Bon religion of Tibet (the animistic religion they had before Buddhism came there in the 9th century CE). Guru Rinpoche not only defeated those dangerous spirits but he also converted them to Buddhism by displaying great power and compassion. In time many local deities of the Tibetan mountains became protectors of monasteries and Tibetan lineages. Such is the case of other Japanese deities you find at the entrance of some temples. So I consider Sakka is a good example of how ALL beings are included in the salvation that the Buddhas offer, no matter how elevated they consider themselves or how low and evil (like the case of mischievous mountain spirits). Another important Kamadhatu heaven in Buddhism is Tusita, the heaven of contentment. It is said that before any Buddha is born in the world of human beings. He is born in Tusita heaven first, and there He teaches the Dharma to devas, and after that He is born in our human realm. Buddha Shakyamuni went many times to the heavenly realms even with a human 231 appearance to teach the Dharma. Tusita is a very famous and auspicious place now because Maitreya Bodhisattva, the future Buddha of our world is living there right now. He will be reborn in our world in approximately 5.6 billion years. So as you can see meeting a Buddha in person is a very rare and precious event. Just the fact of being born 2600 years after a Buddha’s birth is also extremely rare, considering that two thousand or 3 thousand years are just the blink of an eye in the vast cosmic periods of the universe. Even if we manage to be born as humans or devas (who have the mental capacity to understand and practice the Dharma) it is most likely we won’t find a Buddha there or His Dharma in good condition for us to practice. However opulent the place we manage to be reborn in, without the Buddha-Dharma life is truly meaningless because that means that whatever good karma that led us to be born in a realm where we can practice the Dharma is just wasted and we will continue to wander in Samsara just as before. Since samsara has no beginning that means this has happened to us many times in previous lives. This is very important for us to consider deeply. Another important heaven is the sixth heaven of the Kamadhatu, as Reverend Cirlea explains: “ Part of this heaven is ruled by Maras. The Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Manifestations by Others (Paranirmitavasavartin). Maras are celestial demons that usually go to the other worlds to obstruct practitioners from 232 advancing on the Buddhist path. So, “Mara” in Sanskrit language means "evil one”, "adversary” or "tempter”. Their karma accumulated in past lives was good enough to make them reborn in this high heaven, but still, their lust for power and selfishness not being eradicated, transformed them into living obstacles for other beings. Thus, they do everything in their power so that nobody gets higher than their plane of existence. The Nirvana Sutra lists four types of demons: 1) greed, anger and delusion; 2) the five skandas, or obstructions caused by physical and mental functions; 3) death; and 4) the demon of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment of Manifestations by Others (Paranirmitavasavartin). So, in the Buddhist texts the word “demon” is sometimes used with the meaning of internal demons, or personal blind passions and illusions, but also in the sense of an actually existing being or beings who disturb others from reaching freedom from birth and death. Nowadays, there is a common mistake among many so called “modern” Buddhists, who promote the idea that maras are only internal and not external demons, too. Please do not share their misunderstandings and single-heartedly entrust to Amida Buddha, which is the best way to be protected against the influence of such evil and powerful beings. As Master Genshin explained, “sixteen hundred years of human life are equal in length to one day and night in Paranirmitavasavartin heaven, in which life lasts sixteen thousand years”103. 103 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 148-149. 233 The last quote by Master Genshin gives us an idea of how different the experience of time is among planes of existence. Each life span in the heavenly realms is shortened the lower the dimension is. For instance, for Sakka (the king of the Trayastrimsa heaven) the Buddha just abandoned his human body less than a month ago. For devas an entire human life (80 to 100 years) is sometimes like a day or in the case of this last heaven of the Kamadhatu, just hours. So you see why these gods don’t pay much attention to human affairs except if there are Buddhas or high level Bodhisattvas or practitioners around. Maras live in this heaven, and as Rev. Cirlea explains, they are powerful beings that are constantly enjoying refined sense objects that are produced by the devas exactly bellow their plane of existence. You could say they are enjoying the very best that sense enjoyment has to offer. Far from making them wise, this atmosphere tends to make them arrogant and jealous of other beings like Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and high level practitioners who by their spiritual skills and purity are able to leave their domain of influence. We see that Maras pose a great threat to those trying to advance in their journey up the steep mountain of Buddhahood. The Buddha faced many temptations by Mara. He tried to trick him by displaying illusions and mind games, but the Buddha put him in his place every time. We should of course be heedful of such powerful beings whose favorite hobby is playing with people’s minds, and as we will see, Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite light and Life is the best way to be protected from such powerful samsaric beings above the human realm. 234 Devas appear spontaneously when they are reborn there. So they are not born from a womb like humans. As Master Genshin says they just appear like a 10 year old human boy or girl near a grown deva who raises them, until they rapidly mature. The same is true for the hell realms and the Ghost realm. In these realms beings simply manifest themselves there once their karma leads them to be born in that specific samsaric realm. Another fact about Kamadhatu devas is that like humans and most Kamadhatu life forms they have a gender. There are Female and male devas in Kamadhatu (in rupadhatu and arupadhatu devas have no gender). So sexual attraction is keen in their realms, which is a karmic manifestation of clinging to sensual bodies and forms. (We must remember that each realm is just a reflection of the mind-streams that inhabit it) One thing that must be clear is that the good karma that leads beings to be reborn as devas however high or low they are in the hierarchy, is like spending millions of dollars in a casino. All that goodness (positive karma) is just burnt in stupid mind games and they are left empty handed at the end when they finally die (if they don’t practice the Dharma). This is similar in the human realm: many people become famous or billionaires and all they think about are drugs and power, and they end up wasting all their lives in vain pursuits. No matter how powerful they are, death comes at the end and leaves them emptyhanded, just like beggars in Samsara. It doesn’t matter if they seemed happy all their lives or if they died peacefully; once the storms of karma blow they will end up in the lower realms like any other lowly being in samsara. You can also compare this to putting a rock over grass. The rock will surely prevent the grass from growing 235 but if you remove the rock, the grass will just grow again like the rock was never there. Likewise, gods have not overcome lack of virtue, madness or deluded desires, what happens is that they have just momentarily repressed those negative emotions with some positive karma, that is eventually removed by impermanence (because that positive karma was not based on Dharma-Wisdom, that is, transcendent wisdom that is designed to guide you OUT of Samsara and not just to improve your conditions inside it) and then the grass of their evil thoughts and deeds just pops up again in their mind streams leaving them susceptible to further birth and death in the dark karmic storms of Samsara. This is a list of the 6 Kamadhatu heavenly realms: 1 Caturmahārājakāyika (heaven of the four great kings) 2 Trayatrimsa (heaven of the 33 devas, Where Sakka Disciple of Buddha Shakyamuni, rules as king) 3 Yama heaven (free of strive/combat) 4 Tusita Heaven (heaven of contentment, where Maitreya Bodhisattva the future Buddha of our world lives now) 5 Heaven of Enjoyment of Pleasures Provided by Themselves (Nirmanarati). 6 Paranirmitavasavartin (where Mara, the evil one resides) The Rupadhatu and Arupadhatu Heavenly Realms: Rupadhatu and Arupadhatu devas have way longer lifespans than kamadhatu devas. They can live from several million to billions of years (by human comparison) or even several 236 kalpas. They have temporarily overcome gross lust (remember the analogy of the rock put on grass) so they have far subtler attachments like Dhyana bliss/meditative absorption. Beings are born there due to their meditative attainments. The higher the Dhyana/Jhana (meditative abortion) they have reached, the higher the heaven they inhabit in rupadhatu or arupadhatu. The rupadhatu heavens correspond to the 4 Dhyanas and the arupadhatu (a rupa: no-form, formless) corresponds to the formless Dhyanas (infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness and neither perception nor non perception). As we have explained each level of consciousness is both a distinct realm of samsara and a meditative level. Beings who are born in Rupadhatu and Arupadhatu realms have developed great meditation skills in former lives but they have become attached to the various states of bliss that derive from contemplative practices. This is a crucial point. It doesn’t matter how peaceful or how great you feel during meditation, that does NOT mean you are an enlightened being, and it does not even mean you are walking the Buddhist path. I will explain now exactly what Dhyana is according to the Buddha Dharma and how it is related to some samsaric realms. Before Shakyamuni Buddha’s time meditation already existed in several contemplative traditions, and it was developed to very subtle levels. As we read in the Nirvana Sutra the Buddha describes the path to liberation for Arhats (beings free from samsara but not yet Buddhas, the first level of Buddhist attainment in Mahayana Buddhism) .It is described as a path that goes through the different Dhyana (jhana in pali) levels, 237 that is, the different levels of meditative concentration. The Buddha instructs that one cannot be attached to them, but one has to let all Dyana levels go to be free from samsara: “"Now there is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities — enters & remains in the first Dhyana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with sensuality, that is an affliction for him. Just as pain arises as an affliction in a healthy person for his affliction, even so the attention to perceptions dealing with sensuality that beset the monk is an affliction for him. Now, the Blessed One has said that whatever is an affliction is stress. So by this line of reasoning it may be known how Unbinding is pleasant. "Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, enters & remains in the second Dhyana rapture & pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation — internal assurance. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with directed thought, that is an affliction for him... "Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third Dhyana , of which the Noble Ones declare, 'Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.' If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with rapture, that is an affliction for him... Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the abandoning of pleasure & stress — as with the earlier disappearance of elation & distress — enters & remains in the fourth Dhyana: purity of equanimity & mindfulness, neither238 pleasure-nor-pain. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with equanimity that is an affliction for him... Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of perceptions of [physical] form, with the disappearance of perceptions of resistance, and not heeding perceptions of diversity, [perceiving,] 'Infinite space,' enters & remains in the dimension of the infinitude of space. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with form, that is an affliction for him... Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of space, [perceiving,] 'Infinite consciousness,' enters & remains in the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with the dimension of the infinitude of space, that is an affliction for him... Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, [perceiving,] 'There is nothing,' enters & remains in the dimension of nothingness. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, that is an affliction for him... "Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of nothingness, enters & remains in the dimension of neither perception nor nonperception. If, as he remains there, he is beset with attention to perceptions dealing with the dimension of nothingness, that is an affliction for him. Now, the Blessed One has said that 239 whatever is an affliction is stress. So by this line of reasoning it may be known how pleasant Unbinding is. Furthermore, there is the case where a monk, with the complete transcending of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters & remains in the cessation of perception & feeling. And, having seen [that] with discernment, his mental fermentations are completely ended. So by this line of reasoning it may be known how Unbinding (Liberation) is pleasant."104 So here we see that the Buddha clearly instructs Arhats that in order to be free from samsara you have to let go of very subtle obscurations related to the 4 Dhyanas and the 4 formless Dhyanas. Each Dhyana is described as more pleasurable than the one bellow. It is like going up an elevator in a tall skyscraper; the higher the floor the more elegant and subtler the pleasures in each one, and the more peaceful you feel. The Buddha said to LET THEM ALL GO, which is quite difficult, because it is very demanding even for an experienced meditator to enter each Dhyana at will and transcend each one systematically. As you will see getting attached to a Dhyana level is very easy and its consequences are disastrous, because each Dhyana corresponds with a samsaric plane of existence, and if you are attached to it until death, your mind-stream will just be reborn in a subtle samsaric realm of existence, and you will then fall 104 AN 9.34 Nibbana Sutta: Unbinding translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an09/an09.034.than.html 240 from it to the lower realms once the karma that led you there is exhausted. It must be said that in Mahayana Buddhism it is not sufficient to abandon all the Dhyanas and transcend them; it is also needed to gain mastery over all Dhyanas (which is one of the 6 perfections, the perfection of Dhyana/Meditation). For a Bodhisattva, a being in the arduous path to Buddhahood, those Dhyanas have to be BOTH mastered and transcended in order to cultivate the 10 transcendental skills that a Buddha has, which we talked about in page 97. A Buddha can help all sentient beings, so He must know all the subtle obscurations of sentient beings, that is why a Buddha needs to develop the perfection of meditation which allows Him to help sentient beings to be free from samsara and finally lead them to Enlightenment. By having Mastery over all Dhyanas a Buddha also knows ALL planes of existence like the palm of His hand, that is why He is able to freely travel and manifest His power in various ways in order to benefit sentient beings. The first four Dhyanas that the Buddha describes in this sutra correspond with the Rupadhatu heavens where many heavenly beings live. As we explained, each plane of existence corresponds with a particular state of consciousness. In the case of the world of form/Rupadhatu, these states of consciousness are the 4 Dhyanas. The First Dhyana, which contains: 1. Heaven of the Councilors of Brahma (Brahmaparisadya) 2. Heaven of the High Priests of Brahma (Brahmapurohita) 3. Heaven of Great Brahma (Mahabrahman) 241 The Second Dhyana, which contains: 1. Heaven of Lesser Light (Paritta-abha) 2. Heaven of Infinite Light (Apramana-abha) 3. Heaven of Supreme Light (Abhasvara) The Third Dhyana, which contains: 1. Heaven of Lesser Purity (Parittasubha) 2. Heaven of Infinite Purity (Apramanasubha) 3. Heaven of Universal Purity (Śubhakrtsna) The Fourth Dhyana, which contains: 1. Cloudless Heaven (Anabhraka) 2. Merit-producing Heaven (Punyaprasava) 3. Heaven of Greater Fruits (Brhatphala) 4. Heaven Free of Trouble (Abrha) 5. Heaven without Affliction (Atapa) 6. Heaven of Excellent Viewing (Sudrsa) 7. Heaven of Excellent Observation (Sudarsana) 8. Highest Heaven (Akanistha) And the 4 formless Dhyanas which the Buddha mentioned are, also correspond with four realms of existence where beings dwell in meditative abortion in a formless state, that is, without a distinct physical body: 1 the realm of Infinite Space, 2 the Realm of Infinite Consciousness’ 3 The Realm of nothingness 4 The Realm of neither-perception-nor-non-perception Meditation in Buddhism is not a way to feel good or relaxed, but it is in fact a way to explore samsara and its miseries. Each 242 Dhyana is both a distinct samsaric plane of existence AND a state of consciousness. Practicing meditation just to get to the level of an Arhat is a monumental task. Arhats (the lowest level of liberated beings in Mahayana Buddhism) are only interested in attaining Nirvana to liberate themselves from suffering, so their spiritual attainment is merely to be free from samsara but they still don’t possess the transcendent wisdom and compassion of a Buddha; so they are liberated from samsara but they still have a lot to learn to become a Buddha. (As we have seen the various transcendental powers of a Buddha allow them to help beings scape from samsara and attain Enlightenment). A being who aspires to become a Buddha has to practice meditation and reach EACH of those states of minds/realms of existence AND transcend them if he wishes to be free from samsara and lead beings to Enlightenment In some cases in the Hinayana beings can exit samsara without attaining all the Dhyanas but nevertheless they need to cultivate great wisdom and impeccable morality to do so. In the case of the Bodhisattva Path in the Mahayana this is a fundamental requirement to attain Perfect Buddhahood, which is the Perfect Nirvana that only a Buddha attains.105 105 I recommend you study the Lotus Sutra, in which Shakyamuni reveals that the so called nirvana of the Arhats was only skillful means (Upaya) to lead beings out of the fires of birth and death in samsara. The Buddha’s real intention is to lead beings to the one vehicle of Buddhahood, in other words, the Nirvana or Enlightenment of a Buddha is the only True Enlightenment, the only True Nirvana, which is also to attain the 10 transcendental Powers of a Tathagata 243 Getting attached to these subtle levels of bliss is only a waste of time if you are not guided by the transcendental teachings of the Buddha-Dharma. Using our analogy of the traveler and the wise forester this would be like attempting to go up the misty mountains on your own without a guide or a map. If you do that you are surely going to get lost in the dense forest of Samsara. It is very easy to get lost in Samsara, and this applies specially to the higher realms, for they are full with pride and subtle obscurations. These realms of existence (and these states of mind acquired by meditation practice that correspond to them) are quite deceitful if they are not seen through the lens of the Buddha’s wisdom. In the skillful role the Buddha interpreted for our sake, He willingly encountered many teachers before He sat under the Bodhi tree and “became” a Buddha (of course He was a Buddha all along, so it is more precise to say He displayed His true identity as a Buddha). Those teachers He encountered only reached the 4 formless Dhyanas and they thought they were “enlightened”. This is analogous to our modern scene of spiritual teachers that are prone to exhibiting their so called “spiritual accomplishments” and so they tragically mislead other people that believe that having profound “expansions of consciousness” is Nirvana. Many other non-Buddhist religions teach about meditation and expanded states of consciousness, but these states are only subtler samsaric attachments and they will not lead us to Nirvana. In Buddhism this is like the top levels of a prison. Those expanded or profound levels of consciousness are part the 244 delusions of samsara. We must see that samsara is not just about gross temptations like sex, immorality and evil, but it also has plenty of delusions for those who want to be good at meditation. And especially for those who actually become very good at it. One good example of a being who was greatly deluded by his ego and spiritual skills was Baka Brahma, a deva from the first Dhyana heavens who actually talked himself into believing he was the “creator of the universe” so the Buddha manifested in his heaven to correct him and teach him we was in fact deluded106. The Buddha then told him that in fact there were many heavens he did not know about that were just above his plane of existence, and that he had become so deluded that he ignored a previous rebirth in which he had been a higher deva but due to carelessness and ignorance he descended from a higher plane of existence and found himself as a Brahma-deva. He constantly said to the Buddha in a fanatic and erratic way: “I am supreme, the Lord of all that is and shall be”, then Mara manifested in that realm and disguised himself as a member of Baka Brahma’s retinue. Mara basically said that the Buddha should be quiet and stop teaching the Dharma because he was evil and He didn’t acknowledge Baka Brahma as his lord and master. The Buddha responded to this dangerous hoax that Mara tried to perpetrate: “There is no supreme god or creator in the Buddha-Dharma” The True Teaching on Amida and His Pure land by Rev Josho Adrian Cirlea, Craiova, 2015, 13-24. Based on the The Brahmanimantanika Sutra, which is a part of Majjhima Nikaya 49 and it has a parallel in the Madhyama Āgama (MĀ 78) 106 245 ““When this was said, I told this to Mara the evil one: ‘I know you, evil one. Do not think, “He does not know.” You are Mara the evil one, and Brahma and Brahma’s host and Brahma’s retinue have all fallen into your hands; they have fallen under your power. You, evil one, think, ‘This world has fallen into my hands! He [the Buddha], too, has fallen under my power!’ But I have not fallen into your hands, evil one; I have not fallen under your power!’”107 Shakyamuni Buddha actually had to use skillful means to teach such a deluded being and he dared him to a duel of psychic powers. The Buddha became invisible in front of Baka-Brahma and his retinue and Shakyamuni told him to see him if he could. Baka-Brahma could not find the Buddha, and so the Buddha seized the chance to teach the Dharma of the impermanence of all samsaric phenomena to the astonished audience. We must say that some Brahma beings have wisdom and humility. There was another Brahma deity, Brahma Sahampati who actually was the being that formally invited Buddha Shakyamuni to teach the Dharma in our world after his enlightenment according to the Ayacanna Sutra (The Sutra of the Invitation), there, Brahma Sahampati formally requested Buddha Shakyamuni to teach the Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings, Brahma-Sahampati said in verse: “Just as one standing on a rocky crag might see people all around below, So, O wise one, with all-around vision, ascend the palace fashioned of the Dharma. Free from sorrow, behold 107 There is no supreme god or creator in the Buddha-Dharma” The True Teaching on Amida and His Pure land by Rev Josho Adrian Cirlea, Craiova, 2015, page 17. 246 the people submerged in sorrow, oppressed by birth & aging. Rise up, hero, victor in battle! O Teacher, wander without debt in the world. Teach the Dharma, O Blessed One: There will be those who will understand”108 So we see that some devas have a keen respect and admiration for the Buddhas, and they were present almost all the time during the years he taught the Dharma more than 2500 years ago. This is yet another reminder that Buddhas are the Supreme beings in the universe, as they are the only beings with perfect Wisdom and Compassion. Buddhas are so benevolent and kind that they see with equal loving eyes and concern all creatures, from the lowest hell to the last formless heaven. Buddhas want to save ALL beings from samsaric birth and death, and they always seek to benefit beings in various skillful ways. The suffering of death in the kamadhatu deva realms as an example of the carelessness of these heavenly beings: Devas in Kamadhatu suffer because of the anxiety they feel when they are about to die. Even if they are long lived that does not mean they cannot have unnatural deaths. Devas can also be murdered and their anguish is even more extreme than a human’s because they have a lot to lose if they die. For example: if a human being dies in at 40 years of age, he/she will miss 50 or 60 years of life (being 108 MN 49 Brahma-nimantanika Sutta: The Brahma Invitation translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.049.than.html 247 hopeful), on the other hand if you are a deva that lives hundreds of thousands of years (or even millions of years) if you die being a young deva you have lost a lot in time and pleasures. So devas are particularly paranoid when death approaches, and it is no surprise they feel that way, as Rev. Cirlea pointedly says: “Even if the signs that foretell the death of gods may not seem extraordinary at first reading, please bear in mind that until those signs appear, their bodies were always fresh and healthy for many thousands of years, never smelled bad, never produced sweat, etc. So, it is one thing to be human and have the above problems all the time, and another to live happily like a god for many thousands of years in which only one minute of their life may be a hundred years of human life, and suddenly experience the five signs of death. And it is said in some texts that the time before dying, in which the gods experience the five signs and contemplate their falling into the lower realms, also lasts many years. During this time all the other gods leave them completely alone, being disgusted with the sight of their decay, and so the dying deity suffers enormously.”109 In our human realm we are constantly surrounded (directly or indirectly) by things like cancer, war, old age and by the time we turn 60, chances are we will have attended several funerals already, so even if we haven’t interiorized the meaning of impermanence and death, it is due to our carelessness because 109 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p. 155 248 it is in front of us all the time if we pay attention. For a deva it is a completely different story. Being parted so abruptly from pleasures and health must be a shock hard to overcome, and since most devas are so repulsed by old age and death, they tend to abandon devas who are about to die. This should make us aware that being reborn in a heavenly realm is very deceitful because whatever pleasures one might get to enjoy for a while will be taken from us abruptly and therefore we will suffer immensely. Beings that live in Rupadhatu and Arupadhatu don’t have sufferings like the kamadhatu devas because they live in a constant trance caused by their meditative absorption. (Dhyana) They remain in Samadhi (high level of meditative concentration) for eons, but if they remain there without wisdom it is like they are sleeping or hibernating, because eventually those states of samsaric bliss will deteriorate and finally fade away, and many of those high devas will go straight to lower realms. 249 The Bardo (The intermediate state between death and rebirth) The Bardo is a Tibetan term that is used for the intermediate state in between rebirths. As you will see, samsaric beings are not reborn according to their wishes, but they are actually swept by the winds of their karma to other realms of existence according to their specific mind-obscurations. Intermediate beings (bardo-beings) have absolutely no control over what is happening to them, that is why masters like Vasubandhu and Padmasambhava who have explained this process of death and rebirth with great precision, constantly warn us that being in the Bardo is a very traumatic process for most samsaric beings, as Rev. Cirlea says quoting Master Vasubandhu: "He is filled with the impetus of the supernormal power of action. He is a 'karmarddhivegavan': endowed (van) with the impetus (Vega) which belongs to supernatural power (Siddhi) that is, the movement through space - which issues from action (Karman). The Buddhas themselves cannot stop him because he is endowed with the force of action."(Master Vasubandhu in this work Abhidharmakossabhasyam) Moving through space may seem a joyful thing, but in fact, it is very troublesome for the intermediate being. If when he was alive he could let his mind wander into any direction, but the body stayed in one place, during the bardo (intermediate state), if his mind thinks about a particular place, he will automatically be there. Then again, just when he arrives, he will go to another place at the next thought. Thus, an unstable mind experiences a constant and painful changing of scenery. Being carried in many places like a feather blown by 250 the wind, the bardo person might feel confusion, frustration and fear.”110 Please go to page 51 where I quote a case studied by Doctor Sabom in which a soldier vividly recalls his near death experience (NDE) as it is exactly the situation described above by Master Vasubandhu. The Vietnam war soldier described this overwhelming experience of just manifesting wherever his mind wished to go. Far from being pleased by this the soldier said it was a frightening experience because he felt very confused. Another case is the NDE case of Maria (page 52-53), where in the middle of an operation she just went by accident flying to the top of the hospital building. It is quite clear that the way in which these persons report the experience reflects that they were not in control of the skills they had in this intermediate state. (Bardo) “In just the blink of an eye” an intermediate-being (bardobeing) can go anywhere it pleases. As Rev. Cirlea pointedly says, a being undergoing this process is far from being happy or relaxed. It is true he can now move at the speed of thought to every location he wishes but just consider how terrifying that must be. Our unenlightened mind is constantly moving from thought to thought like a monkey in the jungle chasing after bananas but we have one great advantage over bardo-beings: we are anchored by our physical bodies. An intermediate being in the bardo is not limited by anything. Whatever thought that 110 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 166 251 pops up in his mind just launches him faster than a rocket wherever he wishes to go. The problem is that this is happening to a being that ( like most of us) is possessed by all manners of weaknesses and blind passions, so imagine going through the traumatic process of dying and on top of that you find yourself afterwards in a realm where every little thing you think is amplified hundreds of times. Some Tibetan Buddhist lineages have arduous special trainings while sleeping called dream-yoga, where practitioners become trained in controlling the dream state so they can be more aware in the Bardo. In these teachings the fact that the bardo is many times stronger than a dream is highly emphasized, so whatever your training was, it is only partially useful because the bardo is way more difficult to handle than a dream. This is like a person trying to learn how to drive a car by using a digital simulator. Of course you can learn the basics with a simulator, but driving an ACTUAL car is always more challenging and it involves facing unforeseen situations that a software just cannot manage to reproduce with all its subtle complexities. The bardo is just the same, you may prepare for it, but according to the masters the bardo tends to be way more challenging for the practitioner than he ever anticipates during his dream-yoga training. Now, an intermediate being has the form of its next rebirth while in the bardo. Master Vasubandhu says: 252 “"What is the form of an intermediate being? An intermediate being has the form of the being of the realm of rebirth to come after his conception. The action that projects the gati or the realm of rebirth is the same action that projects the intermediate existence by which one goes to this realm of rebirth. As a consequence, antarabhava or intermediate existence has the form of the future realm of rebirth towards which he is going”111 According to Master Vasubandhu and other masters most intermediate beings find the conditions for their next rebirth before 49 days or so. The process can take even less than a week in some cases. A bardo-being is influenced by past karma, but we must remember that “samsara has no beginning”, so imagine how many karmic seeds we have accumulated since the remote beginningless past. The “winds of karma” can alter our future rebirth in just a moment’s thought. Whatever we have thought, said or done in countless past lives can be manifested without warning in our mind-stream changing the course of our rebirth instantaneously. “His karma and his destination can change, too: ." (Rev Cirlea quotes Master Tsongkhapa, in his work The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I); 111 Abhidharmakossabhasyam, English translation by Leo M. Pruden;, quoted by Rev. Cirlea in The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 165 253 "A being of the intermediate state that is to be reborn as a deity, for instance, may die after seven days and can either again reach the intermediate state of a deity or else reach the intermediate state of a human or some other form. This is possible because a change in its karma can transform the seeds for its intermediate state. The same holds for other beings of the intermediate state as well This aspect is extremely important because it shows how unpredictable the intermediate state can be. One never knows what winds of karma will blow on the poor ghandharva (intermediate being) and it can change his course from a pleasant to an unpleasant rebirth. His own thoughts but also the thoughts and actions of others surrounding his dead body can become great obstacles during the intermediate state. An outburst of anger when seeing his relatives doing something against his wish or the arising of various attachments may generate the seeds of going in the direction of the lower realms.”112 So, even if we manage to die peacefully in a beautiful garden surrounded by all our loved ones, there is no telling of what awaits us in the bardo, as this intermediate realm is very volatile and unpredictable we can easily be swept away by our own negative karma (stored from the infinite past lives we have had in samsara in our Alaya Conciousness) and wind up in the lower realms quite rapidly due to our carelessness and the depth of our unenlightened karma. 112 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 170 254 Beings are driven by ignorance in samsara so they may get attached to attractive smells or sights in the bardo, and consequently they will be born in lower realm due to their ignorance. It is like being in a foreign strange city one barely knows. You can sense a smell that seems attractive and go there, only to find yourself in the worst restaurant in town, or trying to guide yourself in a forest you don’t know anything about; you may want to go to a river and you can easily end up in a cliff. Beings in the bardo realm are deceived by their minds constantly. This is the reason why beings in samsara (which have a chaotic mind) find chaos in the bardo, and therefore their next birth is as uncertain as it can possibly be. Imagine all the times in your life you have done something stupid just motivated by an impulse or a misperception. Sometimes we go into rooms and we don’t even know what we were looking for, or we have strong mental or bodily habits that we simply are not aware of. In the bardo realm these feelings of uncertainty and our mental clumsiness will be amplified dramatically. Where will you go in your next rebirth? Wherever the wind blows? The Buddha and all the teachers are saying with a single voice: this is not wise. Please consider this matter seriously. Being in samsara is grave danger. Please be wise and get out from repeated births and suffering. 255 The Nature of Samsaric Universes Before we explain the Noble Realms above Samsara, we will explain how samsaric universes are formed according to the Dharma. If Buddhism says that there is no creator god, then how and why are universes created? Where does samsara start? If beings are trapped in Samsara, who or what put them there in the first place? How is it that samsaric beings can become Buddhas? Previously it was explained that each samsaric realm of existence is not separated from the minds of the beings that inhabit them. For example: beings in the hell realms are the creators of the nightmarish realm they inhabit. In the texts they are tortured by “Hell wardens” and all manner of beasts. Who are they? They are certainly not people who work in Hell and their sole objective in life is to torture the poor hell beings. They are in fact mental projections of the hell beings´ evil karma. As Reverend Josho explains: “First of all, when it refers to worlds and universes, the Buddha Dharma explains them as places of rebirth, or Samsaric realms. Thus, they are inhabited by unenlightened beings in various stages of spiritual evolution or involution. As far as I know, most of the monotheists give the following argument in the support of their belief in a supreme creatorgod: “if you see a house in a field you ask yourself who built it. In the same way, this complex world is the creation of our god. Anything that exists has a creator”. This is the basis of their 256 belief system, but for Buddhists the matter is wrongly addressed here. Yes, indeed, everything has a creator, but not in the way the monotheists think. I would rather say, every dream has a creator – the dreamer. And who is the dreamer? It is us – the unenlightened beings with our specific individual karma, but also with the collective karma or the karmic connections we create among us”113 The mind is not something inside the brain in Buddhism. The mind is what produces the world. As the Buddha Shakyamuni said in the Dhammapada “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox”114 The mind is the creator of heaven and hell, and all the realms of samsara. In Buddhism the concept of an individual soul doesn’t exist, instead we have the concept of mind-streams, or individuated experiences that a particular stream of consciousness has. So if there are several beings whose minds always dwell in evil and perverted thoughts those minds create a bond/link and they co-create the samsaric realm they inhabit. Likewise if there are several beings whose minds dwell in positive thoughts, they co-create their samsaric realm, a heavenly realm where they indulge in those thoughts. “The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land” By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, p 25 114 The Dhammapada : Yamakavagga: Pairs translated from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.01.budd.html 113 257 Karma is the natural law of existence and it does not need a creator god who dictates “from now on, if a being behaves in an evil way he/she will suffer”. This is not like that. A being that cultivates evil thoughts, words and deeds will automatically suffer sooner or later and that being will eventually be reborn in hell or other lower realm and a being who has cultivated positive speech, thoughts and deeds will karmically resonate with other similar mind streams and therefore he will eventually be reborn in the karmic environment that is best suited for the karma he has cultivated. All this happens naturally. The seeds of the 6 realms are not something exterior to us. We carry inside us the potential of all the samsaric realms of existence: hell, pretas, animals, asuras, humans and devas. When we are possessed by fury and delusion, we are similar to a hell being, when we are terribly greedy we are like hungry ghost; in moments when we are overcome by basic instincts like a strong craving for sex or food, we are like animals; when we are generous but we are clumsy when it comes to morality and we have a little bit of each mental poison we are totally human. And when we are genuinely virtuous in a situation but we still feel attached to our egos and our virtue we resemble the gods. Our collective mind-streams are the builders of the prison of samsara. It is like a collective dream in which everyone is participating in the creation of different experiences. This is why Buddhas are called “The Awaken Ones” because they have woken up from the dream of birth and death, and they see 258 us asleep. They see us suffering from things that aren’t ultimately real. Of course when we have a nightmare it is very real to us while we are dreaming. Likewise, samsara seems very real to the unenlightened beings that inhabit its various realms of existence. Beings never stay in one realm of existence forever, as they have unenlightened minds, they are always moving from one realm to the next the same way we are constantly having thoughts in a never ending parade of ideas and feelings of all sorts inside our unenlightened minds. Samsara is just a cosmic expression of this ever-present reality our daily lives. We feel angry, then we feel happy, then we feel blissful and then we feel sad. When we dream at night, we normally can manage to have several dreams in a row, and what starts as a bad dream can have a good ending and vice versa. The minds of unenlightened beings are chaotic and volatile; in the same manner the worlds they inhabit are impermanent and full of suffering. As the Buddha says constantly, the mind is what precedes all phenomena, so ultimately, the mind is chief, that is, our unenlightened minds are the creator of the 6 realms of existence and the sufferings that it experiences there. All we experience are experiences that happen in just one place: Our minds. Experiences cannot exist without a mind, so the mind is not a passive element in existence, but in fact, according to the Dharma, it is the foundation for anything that happens to us or to any being in the universe. In the same way that a computer screen can show a beautiful Zen garden and in 259 just the blink of an eye it can also display a bloody battle in World War II, The mind is full of potential for both good and evil. The mind can produce both the darkest and the most luminous of experiences. It literally has no boundaries. That is good for a Buddha which is master of his own mind and can use it to free other beings, but for us unenlightened beings the great potential of our minds is a huge problem because it is clearly out of control and it has led us to transmigrate from one life to the next and thus experience great suffering and anguish the process. This is like owning a horse that is not tamed. If you ride a rebel horse it can take you wherever it wishes and you will never arrive where you are supposed to go. As Master Nagarjuna says: “There is no reality in a dream but nevertheless we believe in the reality of the things seen in a dream. After waking up [becoming Buddhas], we recognize the falsity of the dream and we smile at ourselves. In the same way, the person deep in the sleep of the fetters (samyojananidra) clings (abhiniviśate) to the things that do not exist; but when he has found the Path, at the moment of Enlightenment, he understands that there is no reality and laughs at himself. This is why it is said: like in a dream. Moreover, by the power of sleep (nidrābala), the dreamer sees something there where there is nothing. In the same way, by the power of the sleep of ignorance (avidyānidrā), a person believes in the existence of all kinds of things that do not exist, e.g., ‘me’ and ‘mine’ (ātmātmīya), male and female, etc. Moreover, in a dream, we enjoy ourselves although there is nothing enjoyable there; we are irritated although there is nothing irritating there; we are frightened although there is nothing to be afraid of there. In the same way, beings of the threefold world (traidhātukasattva), in 260 the sleep of ignorance, are irritated although there is nothing irritating, enjoy themselves although there is nothing enjoyable, and frightened although there is nothing to be afraid of.”115 So how is a universe formed according to the BuddhaDharma? It is caused by the collective karma of a great multitude of beings. This is the first impulse in the creation of a samsaric universe. This vast collective karma is concentrated and it naturally creates a world with an environment that suits the streams of consciousness that will inhabit it. (That includes the physical laws that govern a specific universe)116. As Rev. Cirlea explains “not everything that happens in universe is due to karma”. Things like gravity, density or thermodynamics evolve naturally once a universe is manifested due to the karma of sentient beings. To believe in a supreme creator that creates samsara, would undermine the basic Buddhist notion of karma. Karma and the notion of a supreme creator cannot coexist. Categories of samsaric world systems: According to the Buddhist teaching, there are innumerable world systems where rebirth takes place. These were classified into three categories (this section is quoted from Reverend Nagarjuna, Mahaprajñaparamitopadesa, Chapter XI, “The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land” By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, p 37 116 As explained in Ibid p 39 115 261 Cirlea’s book The True Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land117) “1.One small universe, which is traditionally called “a small one thousand-world”. It consists of one thousand worlds. Each single world (sometimes called “a Sumeru-world”) contains the various realms/dimensions of hells, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras and gods. 2. One middle universe, which is traditionally called “a medium one thousand-world”. It consists of one thousand small universes (or “a thousand small thousand-worlds”). 3. One large universe, which is traditionally called, “a great one thousand-world”. It consists of one thousand middle universes (or a thousand medium thousand-worlds). These various worlds pass through endless cycles of formation, existence, destruction, and annihilation after which they are again formed, come to existence, are destroyed, and annihilated, and so on. The four periods of cyclic changes are called kalpas: A single small kalpa is so long that it can only be described metaphorically. According to one metaphor, it is even longer than the period of time required of a person to empty a walled city full of poppy seeds, one cubic yojana (a unit equivalent to the distance which a royal army can march in a day) in size, by removing one seed every hundred years. According to another metaphor it is the length of time required 117 The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, Pages 40-42 262 for a rock, 40 cubic ri in size, to be worn away as a celestial maiden passes over the rock once every three years touching it lightly with its feather robe. Some scholars say that one kalpa is the equivalent of 1,000 yugas, or 4,320,000,000 years. 1. Period (kalpa) of Formation or generation (vivartakalpa) 2. Period (kalpa) of Duration or existence (vivarta-siddha kalpa) 3. Period (kalpa) of Destruction (samvarta kalpa) 4. Period (kalpa) of Annihilation (samvarta-diddha kalpa) Each of these periods lasts 20 medium or intermediate kalpas36 (antara kalpa). Four periods of 20 medium kalpas each, is 80 medium kalpas. 80 medium kalpas is one great kalpa (mahakalpa). So, one cosmic cycle composed of the four periods above is called one great kalpa. One Buddha may assume responsibility for the spiritual care of one large universe (“a great one thousand-world”), which then becomes that Buddha’s field of action, or “Buddha-field” (Buddhakshetra in Sanskrit). This is also called a “Buddhaland”. The one large universe in which we ourselves live together with many kinds of visible, invisible and nonhuman beings, is called “Saha”. The sutras say that an infinite number of such large universes, or Buddha-lands, exist in the ten directions. As they are inhabited by beings in various stages of spiritual development, it should not be confounded with the Pure Land (Sukhavati), 263 which is an enlightened realm (outside of Samsara) manifested by Amida Buddha.118 We must clarify that not all the worlds and universes appear or disappear at the same time. When one universe is destroyed, another one appears while myriads of other universes are in the duration period. Also, the mind-stream of beings transmigrates through these universes and planes of existence in all the four kalpas, and the period of destruction or annihilation does not destroy them. Thus, even if the bodies they receive according to their karma are destroyed, they are reborn elsewhere, in another realm of the same universe or even another universe. It is in the nature of every composed thing, including planets, worlds and universes to appear, grow, decay and dissolve themselves. When the collective karma which brought them into existence is exhausted, they are to appear again when another collective karma manifest itself.” 119 As Reverend Josho explains, Buddhism teaches that there are infinite universes in the 10 directions with sentient beings in the 6 realms of existence. This process is natural, and it is totally driven by the self-existent law of cause and effect (karma) and the delusion of the innumerable sentient beings (mind-streams) that precipitate the existence of these samsaric universes ad infinitum. 118 The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, Pages 40-42 You can also consult the great book Treasury of Knowledge- Myriad Worlds of the great Tibetan Buddhist sage Jamgon Kongtrul Kalu Rinpoche Translation group. Pdf. Snow Lion Publicatgions, Ithaka, Boulder Colorado, 2003. 119 Ibidem 264 Buddha-Nature / The Tathagatagarbha doctrine We will explain in greater detail what we call the Buddhanature or the Tathagatagarbha120. According to the Buddha all beings have the potential to become Buddhas/Tathagatas full of transcendental and perfect Wisdom and Compassion. In fact, to be precise this Buddha-Nature is not something we create but rather we realize it was already perfect beneath all the layers of Klehas (mental defilements). Buddha nature can be compared with a miraculous jewel thrown in a pile of trash. Buddha Nature is not empty like samsaric phenomena (which are phenomena that are devoid of true reality and they lead us to suffering) it is actually full with Enlightened qualities. I only use the term “seed” to express the fact that this Buddha nature cannot be discovered unless the defilements that cover this treasure are totally removed. So in this sense the already existing Buddha Nature we all carry inside has the chance to reveal itself once beings advance on their path towards Buddhahood as we will see later on when we Tathagata is a word used in the sutras for the Buddhas. It means “The one thus come gone, and the thus gone one”. Thus: suchness is supreme reality, Nirvana. Buddhas come from the supreme nature of the Dharmakaya and they return to it once their manifestation in human form is ended The Sanskrit word garbha can mean a variety of things, “womb” or “a germ” (of a seed) where something is created or grows out of. This was translated by Takasaki as “matrix” because matrix in Latin means. The word garbha also means the “essence” or the “essential nature” which gives us the phrase “Buddha-essence” or essence of the Buddha. Source: Thrangu Rinpoche: Uttaratantra as taught at Shambhala https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/garbha#buddhism 120 265 briefly explain the 10 Bhumis, or the ten levels on the path to Buddhahood; it is only in this sense that we talk about growth, or a Buddha-seed that grows into full Buddhahood. The radiance and beauty of Buddha nature can be compared to the light of the sun and kleshas are like dense clouds. The clouds of greed, aversion and delusion only cover the light of Buddhanature, and once these poisonous clouds are gradually removed (by progress in the 10 Bhumis) the light of the Buddha-sun will grow brighter; nevertheless it is not like the removal of the clouds causes the sun to shine; the sun was already shining beneath the clouds. Once the clouds are removed we can notice or recognize the sun that was always there beneath the gloomy clouds. The Buddha as you will see uses many analogies to describe the Tathagatagarbha. So it must be very clear that Buddhahood already exists in its full potential, with all the myriad qualities, including the 10 great skills of a Buddha. All beings have deep within themselves the potential to overcome samsara and attain perfect Buddhahood. All Buddhas from the past present and future have been at a given moment ordinary sentient beings, but due to their training in the Dharma they became enlightened. All Buddhas help all sentient beings in the 10 directions to become Buddhas, so we can say that depending on their various capacities sentient beings can rely partially or totally on the power of the Buddhas to awaken that potentiality within themselves. We read in the Tathagatagarbha sutra: “The Buddha said, ‘Good sons, there is a comparison that can be drawn between the countless flowers conjured up by the Buddha that suddenly withered and the innumerable conjured 266 Buddha images with their many adornments, seated in the lotus position within the flowers, who cast forth light so exceedingly rare that there was no one in the assembly who did not show reverence. ‘In a similar fashion, good sons, when I regard all beings with my Buddha eye, I see that hidden within the kleshas [negative mental traits] of greed, desire, anger, and stupidity there is seated augustly and unmovingly the Tathagata’s wisdom, the Tathagata’s vision, and the Tathagata’s body. Good sons, all beings, though they find themselves with all sorts of kleshas, have a Tathagatagarbha that is eternally unsullied, and that is replete with virtues no different from my own ‘Moreover, good sons, it is just like a person with supernatural vision who can see the bodies of Tathagatas seated in the lotus position inside the flowers, even though the petals are not yet unfurled; whereas after the wilted petals have been removed, those Tathagatas are manifested for all to see. In similar fashion, the Buddha can really see the Tathagatagarbhas of sentient beings. And because he wants to disclose the Tathagatagarbha to them, he expounds the sutras and the Dharma, in order to destroy kleshas and reveal the Buddha nature. ‘Good sons, such is the Dharma of all the Buddhas. Whether or not Buddhas appear in the world, the Tathagatagarbha of all beings are eternal and unchanging. It is just that they are covered by sentient beings' kleshas.”121 The Tathagatagarbha Sutra, Siddharta’s teachings on Buddha-nature , Chen-Rezig Project -Snohomish County WA :: Central Florida www.ChenrezigProject.org: http://www.chenrezigproject.org/wordpress1/dharmanotes/TathagatagarbaS utra.pdf 121 267 So as we can see Shakyamuni Buddha describes the Tathagatagarbhas of sentient beings as being perfect on themselves and fully developed, in other words sentient beings have “a Tathagatagarbha that is eternally unsullied, and that is replete with virtues no different from my own”. The Buddhas seated on lotuses are already within sentient beings; but the kleshas are covering this Enlightened nature. Only Buddhas can clearly see the potential of each being to become a Buddha (or to be more precise to awaken to their true Buddha-Nature), it is like they see little seeds inside all sentient beings. It is difficult for us to conceive we have the potential to become Buddhas, given that we are covered by so many kleshas (mental obscurations) so the seed analogy I think is valid since it is easier for us to conceive we have the potential to grow into trees of Enlightenment. It is quite amazing to think that something so small like a seed can grow into a tree that provides shade for dozens of birds and thousands of insects; and to provide fruits and shade for all. Nevertheless it is in the nature of the seed to become a tree, as in a way, the tree was already there in potential within the very nature of the seed, it is only that it needs proper soil and nutrients to grow; likewise our Buddha Nature needs the Buddha Dharma to fully manifest itself; nevertheless in reality the Buddha-Nature is already perfect on itself and it actually never “grows”; but rather it just reveals itself fully developed with all its myriad enlightened qualities. As we have transmigrated for so long in samsara it is hard for us to conceive that our true nature is something so vast, rich and beautiful; so I like to use the “seed analogy” as it is a simple way in which we can visualize how something that 268 seems insignificant can surprise us with its splendor and beauty later on. The false notion we have of ourselves as samsaric beings can be also compared with wearing masks in the Masquerade of samsara (the 6 masks of the 6 realms of existence); if a person is deluded enough he can talk himself into believing he is one of the characters in the masquerade, ignoring that beneath the masks and costumes there is a true self that is not part of the fantasy-world of the masquerade. Likewise we samsaric beings have gotten accustomed to believing we are one of the characters in this fantasy worldmasquerade of samsara, with all its miseries and troubles, but in reality our true radiant and powerful self has always been beneath the many masks we have endlessly put on it. Many Buddhists tend to think that since everything within samsaric existence is impermanent and selfless; that is it is “void” or “empty”, they take the concept of emptiness and they try to apply it also for Enlightenment saying that even BuddhaNature is empty and selfless; that it is also void. This is not true. According to many Mahayana Sutras and Vajrayana tantras the Buddha Nature is only empty of samsaric phenomena and not empty of itself. As we have explained, Buddha-Nature is something filled with splendor, truth, everlasting beauty and freedom. Samsaric phenomena are empty as they are illusory, empty of themselves, lacking substance and truth; on the other hand Buddha-Nature is true, real, reliable, free and permanent. Shakyamuni Buddha compares samsaric phenomena and all its afflictive emotions with hail-stones which easily melt; on the other hand He compared Buddha-Nature with a fair and precious jewel (Vaidurya Jewel). We read in the Angulimala sutra: 269 “The tens of millions of afflictive emotions like hail-stones are empty. The phenomena in the class of non-virtues, like hailstones, quickly disintegrate. Buddha, like a vaidurya jewel, is permanent. The scope of liberation also is like a vaidurya jewel.”122 Now we read in the Sutra of Queen Srimala of the Lion’s Roar that his Buddha-Nature is not only permanent but also filled with innumerable perfect enlightened attributes and qualities: “There are two types of Emptiness wisdom concerning the Buddha Nature which are as follows. (1) The Buddha nature is empty from, separate from, independent from and different from all the stores of defilement. (2) The Buddha nature is not-empty from, is not separate from, not independent from and not different from the inconceivable Buddha Attributes which are more numerous than the sands of the river Ganges”123 We also read in the Angulimala Sutra that Shakyamuni clearly teaches that liberation (Buddha-Nature) is not empty in all aspects but only empty of samsaric phenomena: 122 Angulimala Sutra as quoted in The Mountain Doctrine by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, translated and introduced by Jeffrey Hopkins, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaka New York, Boulder, Colorado, 2006, p.210-211 123 Queen Srimala and her Lion’s Roar Sutra chapter 9, verse 97, translated by Tsultrim Gyurme, https://whatdobuddhistsbelieve.wordpress.com/teachings/queen-srimalasutra 270 “Is a pot empty in all respects? It is not empty in all respects; it is called ‘empty’ due to the absence of water. Is a river empty in all respects? It is not empty in all respects; it is called ‘empty’ because water is not flowing. Similarly, liberation is not empty in all respects; it is called ‘empty’ because of being devoid of all defects. A Buddha, a supramundane Victor, is not empty but is called ‘empty’ because of being devoid of defects and due to the absence of humanness and godhood that have ten of millions of afflictive emotions”124 We read again that Buddha-Nature has infinite enlightened qualities and splendor. It is said in Maitreya’s Sublime Continuum of the Great Vehicle: “The Matrix of the One gone thus (Tathagatagarbha/Buddha nature) is empty of all the coverings of separable and removable afflictive emotions and is not empty of the inseparable, unremovable, inconceivable Buddha-qualities more numerous than the sands of 125 the Ganges” Of course as I have explained from the beginning, becoming a Buddha is something extremely difficult, especially if we try to do it through the cultivation based on self-power. 124 Angulimala Sutra as quoted in The Mountain Doctrine by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, translated and introduced by Jeffrey Hopkins, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaka New York, Boulder, Colorado, 2006, p.210-211 125 https://whatdobuddhistsbelieve.wordpress.com/tathagatagarbha-inrelation-to-emptiness 271 We have to take into account that samsara is not a good environment to cultivate the virtues to become a Buddha. The Great Buddhist centers of learning, monasteries and temples are meant to be like a fertile soil in which beings covered by their kleshas can overcome them and become Buddhas eventually, the same way we need a fertile soil to plant trees. If the soil is poor in nutrients and it is full with bad weeds, then the seeds we plant simply won’t grow, in the same manner, Buddhas establish Sanghas (Buddhist Communities) to help beings to nurture each other in virtue and support their arduous training. As Rev. Josho sensei constantly says, it is difficult to quit smoking, drinking or using drugs just by the power of our weak will. Now imagine how many lifetimes we have been addicted to greed, aversion and delusion and we pretend to get rid of them quickly. Of course we have Buddha-nature, but that notion does not keep us warm for long given that we have so much evil karma and mental obscurations that are hard to overcome by our own futile efforts. Indeed, we have the capacity to become Buddhas, but in this world where death can strike at any moment, where good teachers and places to practice the Dharma are very scarce and (most importantly) where our own karma is so heavy and dark that we can barely maintain basic moral precepts (if we manage at all), it is like throwing a seed into a dry dessert where nothing good grows. Buddhas in their infinite mercy have created or Pure Lands which are real blessed realms of existence emanated from their transcendental power. They are like fertile soil for sentient beings to grow into Buddhas. There they have a place to grow 272 and become trees of enlightenment. (We will explore these marvelous realms of existence in the next section.) Now that we have briefly explained how samsaric universes emerge and the Buddha nature inside each sentient being we in the next chapter we will explain the realms of existence that are above samsara. We will see the realms created by the Buddhas and the lands of beings in several stages previous to Supreme Enlightenment (Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas and Bodhisattvas). We will learn that when enlightened beings are liberated from samsara after death it is not like they are annihilated and they go out of existence; in fact they live in transcendental realms that are designed to teach the Dharma and bless beings in different stages on their path towards Buddhahood. Buddhas have three bodies/aspects which they use to benefit beings in several ways according to their needs. In Buddhist cosmology each realm of existence corresponds to the level of consciousness of the beings that inhabit that realm of existence. Buddhas are Enlightened Beings who have awakened perfect wisdom and compassion, and they are above all Samsara. A Buddha is not a being that is totally extinguished in Nirvana (the eternal and absolute reality, beyond birth and death). Buddhas are also active for the benefit of all sentient beings and they will not rest until all beings are free from the bondage of samsara. The myriads of excellent and perfect qualities of Buddha Nature are expressed in the purity of the realms that are emanated by Buddhas for the benefit of all sentient beings; so as we will see being reborn in this noble realms emanated by the compassion and wisdom of Buddhas is the greatest blessing. 273 The Three Buddha Bodies and the Noble Realms Buddhas have three bodies/aspects (the Doctrine of the Trikaya) 126: 1. Dharmakaya 2. Sambhogakaya 3. Nirmanakaya The Dharmakaya aspect is the Supreme/Ultimate aspect of ALL Buddhas in the ten directions and the three times (past, present, future) it is suchness, the supreme, the reality beyond forms, thoughts and names. It is always present and never ending. It is the Deathless. This Dharmakaya body is beyond everything but that doesn’t mean it is sterile, or that it cannot manifest things. As Master Tan-Luan says: “Unconditioned Dharmakaya is the body of Dharma-nature. Because Dharma-nature is Nirvanic, Dharmakaya is formless. Because it is formless, there is no form which it cannot manifest. Therefore, the body adorned with the marks of excellence is itself Dharmakaya”127 126 All the information about the doctrine of the Three Bodies of the Buddhas can be found in the chapter titled: “The Doctrine of the Three Buddha bodies and the Two Buddha Bodies in relation with Amida and His Pure Land” in the book “The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land” By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, pages 78-91. 127 “The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land” By Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, p 98. 274 That means that Dharmakaya, the supreme aspect of Buddhahood can manifest all types of forms. These forms are pure because they are emanated out of compassion and wisdom. All Buddhas have the same Dharmakaya, the same supreme reality. In that sense Shakyamuni and Amitabha Buddha are equal; because they are both Buddhas and they have accessed the Supreme Dharmakaya. Buddhas are beyond all forms and attachments but that does not mean they reject all forms. Rejecting forms and manifestations is just the opposite of being attached to them. Buddhas transcend both attachment and rejection towards forms. They use forms/manifestations as a tool to benefit sentient beings, that is, to lead all beings to Buddhahood. The Sambhogakaya body of a Buddha is his transcendent and individuated form. It is a individuated and immortal body that is the result of his specific spiritual practice. You can see that there are different Buddhas in Mahayana Buddhism like Aksobhya Buddha, the Buddha of the Eastern Land, Ratnasambhava the Buddha of the Southern Direction, Yakushi Buddha, (Medicine Master Buddha) and Amitabha/Amida Buddha of the Western Pure Land. All Buddha are equals in terms of enlightenment as they all have the same Dharmakaya Body, (otherwise they would not be Buddhas) but they differ in their Sambhogakaya bodies because each Buddha has different vows. High level Bodhisattvas can make specific vows before they reach Buddhahood. Those vows often include the specific characteristics of their future 275 Sambhogakaya body and the precise powers they will have to help sentient beings. Buddhas have the transcendent skill (which only enlightened beings have) to manifest Pure Lands (or in Sanskrit Buda-ksetra). Pure lands or Buddha fields are the fields of direct influence of a specific Buddha. They are places specifically designed to bless beings and teach them the Dharma in a good environment specially designed for that noble purpose. In the Pure Lands sentient beings don’t have the risk of being reborn in samsara as samsaric beings ever again. If they choose to return it is only to guide sentient beings to enlightenment and they have total control over that choice. Buddhas know the dangers of samsara perfectly so creating special lands to teach the Dharma is a very skillful way to benefit beings and guide them towards Buddhahood. In their various samsaric realms, sentient beings normally don’t have a proper environment to learn the Dharma as their lives can be too short and filled with evil (like our present human realm) or their worlds can be filled with too much intoxicating pleasures (like the case of devas). As there are innumerable Buddhas across the many universes, there are also millions of Buddha-lands that have specific properties. The Sambhogakaya aspect of each Buddha is different due to the fact that the specific vows they made while they were Bodhisattvas were also different. This makes perfect sense considering the great variety of sentient beings and their specific hindrances and potentialities. Each Buddha has a 276 specific sound (holy sounds that emanate from them so that their followers can recite them). They also have specific features in their manifestations in order to teach sentient beings in different manners according to their various capacities and limitations. Pure lands are perfect examples of the ways in which Buddhas seek to benefit sentient beings by manifesting forms and sounds out of compassion. A beautiful place like a pure land is not meant to entertain or give pleasure to sentient beings but to bless them with the Dharma. All the skillful emanations of a Buda are in fact enlightened manifestations that come from the Supreme Dharmakaya. If the pure lands were not emanated from the absolute Dharmakaya they would be just samsaric forms with no power to benefit beings. We must remember that the Dharmakaya is beyond forms and thoughts so it is very difficult for sentient beings to be benefited from something they can’t relate to. The lands emanated by Buddhas are full with beautiful manifestations, exquisite sounds and jewels, and all of those manifestations are ways to bless those who come to be born there and skillfully guide them to Enlightenment/Buddhahood. Enlightened beings like Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) created a Pure land for the followers of His specific teachings; in His case that Land is called Copper Colored Mountain of Glory (Zandokpalri in Tibetan)128 Guru Rinpoche specializes in teachings like 128 Tibetan Buddhism and Zogchen specialized dictionary: 277 Zogchen (The Great Perfection) and tantric/esoteric teachings (which are very advanced non dual teachings). Medicine Master Buddha’s Land of Lapis lazuli to the East (of our samsaric universe) is also quite a beautiful land and followers of this famous Buddha (very revered in Tibet) are reborn there by practicing the visualizations and mantras related to this particular Buddha The most famous Pure Land by far is Sukhavati, the Land of Utmost Bliss to the west of our samsaric universe. Amida Buddha established this land with the sole purpose of liberating all sentient beings from suffering, no matter their spiritual capacities. This is why so many people in China, Japan, Korea and Tibet (and many other Buddhist countries) have such a deep devotion for Amida/Amitabha. It is because his specific vows included ALL beings, including those who can’t meditate or keep precepts and even those who are openly evil and stupid. This is truly remarkable because it is very difficult to be reborn in Pure Lands like Abhirati or Zandokpalri. Only truly advanced practitioners can be born there as they have practiced meditation all their lives and advanced visualizations that are karmically related to specific pure lands. Sukhavati (Amida’s Pure Land) on the contrary is very easy to access by comparison. One only needs to recite Amida’s name (Amitabha in Sanskrit/Amida in Japanese/Amituofo in Chinese/Adida phat in Vietnamese) https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Zangdokpalri 278 with faith and sincere aspiration to be born in the western Pure Land. Amitabha has no other requirement for practitioners. We will devote the last part of the book exclusively to Amida and His Pure Land. For now, it is useful to keep in mind that this is by far the most important Pure Land in Buddhism, since it is the only Buddha Land that is praised unanimously by ALL Buddhas because of its excellence and because it is so easy to access by all sentient beings no matter if they are good or evil. Due to that fact expressed in many sutras within the Buddha-Dharma, Sukhavati (Amida Buddha’s Pure Land) has been the most revered Pure Land in all Buddhist Schools throughout history, and that’s why the Three Pure Land Sutras in which Shakyamuni specifically taught about Amida’s Salvation gave birth to the Pure Land School which is widely practiced in several denominations in countries like China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Now, returning to the different Buddha-bodies, we also have, (besides the Dharmakaya and Sambhogakaya): The Nirmanakaya body: “Amitayus, exercising supernatural powers at will, can freely manifest His various forms in the lands of the ten directions. At times He may appear as a large figure, filling the whole sky; at other times as a smaller figure, only sixteen or eight feet high. The figures that He manifests are all of the color of pure gold. The transformed Buddhas and jeweled lotus flowers 279 in the aureole of each manifested form are like those described above.”129 Buddhas can also manifest accommodated bodies of different shapes and sizes across the universe and inside the minds of sentient beings. Amitabha dwells in His Pure Land in his Sambhogakaya aspect but at the same time he is constantly manifesting other accommodated bodies (Nirmanakaya manifestations) to bless beings across the universes. One of the many powers that Buddhas have is the capacity of being present in several places at the same time, so by means of Nirmanakaya manifestations they can do so and thus benefit sentient beings in different places of the universe simultaneously without moving from their seats. So, to summarize, Dharmakaya is the supreme aspect beyond form, Sambhogakaya is the specific eternal body of a Buddha according to his vows as a Bodhisattva and Nirmanakayas are accommodated bodies of different sizes, shapes and features that a Buddha uses in different places and circumstances to benefit beings. Pure Lands are emanations that come from the Supreme Aspect that all Buddhas share (Dharmakaya) In no other words; out of that eternal aspect, enlightened manifestations can be manifested and used by Buddhas to benefit sentient beings. There are other advanced beings that are Buddhist disciples on their way to Buddhahood/Enlightenment. Although they are not yet Buddhas they are already free from samsara and The true Teaching on Amida and His Pure Land” by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma lion publications, Craiova, 2015, p 82-83 129 280 they continue to study and practice in realms of existence with beings similar to them. Some of these beings can visit Pure Lands like Sukhavati or Abhirati to learn from the Buddhas there. (I won’t go into a lot of details about them because it is not important for the purpose of this book). The world seems different to each stream of consciousness so we can also say that these levels of liberated Buddhist disciples also correspond to realms of existence. Those beings are: 1. Arhats: the first level of disciples. They are free from Samsara but they are not yet Buddhas. They trained according to the teachings about the four noble truths (the truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, cessation and the Noble Eightfold path) to be free from samsara for their own liberation. They become detached from conditioned phenomena by progressive advance in meditation, morality and wisdom according to the Dharma the Buddha taught to them. 2. Pratyekabuddhas: They are liberated beings that live secluded and isolated and they attained liberation from samsara by their own efforts and without the help of a Buddha or the help of any external teaching of the Buddha-Dharma imparted by someone else. They became liberated by their own skills and observation of samsaric phenomena and also due to their great meditation abilities. 3. Bodhisattvas: They are beings on the path to Buddhahood. They engage in many practices to reach enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. The beings that are following the Bodhisattva path learn the mastery of the six paramitas/the six perfections as taught in the Mahayana Teachings like 281 the Mahaprajnaparamita sutra. The six perfections are: Generosity, Discipline, Patience, Diligence, Meditative concentration and wisdom. Bodhisattvas train for a long time to cultivate and master all of these spiritual perfections and in that way they finally develop powers that will help them attain Buddhahood and teach the Dharma to benefit all sentient beings. 282 The Bodhisattva Path is Vast There are 10 Bhumis, or stages in the Bodhisattva path, we will briefly mention them for you to get a glimpse of the extraordinary skills that aspirants to Buddhahood have to master, even before total Enlightenment: 1. Perfect Joy/Joyful 2. Immaculate Stainless 3. Luminous 4. Radiant 5. Hard to master/Very difficult to Overcome 6. Clearly Manifest 7. Far progressed/gone beyond 8. Immovable 9. Perfect Intellect/Good intelligence 10. Cloud of Dharma Tibetan Buddhist teacher Abbess Thubten Chodron explains each stage briefly in a Dharma talk based on the Precious Garland (a work written by Master Nagarjuna) 130: “There is also a teaching on the ten bodhisattva grounds. (The Sanskrit word is Bhumi and the Tibetan word is Sa.) The ten bhumis or the ten grounds are all realizations of emptiness. They’re called grounds because they act as a support for the 130 The Bodhisattva paths and Grounds (Bhumis) by Thubten Chodron Official Website: https://thubtenchodron.org/2007/05/five-paths-and-ten-grounds/ 283 good qualities that are actualized on those stages. For the ten grounds, the first ground occurs on the path of seeing. Then pretty much the other nine occur on the path of meditation. Let me tell you the ten grounds—the names are very nice. They’re inspiring. The first Bhumi is Very Joyful. They’re very joyful bodhisattvas. He or she is on the first Bhumi, first ground, and the path of seeing. They particularly attain a very good practice of generosity on that ground. Then the second ground is called Stainless, and they attain a great attainment in terms of ethical conduct—the second of the far-reaching attitudes. The third ground is called the Luminous and their specialty is patience or fortitude. The fourth ground is called the Radiant, and I bet you can guess what their specialty is. The specialty of the Radiant one is joyous effort. Then the fifth ground is called Very Difficult to Overcome, and they attain a very special level of meditative stabilization. The sixth ground is called Approaching, because they are approaching the qualities of the Buddha, and their specialty is wisdom. So those are the six farreaching attitudes [of generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyous effort, meditative stabilization, and wisdom.] But there is also a description of ten far-reaching attitudes. When we have the description of ten, the last four, if you’re going to talk about six, they’re included in the sixth one. But when you expand it out to ten then they come out and they each, of course, have their own ground that they attain a special strength at. So the seventh ground bodhisattva is called Gone Afar—that person specializes in method (or skillful means, that is ways to teach the Dharma to sentient beings). The eighth ground is called the Immovable, and their specialty is—the Tibetan term is monlam and there’s not a good English translation of that. Sometimes it’s translated as ‟prayer” but 284 that’s not very good because it’s not really a prayer. They’re actually developing very strong aspirations. The Chinese, when they translate it, translate it as ‟vow” because the aspiration is so strong that it’s almost like a vow that you’re going to do something. So it’s a very strong wish, a strong aspiration. That’s the eighth ground. The ninth ground is called Good Intelligence, and their specialty is power (or influence)—which is very important if you’re going to guide sentient beings. Then the tenth ground bodhisattva, they’re called the Cloud of Dharma because from them a rain of the excellent Dharma falls. They’re so close to Buddhahood that they’re kind of constantly giving teachings, (…) Their specialty is exalted wisdom. It’s called yeshe in Tibetan.”131 As Abbess Chodron explains, each ground consists of perfect virtues that a Bodhisattva conquers in the path towards Buddhahood. Each path has different spiritual qualities that the aspirant masters. Those include capacities such as: transcendental powers, perfect meditation skills, wisdom, compassion and the myriad ways in which the Dharma can be taught to sentient beings (skillful means). Bodhisattvas cultivate wisdom and compassion not only to be free from Samsara but they train to possess transcendental virtues and powers that enable them to help beings in ways that an Arhat or Pratyekabuda cannot. You can compare this to a person that has escaped the house on fire of samsara and on top of that, he is also trying to get professional firefighter tools and vehicles to help those trapped in the flames. 131 The Bodhisattva paths and Grounds (Bhumis) by Thubten Chodron Official Website: https://thubtenchodron.org/2007/05/five-paths-and-ten-grounds/ 285 Bodhisattvas are concerned with other beings since the very beginning of their practice as the 4 Great Mahayana vows say: “Living beings are numberless; I vow to save them all. Confusions are countless; I vow to cut them all. The Buddha's teachings are limitless; I vow to penetrate them all The Buddha's way is highest, I vow to achieve it.” The energy that we require to reach the liberation of an Arhat is extraordinary, but to follow the 10 Bhumis and become a Buddha, a fully enlightened being, with those exalted and unsurpassable spiritual qualities is even more arduous. This is the great path to become a Buddha. As Abbess Chodron points out later, a being that has achieved the first Bhumi, the Joyous, has 12 incredible abilities: “Beginning at the first Bhumi, at the first ground, a bodhisattva—because at this point they’ve realized emptiness directly—they also have full concentration. Then they get certain clairvoyant powers which enable them to be of great benefit to sentient beings. So there are twelve special powers that they get at the level of the Very Joyful, the first level of the Bodhisattva. The first quality—and this is very inspiring when you think that there are people who actually have these abilities—is that they can see a hundred Buddhas. I would be satisfied with one, you know! But they’re capable of seeing a hundred. They receive the blessings or the inspiration of a hundred Buddhas. They’re able to go to a hundred Buddha lands. The Buddhas have 286 different Buddha lands throughout the universe where they teach the Dharma, and these bodhisattvas are able to go to a hundred of them. They’re able to illuminate a hundred lands. So, through the power of their loving kindness and concentration, they illuminate a hundred lands. The fifth quality is they’re able to vibrate a hundred worldly realms. This a special kind of vibration, I guess. The sixth is they’re able to live for a hundred eons. The seventh is they’re able to see with true wisdom the past and the future for a hundred eons. Now somebody’s going to say, ‟Well, if they can see the future, does that mean that everything is predestined already?” No, it doesn’t mean things are predestined. It just means that they have a very deep understanding of cause and effect. So they can make pretty good guesses about what kind of effects are going to arise soon by looking at the causes that are prominent right now. But things are not predestined. We know that. It’s like, you may know somebody very well and you know their habits very well, and so you feel like you could predict what’s going to happen to them, but there’s still the chance that that doesn’t happen. Just because you know somebody well, then having a prediction doesn’t make for sure it’s necessarily going to happen. Again, things are not predestined. Then the eighth quality is they’re able to enter into and rise from a hundred meditative stabilizations. Now this is an incredible skill. When you think of the depth of meditative stabilization—they can enter into it and leave it very quickly; and a hundred different kinds of meditative stabilizations. When the Buddha was teaching the Heart Sutra he was in the meditative stabilization called ‟The Countless Aspects of Phenomena.” So there are different kinds of meditative stabilizations. 287 Then the ninth quality is that the first-ground bodhisattva, the Very Joyful, is able to open a hundred different doors of doctrine. A door of the doctrine is a kind of teaching. It’s part of their skillful means to be able to teach in a certain way that corresponds to the interests and the disposition of the various sentient beings that they’re teaching. The tenth is they’re able to ripen a hundred sentient beings. Ripen means that they get us to the point where we can have realizations. Right now we’re a little bit green. Our minds are not ripe at all. We hear the Dharma and our minds are resistant and everything else that goes along with that. But when you have a ripe mind then you just really take in the Dharma and you’re ripe to gain the realizations. So these bodhisattvas can ripen a hundred sentient beings. I hope they experiment on me and on you, too, because we need ripening, don’t we? And if they can do it, may they help us! The eleventh quality is they can emanate a hundred emanations of their own body. This is very useful when you want to benefit sentient beings, to be able to send out an emanation. Then the twelfth is they’re able to cause each of these hundred bodies to be surrounded by a hundred other bodhisattvas. So they’re in the process of teaching the Dharma and creating their own pure lands where they have bodhisattvas coming in. We can see from this that how these bodhisattvas practice and the qualities that they gain through their Bodhisattva practices. It’s really quite amazing. It comes not only because they’ve realized emptiness, but because of the various levels of samadhi (or concentration). It’s not just like you gain serenity and that’s it. No, there are various levels after serenity of deepening the level of concentration and deepening your ability to go in and out of concentration. Then 288 you have to do all these practices of training how to make a hundred emanations. It’s not just like it pops into your mind and you’re able to do it. You have to train in making emanations and train in going to the Buddha lands and these kinds of things. These bodhisattvas have done that kind of training and so they have these abilities. And they gain the abilities not because they’re infatuated with having clairvoyant powers and doing, you know, ‟supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” things. That’s not why they do it. But they gain these powers because their whole focus is on being of the greatest service to sentient beings, and these special abilities enable them to be of that kind of great service. That’s why they do it. So that’s the bodhisattva path There’s a little aspect here that Nagarjuna described because he talked about these various bodhisattva grounds in Precious Garland. He talked a little bit about why they got their own name, so I thought I would just read it to you (the Abbess quotes Master Nagarjuna): The Very Joyful, the first bodhisattva, is so called because that bodhisattva is rejoicing all the time—so they rejoice at their own virtue and others’ virtue. The second one is called the Stainless because their ten virtuous actions of body, speech, and mind are completely stainless—they have no ethical downfalls at all. The third one is called the Luminous because the pacifying light of wisdom arises—so they get a certain kind of wisdom that is luminous in their mind, so to speak. The fourth-ground bodhisattva is called the Radiant because the light of true wisdom arises and it radiates out. The fifth-Bhumi bodhisattva is called Very Difficult to Overcome since demons 289 and any kind of interfering forces find it very difficult to conquer a bodhisattva with that kind of realization. The sixth one is called Approaching because they are approaching the qualities of the Buddha. The seventh is called Gone Afar because the number of their qualities has increased so much— it has ‟gone afar” from what it used to be. The eighth level bodhisattva is the Immovable, and it’s because through nonconceptual wisdom they are immovable; and the spheres of their body, speech, and minds’ activities are inconceivable. The ninth ground is called Good Intelligence because, like a regent, they have attained correct individual realization and therefore have good intelligence. Then the tenth-ground bodhisattva is the Cloud of Dharma because the rain of the excellent Dharma falls, like teaching sentient beings.”132 This subject is incredibly rich as you can see. Just in the first Bhumi Bodhisattvas possess remarkable abilities and virtues. As Abbess Chodron clearly says “It’s not just like you gain serenity and that’s it. No, there are various levels after serenity of deepening the level of concentration and deepening your ability to go in and out of concentration” This is an important point. Buddhist Meditations and practices are not just about gaining some limited serenity. They are not even about being serene all the time (which is quite difficult on itself for most Buddhist practitioners); Buddhist practice and contemplation is about MASTERY of all these supramundane abilities and virtues that lead to their perfection in the supreme 132 The Bodhisattva paths and Grounds (Bhumis ) Transcribed Dharma talk by Thubten Chodron. Official Website: https://thubtenchodron.org/2007/05/five-paths-and-ten-grounds/ 290 state of Buddhahood. Remember this is just the first Bhumi. The other levels of the Bodhisattva path are even more arduous. Advanced bodhisattvas have far greater abilities than the first Bhumi. So it must be properly understood that all the attainments that lead to Enlightenment are beyond what we consider normal in the human realm, and if we are going to practice based on our own efforts and wisdom no amount of lax training is going to lead us to the four noble realms of existence: the Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, Bodhisattvas and finally to the realm of the Buddhas. Buddhism is not about being a “good Buddhist”. Being a good Buddhist will not get you out of samsara, but being a Buddha certainly will. So, I insist because this point is crucial: being a Buddha is what Buddhism is all about. We must understand this truth very clearly and interiorize it. The four noble realms outside samsara, are the realms which inhabited by the minds that have already freed themselves from Samsara; and in the case of Arhats, Pratyekabudas and Bodhisattvas, they are realms where they are COMPLETELY devoted to learning and practicing the Buddha- Dharma and by doing so complete their path towards Absolute Buddhahood and FINALLY be able to benefit sentient beings as only Fully Enlightened Buddhas can. 291 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma After explaining basic aspects about the reality and the dangers of rebirth in the various realms of samsaric existence I want to share a brief summary of the four profound thoughts that turn the mind towards the Dharma and integrate these thoughts with the teachings about samsara we have explained so far. These four thoughts are always a preliminary reflection that almost all Buddhist schools implement before engaging in any spiritual practice. They guide us and make us realize how precious our human life is and how important it is to scape samsara once and for all. They are: 1. The Preciousness of human life 2. Impermanence and death 3. Karma- The Law of Cause and Effect 4. Samsara is suffering. 1. The Preciousness of human life: When we consider the vastness of samsara and the incredible variety of intoxicating pleasures and excruciating sufferings that can be found on its 6 realms of existence, we will realize than human life is more or less balanced if we compare it to the extremes we find in the lower realms and the intoxicating pleasures of the gods. 292 Humans have one key advantage over all realms of existence, if and only IF that life is properly used to study and practice the Dharma. Humans have the intellectual capacity to study and listen to the Dharma. Other realms of existence like the heavenly realms are way too intoxicating for the mind, so most devas just waste their positive karma away like they were in a perpetual casino. On the contrary all lower realms (hells, pretas and animals) have too much pain. They are so miserable and ignorant that they cannot focus for very long. Studying the Dharma in the human realm will make us aware of death and suffering, as we directly experience these realities most of our lives. Humans compared to most realms, live very short lives, (so our awareness of death is more vivid than in other realms) and of top of that as humans (if we don’t have any limitations in our bodies) we can develop the skills to learn, read and listen the Buddha-Dharma. The Buddha pointed out several times in various sutras how precious human life is. In the Chiggala sutra we read the following analogy: “"Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?" 293 "It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole." "It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. "Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress...This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"133 When I first read this sutra I thought about the difference in populations between humans and insects. Let’s do a quick mental exercise. Consider just how many ants there are in the world. There are more ants than you could ever count just in a large city like Los Angeles, billions and billions… now take into account all the places in our planet earth. Now take into account not just ants but also bees, flies, worms, cockroaches…etc. Then, do the same thing. Now include also other planets in the universe where there are more animals and insects (which is what Buddhism teaches and it is what modern science is starting to suggest considering the billions and billions of solar systems that could host life according to our limited knowledge of Astrophysics). 133 Chiggala Sutta MN 56. 48 translated by Thanissaro Bikkhu https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.048.than.html 294 It is truly mind-blowing, how numerically INSIGNIFICANT, our human realm is compared just to the insects we see in our planet. The realms of the various devas are also said to be densely populated. According to many sutras there were several thousand monks on average each time the Buddha taught the Dharma, but there were millions and millions of devas present as well. This also seems to be the case with lower realms like the hell realms and the hungry ghosts’ realm. 7 or 8, or even 10 billion human beings is an insignificant number compared to more populated realms like the animal realm or the vast heavenly realms of the devas. Humans, as the Buddha teaches in this analogy, are very RARE in the universe. If we were to die tomorrow, it is more than likely that we won’t be born in the human realm134, due to the fact that there are myriads of other realms of samsaric existence for our mind-stream to be reborn into. Our karma is not reliable as we are still samsaric beings, so who knows what karmic seeds will ripen in the future. 134 In the case of Tibetan Buddhist lineages there are many teachers who are Tulkus, that is, emanations from Bodhisattvas and Buddhas who consciously choose to be reborn several times in human form for the benefit of sentient beings and especially to keep alive the lineage of a specific Buddhist school. Such is the case of the 17 Karmapas (Karma Kagyu lineage), and the fourteen Dalai Lamas (Gelugpa Lineage). The 17th Karmapa and the current Dalai Lama (the fourteenth) are the most famous tulkus today, although there are many more in Tibetan lineages. This is obviously not the case for most beings who are born again as human beings. As we saw in Part I, children who remember past lives have died of unnatural death and therefore their karma precipitates them back into the human realm. This is the exception and not the general rule, as the Buddha taught that being born as a human is rare. 295 Some people can have several human births in a row (although it is not common at all), but this doesn’t mean that we will all be humans in our future rebirth. Some people do believe in rebirth but they have a false sense of security that they project on the reality of rebirth: they think that we are in this marvelous conscious universe and that each life form evolves progressively without retrogressing. Something like this: first you are born many times as a mineral, then as a plant, then as an animal, then as a human and finally as a god or a spiritual being. This is actually a DANGEROUS notion according to Buddhism. The Buddha-Dharma does NOT consider Samsara a safe place to be. Beings WANDER aimlessly in samsara, THEY ARE NOT EVOLVING. Of course it is true that sentient beings can evolve and progress morally (if they have that strength and if they choose to), but there is nothing inherent in samsara that makes this process harmonious for all beings naturally, Buddhas strive to bless and help beings in their path towards Dharma but we should not assume that all beings are safely evolving towards a better state, in fact the Buddha insisted that this is simply not the case. Wandering aimlessly and evolving are very different things. Samsara is caused by the three poisons (Anger, Greed, and Delusion): Because of these three poisons, beings rise and fall in samsara and their only chance to escape is to hear the Dharma of a Buddha to finally progress towards Enlightenment. However Shakyamuni insisted that beings wander for countless lives aimlessly in samsara and are in no way "evolving" or "accumulating meaningful experiences", they are actually suffering in a vicious cycle, which the Buddhas clearly see and that is why all Buddhas have deep compassion for all of us samsaric beings. 296 As I said before Maitreya Buddha, the future Buddha will be born in our planet almost in 5.6 billion years. This is also due to the fact that He is now in Tusita heaven, and as it was explained, the notion of time in the deva realms is way different than our human way to measure time. (For devas a human lifetime is but a couple of hours and for others just minutes in their huge lifespans), so if we don’t seize this precious chance to listen and practice the Dharma, who knows when we will have a similar chance in the future. Just the fact of being reborn in a good realm to study the Dharma is rare, and the fact that the Buddhist teachings are also available is another rare event. So it is a grave mistake to consider samsara a place for “spiritual evolution”. It is NOT. Samsara is caused by the evil and ignorant karma of sentient beings, and it is a place we must all eventually scape from with the help of Buddhas, who try to teach us the way to attain Enlightenment/Buddhahood. There are 8 freedoms that a human being that has found the Buddha-Dharma has got: . 1)The state of hell, 2) pretas 3) animals, 4) long-living gods, 5) Lands or countries where there is no Dharma, 6) incomplete faculties, 7) freedom from wrong views and 8) freedom from a state of existence or universe where the Buddha has not come. So as explained above we are free from the lower realms and we are also free from a deva’s long lifespan and the 297 intoxicating life-styles present in the heavenly realms they inhabit. If we happen to live in a country where Dharma is forbidden like for instance some parts of the Middle East or in North Korea, we won’t be able to benefit from the Dharma even if we happen to live in a planet and a place in the cosmos that does have a Buddha and where the Buddha’s teachings are available at the same time we are alive. Even if we manage to live in a country where the Dharma is available, (let’s say in the US), we could still have a mind prone to distractions like a keen interest in money, liquor, drugs and/or sex, so, it should be noted that being in a country that has favorable legal and material conditions to study the Dharma does not guarantee that a being will practice the Dharma or even pay attention to it. Being reborn as a person who has a disease or a limitation in their nervous system (like a serious cognitive problem) will hinder us from having normal mental faculties and therefore we would not be able to study the Dharma even if we wanted to. Although there are millions and millions of Buddhas in different universes that does not guarantee that in our long wandering in samsara we will meet one so easily. Encountering a Buddha or His Dharma is also a precious and rare opportunity. It is also very easy to be born in another planet or galaxy or part a of universe where a Buddha has not yet manifested. The ten advantages are: 1) a Buddha has come in the world and 2) He has taught the Dharma, 3) the Dharma teachings have survived, 4) there are followers of the Dharma, 5) there are favorable conditions for listening the Dharma, 6) being born as a human, 7) being born in a place where the Dharma is 298 available, 8) being born with the physical and mental faculties intact, 9) having a karmic predisposition to search for the meaning of life and spiritual fulfillment, 10) to have faith in the sutras or words of the Buddha. Buddhism has been threatened by many dangers throughout history, for instance from the 10th to the 12th centuries CE, Islam invaded the subcontinent of India, and It almost eradicated Buddhism from the face of the planet. Buddhists have also faced social difficulties by other religions like Hinduism, because the Dharma rejects the cast system and the existence of a supreme deity. Another recent example is Tibet, which was wiped out by the Chinese Communist Regime in the 60’s. All these historical examples should make us aware that Buddhism persists due to good karma and the spiritual protection of holy beings, but that does not guarantee that in other parts of the universe the Dharma Teachings can survive for this long in analogous circumstances. Another great advantage is that we are born as humans and we have favorable conditions to study it. Some of us are not being persecuted by fanatic religions or political regimes, and for instance, now we have the internet where many people from different countries can access the Dharma for free. These conditions are not guaranteed to last forever of course, so we must seize this chance and make the most out of what we have while we have it. If our mental faculties are just average, we still enjoy a healthy body and mind which is a pre-condition for understanding the basics of the Dharma. Another great advantage that we enjoy is 299 that we have been serious enough to read books about the Dharma and ask questions. Normally people in the western countries come to the Dharma after having spent many years or even decades in other spiritual paths, so, the fact that we are now studying the Dharma means that we were serious and committed enough to persevere as we kept looking for the truth. This is also extremely rare in our world, and even more so in our modern age, where so many distractions are available. As you can see many rare things have to happen for a human to be interested in the Dharma. All the pre-conditions for the Dharma to be available and all the pre-conditions that lead to the existence of a human that is deeply interested in the Buddha-Dharma and in full possession of his normal mental faculties is something precious and rare in the vastness of Samsaric universes. Please meditate upon these 8 freedoms and 10 advantages very carefully, for we may not have the chance to listen again to the Dharma in a very long time if we don’t seize this rare opportunity that we have in this precious human life. The second Profound Thought: Impermanence and death: Impermanence and death can be found wherever you look at in samsara. It is like a house on fire where you can’t find a single spot not touched by the flames of death, impermanence, anguish and suffering. Even the heavenly realms end up being just momentary lapses of mindlessness in the vast rounds of birth and death that we all go through. In our world people are so distracted by so many stupid things that they forget the 300 simple fact that they are going to die, as my sensei so insightfully says: “Until we do not become aware of our own death and impermanence, we are just dreaming, making plans and thinking that we have all the time in the world for doing everything, thinking that death is only an idea or poetry. People of modern times do not give themselves much time to meditate on the real nature of life. They behave like they can live forever. I remember a comparison made by an Indian sage, who said that ignorant people are the same as dogs when they look to a dead person. This is because when you see a dog that looks to another dead dog you can notice that he somehow looks at the corpse like he doesn’t realize what happened. The dog just inspects the corpse and walks around it not without the slightest thought that the same death will sometime occur to him too. In the same way, people look to a dead person like to something that may happen only to someone else, something like a bad luck. They understand death only at the level of information but not actually feel death as something inevitable. When a person begins to feel and be aware of the reality of death and the impermanence of all things, he suddenly stops. It is the stop that can give his life a real meaning. The awareness of death, sickness and old age was also the thing that made Siddhartha leave his royal palace in search of Enlightenment. Speaking about myself, the words that often come to my mind from the teachings of the Buddha are urges based on the awareness of impermanence. I repeat them almost unintentionally: “I have no time, life and death are most important” or “follow the Way like this would be the last day 301 of your life”. The law of impermanence is what makes me a Buddhist”135 Death, as it is taught in the Buddha-Dharma, is not a theoretical matter, nor is it a good inspiration for movies, literature or poetry. Death is a reality that must be meditated upon directly and without adornments. The dire warnings of the Buddha and the Masters should always be like an anchor to us. Indeed we tend to waste our time as though we had all the time in the world, but in reality, the breath that goes out may not come back, and heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath, we approach death, and far from being the end we learn from the wise teachings on the bardo (the intermediate state in between death and the next rebirth) that in a moment’s thought, just by being a little bit careless we can very easily precipitate our consciousness into the lower realms. As my Dharma friend and colleague Gansen John Welch insightfully expresses in this fair and truthful poem: The Candle Flame of Life: “Our lives are like a candle flame Flickering feebly in the strong wind Of samsara where, at any moment, It could be snuffed out in a second By a strong karmic wind gust Severing instantaneously all attachment To this Saha life so we must Now seek and find 135 September 22, 2007 Article, written by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea. “On White Ashes” http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-whiteashes_22.html#more 302 Without delay the way beyond All unenlightened suffering Only Amida’s infinite love and light Can lead us from the deep darkness of our night Of endless nightmares Worries, woes and cares Into Amida’s Pure Land without blame And shame for our follies, faults, fears and tears Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Thank you Amida Buddha Homage to Amida Buddha I take refuge in Amida Buddha”136 The Law of Cause and Effect: Karma: Karma is what leads beings to their various rebirths, as Buddha Shakyamuni says: “The joys and sorrows of beings All come from their actions, The diversity of actions Creates the diversity of beings And impels their diverse wanderings. Gansen John Welch’s Poems to Amida’s Pure Land,(Jodo Shinshu Poems) Volume II, p 22 all of his poem collections and quoted Amida Dharma texts which inspire his Poems can be downloaded for free here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jprp7iXdQ7LIEe9Vr1HClfxLPzwxmBG Gansen John Welch (Australia) is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist follower, Amida Dharma Teacher, and Jodo Shinshu Poet that belongs to Amidaji Temple, He is also the narrator for Rev Cirlea’s books in English; all of the audio books he has narrated can be found at Rev. Cirlea’s official Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/joshoadrian 136 303 Vast indeed is this net of actions!"137 We have seen that whatever habit of body, speech or mind that we cultivate during life is going to have consequences for our future rebirth. Each realm of existence resonates with different types of karma. The karma that we plant now will grow in the future, sooner or later. Rev Josho explains: “By contemplating deeply the teaching on karma we come to understand birth, life and death in accordance with cause and effect. Everything that exists has a cause, and any cause will have an effect. In every second of our lives we reap the fruits of our thoughts, words and actions, and we plant new seeds by what we think, say or do. This is the true way of looking at what happens to us and the world around. Truly, instead of "Mother Nature" we should say "Mother Karma". We are born and reborn from our karma, that is, our own actions. Even outside nature is a reflection of our collective karma. Our world, our plane of existence as well as all other planes of existence arise from karma”138 So, every minute, every second, we are creating karma of body speech and mind. It must be clear that karma also includes whatever we allow into our mind streams. 137 The Sutra of a Hundred Actions as quoted in The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Patrul Rinpoche (Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998), page 118 138 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind towards Amida Dharma, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 41. 304 According to the teachings of the Buddha there are 10 transgressions: The ten transgressions are: 1) to destroy life (to kill), 2) to steal, 3) to practice sexual misconduct, 4) to lie, 5) to use harsh words and language, 6) to speak ill of others, 7) idle talk, 8) greed 9) anger 10) to support wrong views. Karma can be generated not only by actions (karma of actions/deeds) but it is generated by speech and thoughts as well. So even if we haven’t killed or robbed in our lives, the fact that we have contemplated it in our mind streams, be it a fantasy or if we have mentally experienced it with delight or approval (like for instance in literature, video games, movies, music…etc.) we may not experience the full karmic consequence of killing or robbing but we have already planted the seeds in our mind-streams for that type of karma to ripen. Our culture is a sad example of this if we consider our entertainment industry which has glorified violence, sex and lack of morality for decades. If you think this has no consequence for our mind streams you are deluded. Our minds are very sensitive and powerful: whatever we have heard, touched, smelled, thought, said or done is imprinted in our mind-streams, and those mental obscurations can easily lead us to commit acts we would not have done otherwise. Be honest with yourself now, how many times have you had violent thoughts towards another being? How many times have you had evil fantasies that involve a person? Those fantasies are of course well hidden from others where they will never 305 find them, but deep inside we know what our minds are capable of when they go wild. Those fantasies, thoughts and the stimuli we receive from external conditions (which in samsara are normally terrible obstacles that hinder our spiritual development) have profound karmic consequences that will bare fruits in the future. (Perhaps in future lives, or perhaps in this present life) We live in a world that loves to torture innocent animals and kill them for their meat, milk, bones and skin. Eating meat is something that the Buddhas prohibit on the Mahayana path (and there prohibitions on entering the meat business in the Hinayana). Eating meat and other products that come from animals creates a huge karmic debt to thousands of sentient beings who value their bodies and lives in the same way that we value ours. Since these beings are also ignorant (like we are), they are naturally very attached to their physical body and feel great anguish when they are about to be killed. If you have eaten meat for years (like most humans today), you have automatically created the karmic seeds to be born in the lower realms. Imagine the vengeful thoughts of millions of cows, fish, and birds that go through the bardo once they are killed. Even the vegetables we eat are produced by killing millions of insects, and especially today the earth is being exploited by greedy corporations that don't care about nature, animals, insects, or even human life, so our style of Modern life is violent towards our planet which is the provider of the natural resources we need to survive. All this vast evil karma is something we are participating in (or have participated in) whether we like it or not, of: the law of karma is relentless and all the pain caused to our planet and to the animals we use as 306 factory material has undoubtedly created the karmic seeds for the lower realms, this is a certainty for all of us. There are also the Buma Devas (Gods of earth/nature) who are gods not as powerful as the Kamadhatu devas and the highest devas (rupadhatu and arupadhatu) but nevertheless they are gods who rule over forests, lakes, rivers, oceans, mountains ... etc. of the planet that we also share with animals. These Buma Deva live for thousands of years in the same places so they tend to claim vast territories as their homes. As gods they are very proud and attached to the beauty of nature which they consider their home and that they usually protect as an extension of their own bodies. Human beings are participating not only in the mass extinction of innumerable species of living beings (insects, animals, etc.), and in the systematic contamination of nature (with all the dire implications that this has and will have on global weather) but it is also offending and harming numerous Buma Devas who certainly do not see humanity in general with good eyes since we are destroying their homes. Even if we fail to see the Buma Devas (due to our mental / spiritual limitations) these beings have been known by practically all ancient cultures in the east and west, and for those most sensitive to their presence the suffering and outrage of these beings is evident. Let's also think about mining, oil extraction, massive dams that destroy rivers and forests..etc. all these aggressive attitudes of our greedy economy harm countless beings visible and invisible to our present human eyes. If we are not seriously practicing the path to Buddhahood, we simply have no real way to pay off that huge karmic debt. To 307 aspire to be a Buddha is to aspire to attain Buddhahood to heal the pain of all sentient beings. It is to aspire to save all beings equally, paying our debt from countless past lives where we have committed bad actions. Are we doing that? Are we wise beings who can pay such an incredibly vast karmic debt to all sentient beings whom we have directly or indirectly caused pain in this life and in previous lives by relying on our own efforts? From the perspective of the Buddha Dharma the world we live in is like a mental asylum. Beings are prone to evil and ignorance and since they ignore the law of cause and effect they indulge in all manner of evil and carelessness that will eventually lead millions of mind-streams to the lower realms, just as the Buddha taught, the majority of sentient beings are born in the lower realms after they die; this is something that Shakyamuni constantly insisted in sutras like the Pansu Sutra and the Assu Sutra. We live in live now in a world that is full to the brim with the vilest things on the internet. Nowadays people can access whatever they fancy by just using the thing they carry on their pockets every day: a smart phone. From stupid cat videos to hardcore pornography, you name it; whole galaxies of information and entertainment are so easily accessed nowadays that it is frightening. I am sure we, as common people, feel safe indulging in all manner of entertainment that is violent and vulgar, the truth is that the majority of people watch whatever they feel like, and since, it is only a fantasy or just to relax, (we say to ourselves) we think it will not amount to much. Well, according to the Buddha, those little evil things that we believe 308 won’t amount to much in the end; are precisely the things that will precipitate our consciousness to the lower realms. We read again in the Dhammapada: Think not lightly of evil, saying, "It will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the fool, gathering it little by little, fills himself with evil. Think not lightly of good, saying, "It will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with goodness.”139 As the Buddha says in verse, “drop by drop”. So, please, ask yourself and be sincere (I ask myself as well), are those drops evil or good? Are we filling our minds with goodness, virtue and discipline minute by minute, day by day, and year by year? More or less? Or are we feeling the cup of our mind with countless drops of distraction, evil, banality, and ignorance? If you happen to live in the same world I live in, then, the second option is by far the most likely. Samsara is filled to the brim with evil and distractions of all shapes and size. Of course some people live in secluded monasteries or they live off grid, but it is certainly difficult to scape this storm of vulgarity that has come over us all in this century. It is important to acknowledge what we also carry heavy evil karma from 139 Dhammapada Papavagga: Evil, translated from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.09.budd.html 309 countless past lives and the samsaric environment we live in is a reflection of the deranged condition of our mindstreams. The simple truth is that humans and all beings in samsara are pulled towards delusion and suffering because it is easy to be lazy and evil, and it is extraordinarily hard to cultivate authentic virtue, meditation and noble Dharmawisdom. Doing what is noble and what is conducive out of samsara’s cycle is extremely rare in our world and in ALL samsaric worlds. Shakyamuni Buddha knew this all along. Even if a person is truly virtuous and destined for a heavenly rebirth after death (which is very rare), in the vast rounds of samsara that won’t amount to much if the transcendental Dharma of the Buddhas is not studied and put into practice140. Even if sentient beings manage to find the Dharma, it is very strange that they pay attention to it, and it is even harder to find a sentient being that puts the Dharma into practice with total sincerity. When the Buddha was alive, many people where transformed by his teachings, both human and non-human, but 140 I must point out that that does not mean that doing good (helping the poor, being moral, and kind) is not meritorious in the Buddha-Dharma. If sentient beings keep the basic moral precepts of not killing, lying, robbing, not engaging in sexual misconduct and avoid harsh and idle chatter, that will create the causes to be born in the heavenly realms or as a human, so in that way, by being virtuous (in the mundane use of the term “good”) then this is beneficial IF and only IF, the future birth in one of the planes of existence where we can practice the Dharma (like the human realm and the deva realms) is used precisely for that; to study the Dharma. Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to meet with the Buddha Dharma, as we have already explained, so please don’t wait for the future, and seize this chance to listen to the Dharma with all your mind and heart. 310 it is equally true that many people did not listen to Him; they simply did not take the Dharma seriously enough. Beings have cultivated so much evil karma that it has a power difficult to overcome. Truly I say, karma is a fearsome thing. When we speak ill of others we are engaging in evil karma; by doing that we are not benefiting our minds and we are not benefiting theirs. How many times have we spoken behind a person’s back and damaged their reputation? Of course we give ourselves self-righteous excuses. “The person deserves to be judged, insulted or criticized” (we say to ourselves), but doing that will only create the karma of hate within that person’s mind stream and within ours, so we are creating the karmic seeds of seeing that person (or persons) we despise again in similar or worst circumstances, in future lifetimes. This also applies to idle chatter which seems so innocent. We speak lightly of people, circumstances and serious situations. Being ironic seems an easy way to lighten the mood in a dull conversation, so we can engage in idle chatter very innocently and in doing so we create the karmic seeds of falsehood and vanity without realizing it. Being angry, greedy and lustful is something very common for samsaric beings and so, little by little, drop by drop, we are always adding more wood to the already vast fires of samsara. When we see our actions through the lens of the Dharma teachings about karma, we will realize that we, as it is the case with most people, are inclined towards evil, laziness and falsehood. As the Buddha says in the Larger Sutra (The Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite light and life), let’s read it very carefully to interiorize the deep meaning of these wise words: 311 “People of the world, being weak in virtue, engage in strife over matters that are not urgent. In the midst of abject wickedness and extreme afflictions they painstakingly toil for their living. Whether noble or corrupt, rich or poor, young or old, male or female, all people worry about wealth and property. In this there is no difference between rich and poor; both have their anxieties. Groaning in dejection and sorrow, they pile up thoughts of anguish or, driven by inner urges, they run wildly in all directions and thus have no time for peace and rest. For example, if they own fields they are concerned about them. If they have houses they worry about them. They are also anxious about their six domestic animals, such as cows and horses, about their male and female servants, money, wealth, clothes, food, and furnishings. With deepening troubles they sigh repeatedly, and anxiety increasingly torments and terrifies them. Sudden misfortune may befall them: all their possessions may be destroyed by fire, swept away by floods, plundered by robbers, or seized by adversaries or creditors. Then gnawing grief afflicts them and incessantly troubles their hearts. Anger seizes their minds, keeps them in constant agitation, increasingly tightens its grip, hardens their hearts, and never leaves them. Then when their lives end in such agonizing conditions then they must leave everyone and everything behind. Even nobles and wealthy people have these worries. With much anxiety and fear, they endure such tribulations. Breaking out in cold sweats or fevers, they suffer unremitting pain. 312 “The poor and the underprivileged are constantly destitute. If, for example, they have no fields, they are unhappy and want them. If they have no houses, they are unhappy and want them. If they have none of the six domestic animals, such as cows and horses, or if they have no male or female servants, or lack money, wealth, clothes, food, or furnishings, they are unhappy and want those as well. If they possess some of these things, others may be lacking. If they have this, they do not have that, and so they wish to possess all. But even if by some chance they come to possess everything, it will soon be destroyed or lost. Then, dejected and sorrowful, they may strive to obtain such things again but it may be impossible. Brooding over this is to no avail. Exhausted in mind and body, they become restless in all their activities and anxieties follow on their heels. Such are the troubles they must endure. Breaking out in cold sweats or fevers, they suffer unremitting pain. Such conditions may result in the sudden end of their lives or an early death. Since they have not done any good in particular, nor followed the Way, nor acted virtuously, when they die they will depart alone to an inferior world. Although they are destined to different states of existence, none of them understands the law of karma that sends them there. “People of the world, parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and other family members and kinsmen, should respect and love each other, refraining from hatred and envy. They should share things with others, not be greedy and miserly, always speak friendly words with a pleasing smile, and not hurt each other. “If one disagrees with others and grows angry, however small one’s grudge and enmity may be in this life, these will increase in the life to come until they grow into a mass of hostility. For if people are engaged in tormenting and harming each other in this life, such conflict may not 313 immediately end in mutual destruction. But persistent bitterness and raging fury are impressed upon the mind, and thus naturally leave indelible marks on consciousness, so that those involved will be reborn at about the same time to take revenge on each other. “When their lives end in such agonizing conditions, they must leave everyone and everything behind. Even nobles and wealthy people have these worries. With much anxiety and fear, they endure such tribulations. Breaking out in cold sweats or fevers, they suffer unremitting pain. . Since they have not done any good in particular, nor followed the Way (the Dharma), nor acted virtuously, when they die they will depart alone to an inferior world. Although they are destined to different states of existence, none of them understands the law of karma that sends them there.”141 “Further, by so doing, they cling to their own views more tenaciously. Later generations learn from previous ones to act likewise. Fathers, perpetuating their wrong views, pass them on to their children. Since parents and grandparents from the beginning did not do good deeds, were ignorant of the Way, committed foolish acts, and were benighted, insensitive, and callous, their descendants are now unable to realize the truth of birth and death and the law of karma. There is no one to tell them about this. Nobody seeks to know the cause of fortune and misfortune, happiness and misery, although these states result from such acts.”142 141 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 41-43 142 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised 314 As we see the words of the Buddha are dire warnings. They tell us that being ignorant of the consequences of our actions and how we are led by these karmic consequences to our next birth is something tremendously foolish and dangerous. Reflecting in this manner about the law of cause and effect and its relation to the 6 realms of existence we will then desire to scape samsara once and for all and stop hurting others and ourselves in the pursuit of samsaric/worldly goals because, as the Buddha insightfully states, that ignorant attitude leads only to misery and to more transmigration in samsara. And finally, the fourth profound thought that turns the mind towards the Dharma is: Samsara is suffering; The Buddha thoroughly explained each plane of existence and so did His noble disciples like Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Genshin, and Tsongkhapa, just to name a few. It is a fact that is well known: the Buddha and ALL the noble disciples of the past have taken Samsara as a LITERAL truth, not as a symbol or a metaphor. Of course modern “spiritual” teachers who are eager to find deep “psychological truths” or material for their flamboyant theories about religion and culture feel very odd when they read that samsara was taken seriously by all great Buddhist practitioners in almost all schools of Buddhism (Chan, Tantric Buddhism, Tendai, Shingon, Yogacara, Pure Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 43. 315 land schools, the numerous Tibetan lineages and many more) throughout history. Words like heaven and hell have become so widely used as metaphors that it has become like an implicit status quo in most Buddhist temples just to take them for granted and just say like….”oh yea, samsara, interesting….or yeah that’s just a traditional idea…..now. When do we start to feel good in meditation?” Another similar phenomenon in modern temples is completely ignoring rebirth and death because (they say) it could scare people away. Some of them just ignore the topic altogether and they seat and breathe, and try to learn useful tools that help you become a more loving person or a more effective professional or spouse. (The Buddha did talk about marriage, wealth and how it relates to virtue and happiness but to reduce the Buddhist teachings to those things is absurd). People nowadays could not be more confused. I think that if they don’t consider samsara, rebirth, nirvana and Buddhahood to be real and important, then they are not practicing Buddhism and by engaging in trivial matters that the Buddha did not manifest in this world to solve, they are clearly missing the point. This is like taking the map that the forester gave you and use it as a napkin. The Dharma is the transcendent teaching that leads beings out of the cycle of birth and death, and nothing less. It is the noble path that leads beings to become Buddhas. If we do not YEARN for Buddhahood, for enlightenment, then we cannot call ourselves disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha and all the Buddhas. I sincerely hope that after reading this section about the vast realms of samsaric existence something inside your heart and 316 mind gets moving like a dynamo. So is this just a waste of time? Was the Buddha along with so many great masters of the past engaging in folk superstitions? Or are they telling the truth? You are left by the experienced forester (the Buddha) with a map (the Dharma) and with the testimony of the village (the Sangha), You also got a glimpse into other realms of existence (the testimonies of researchers that have compelling evidence about rebirth and other realms of existence beyond our human realm), this is just a glimpse, and therefore it is limited, but it is really up to you to connect the dots and realize for yourself if this is all nonsense or if it is the TRUTH. It took me a very long time to ask myself these questions. Do I really believe the Buddha and His Dharma? Am I really in samsara? If so, how do I get out? What is the best path for a simple guy like me to get out of here? Those questions can never be put in your mind by someone else. You need to sincerely and profoundly listen to the Dharma. I am only sharing some useful insights that I have learned from the Buddhist sutras, the masters and my sensei Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea and I can only hope to stimulate deep within your mind-stream a thirst for Dharma-truth. If you still have doubts and if you are sincere about learning True Buddhist Teachings please go to the sutras themselves and ask a competent teacher; someone who does not put his opinions before the Dharma and ask him/her your questions in a personalized manner. The stakes are just too high to care about what “clever people” might say, or what “spiritual fashion and trends” are regurgitating. Try to listen deeply to the Buddhist teachings on impermanence, death, and rebirth. To 317 dismiss such dire warnings about samsara is not going to drive them away from your life. Many people say “when I die I will know if that’s true….for now let’s focus on this life and how to be happy here in this world”. That is totally INSANE from a Buddhist perspective; actually the exact opposite is the truth: “Reflect deeply about death, impermanence and cyclic existence in the 6 realms, ALL the time”. As Master Rennyo said constantly: ““It has been said that those who do not know the importance of the afterlife are foolish, even though they may understand eighty thousand sutras and teachings; those who know about the afterlife are wise, even though they may be unlettered men and women”143 You can think about the “here and now” all you want, or talk yourself into believing those who talk about death and rebirth are just negative or superstitious but the fact remains that deeply contemplating rebirth and suffering and overcoming it is what Buddhism is all about; this fact must be clearly understood and interiorized. Samsara is filled with all manners of suffering, from a Dharmic perspective from the lowest hell to the highest heaven, samsara is like a prison on a voracious and fearsome fire, there’s not a single spot that is free from death and suffering, even the heavenly realms are on fire, our human realm is on fire, 143 Rennyo Shonin Ofumi: The Letters of Rennyo, translated from the Japanese (Taisho, Volume 74, Number 2668) by Ann T. Rogers and Minor L. Rogers, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley, California, 1996, p.16 318 everything and everyone that is inside the cycle of death and suffering is in grave danger. As Shakyamuni Buddha says: "In this wandering on, this journeying in incalculable time, the suffering by man is unimaginably, inconceivably vast. How can one reckon all one's sorrows life after life, through partings from the loved, through union with the unloved, through death of dear ones, and through the loss of one's own health and wealth, limbs and life? "In this sweeping on of life's stream, hard it is, to find another who has not been a person's own father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter. Truly every living being might well have been associated closely with every other in this long trail of woe." (SN 11.180) "Where in the whole wide earth could be found a spot unpolluted of the dead? Sometime in Being's endless flux a living being has died wherever life manifested itself" (Jataka II, 5-6)144 The Buddha wanted us to become disenchanted with the dark prison of samsara and He spoke in this strong and direct way countless times in the many teachings he gave to sentient beings. As Shakyamuni Buddha said: “The bones of a single person wandering in Samsara would be a cairn, a pile, a heap as Mount Vepulla, were there a collector 144 Words Leading to Disenchantment, Samsara by Soma Thera, 2005, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/bl079.html 319 of these bones and were the collections not destroyed. Longtime have you suffered the death of father and mother, of sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, and while you were thus suffering, you have verily shed tears upon this long way, more than there is water in the four oceans. Long time did your blood flow by the loss of your heads when you were born as oxen, buffaloes, rams, goats, etc. Long time have you been caught as dacoits or highwaymen or adulterers, and through your being beheaded, verily more blood has flowed upon this long way than there is water in the four oceans. And thus have you for long time undergone sufferings, undergone torment, undergone misfortune, and filled the graveyards full, verily long enough to be dissatisfied with every form of existence, long enough to turn away and free yourself from them all."145 In Samsara there’s only torment and anguish, there is no lasting satisfaction to be found in the realm of death and darkness, where all beings are going nowhere, wandering like vagabonds between heaven and hell just to find themselves always empty handed and confused in samsara’s endless agony. These are moving verses from Master Nagarjuna: "Having become Indra, worthy of the world's honor, you will still fall Once again to the earth because of the force of past karma. Even having become a universal monarch, 145 Anguttara Nikaya as translated by Venerable Narada Mahathera in his book, The Buddha and His Teachings, http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/BuddhaTeachings/page_31.html 320 You will once again become a slave for other beings in cyclic existence. Though you have long experienced the pleasures Of caressing the breasts and waists of divine women, You will once again encounter the unbearable sensations Of the grinding, cutting, and flesh-tearing hell-devices. Having dwelled long on the peak of Mount Meru, Enjoying the pleasant touch of soft ground on your feet, Imagine undergoing the unbearable pain Of walking once again over hot coals and rotting corpses in hell. Having frolicked in beautiful groves And enjoyed the embraces of divine women, You will arrive once again in the forests of hell, Where the leaves are swords that slice off ears, nose, hands, and legs. Though you have entered the Gently Flowing River With beautiful goddesses and golden lotuses, You will plunge once more in hell into scalding water The unbearable waters of the Impassable River. Having gained the great pleasures of a deity In the realm of desire (Kamadhatu), Or the detached happiness of Brahma (in Rupadhatu), You will once again become fuel for the fires Of the Unrelenting Hell, suffering pain without respite. Having been a deity of the sun or the moon, Illuminating all the world with the light of your body, You will return once more to dense, black darkness, Where you cannot see even your own outstretched hand"146 146 Letter to a Friend, as quoted in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I, by Tsong-kha-pa, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York, p. 285-286 321 Truly, Samsara is a vast ocean of tears. After explaining the dangers of rebirth in samsara, I want to present my personal struggle to find the Dharma of Amida, and why it is so important that you consider your true spiritual capacities and deeply contemplate the sufferings described above. We need to recognize how incredibly inadequate our individual power and efforts are. It is of VITAL importance that we deeply reflect on all these teachings and then realize they are actually pointing to us, to our lives, to our families, to the depths of our suffering and sorrow. Once you see yourself as a samsaric being, you will be frightened and ask….and what now? Amida/Amitabha Buddha, The Buddha of Infinite life and light is the answer. 322 PART III A SEED IN AMIDA’S HANDS , 323 A spiritual idiot Before being serious about the Dharma I used to engage in long meditation practices after work and in between working hours. I used to do three hour, 4 hour or even 9 hour sessions on weekends thinking that I was “sincere” in my efforts. I used to combine all Buddhist schools, Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen and Zogchen, you name it. I thought Buddhism was like a buffet-feast and I felt like a kid in a candy store, thinking to myself how lucky I was to have such a profound and broadminded religion. I read about the Dhyanas (meditative abortions) and I became obsessed with them and how they were related to the breath. I used to go to a famous Tibetan group in my city, where everyone smiled all the time and they were so friendly, so I thought I wanted to be blissful like them. As soon as I began to reflect upon the sutras themselves I began to see little by little what a charade my efforts were. I had been practicing just to relax and get high on bliss, but certainly I was not thinking SERIOUSLY and PROFOUNDLY about suffering, death and rebirth, the way the Buddha taught. I focused on just one method of Vipassana meditation as taught in the Pali canon, which is based on the 4 noble truths (the Arhat Path). Still, I recognized that the problem was not the path I was following but my spiritual incompetence. No matter how hard I tried or all the teachers I personally consulted, my monkey mind didn’t care about my efforts and so called “wisdom”. 324 There are hardly any serious monasteries in my continent, and in my country serious Buddhist temples are practically nonexistent. I thought to myself “Buddhism is hard, and it is meant to be that way….but what about simple minded people and idiots? Are we left behind simply because we can’t undergo arduous training? Is the Buddha’s compassion limited?” I felt excluded from Buddhism, just by being my foolish self. I was still determined to keep my practice rhythm and I tried to stick to the most basic meditation techniques of Shamata and Vipassana as taught in the Pali canon. Sometimes I actually believed I was making some progress, nevertheless, I realized that however inspiring or entertaining my meditation practices were or however peaceful, kind or wise I felt afterwards, that just FADED AWAY in a matter of hours or days. My usual habitual “random guy” habits just manifested again despite my best intentions. It did not matter how many times I repeated to myself that “all things are impermanent” my mind was still looking for stupid videos on YouTube and I got distracted very easily. Just by noticing the little worries of my day-to-day activities and those of others around me, I felt truly powerless to help myself, let alone teach others a way out of suffering. When I saw the news, it was hard for me to feel brave and earnest about my enlightenment pursuit, given that I saw so much misery in my own country and around the world: hunger, war, disease and confusion. Of course it is cool to meditate from a comfortable cushion and think you are going somewhere special, but the more I asked myself questions like “What would I do if I encountered myself with death tomorrow? What would I do in a TRULY adverse situation? 325 What would happen to me if died RIGHT NOW? Would my so called wisdom stand a chance...i admitted to myself that the answer was definitely negative. The gigantic tsunami of scandals, war, corruption and negativities I saw around me and inside myself was just too damn big for me to handle, let alone overcome. I needed to do something else. Practice harder. Perhaps undergoing full training was what I needed. More discipline and more dedication. “That’s it” I convinced myself. The importance of a secluded place to practice in Buddhist history cannot be overstated. The Buddha taught in forests and wild mountains most of the time during his decades as a Master. All the great practitioners of the past in India and Tibet for instance, had access to a culture that venerated holy beings and gave them food and water, so they could easily engage in prolonged retreats for years and years on mountains and wild forests, without being concerned about their daily needs. They could devote ENTIRELY to their practice without interruptions of any sort. VERY FEW people can do this nowadays. Something that we should bear in mind, considering the various Dhyanas, is that mastering them takes a lot of time and almost super-human effort. Not only that, you also need a proper teacher, a good environment to practice and great selfdiscipline. Very few people can say they have all those elements nowadays. As I said earlier in the introduction, it was very common in great practitioners to meditate for weeks on end, even for months and years. And EVEN THAT doesn’t guarantee that you can accomplish something in the vast path towards enlightenment. Let’s consider the path towards 326 Enlightenment in Mahayana Buddhism: the 10 Bhumis of the Bodhisattva’s Path. Master Nagarjuna is said to have been a first Bhumi Bodhisattva, which is incredible, considering all the spiritual capacities and wisdom that a First Bhumi Bodhisattva has. He lived in a time where Mahayana Buddhism was flourishing and there were many accomplished and serious masters that devoted full time to mastering complex aspects of the Dharma both in theory and profound practice. Nalanda is a great example of a proper environment to develop wisdom. It was one of the greatest Buddhist Academies in history (perhaps the greatest) there were thousands and thousands of monks whose lifestyle was financed by monarchs and the people’s devotion. Great Masters studied in Nalanda (500 EC- 1200 EC), and they dedicated their WHOLE life to the Dharma. No wonder, that so many great Buddhist Scholars and practitioners where produced there and helped to spread the Dharma to so many places including China and the remote snowy mountains of Tibet. I felt truly lost comparing me with the great teachers of the past, but I also felt a deep yearning, a heartfelt urgency to escape from samsara once and for all. I needed to see if I had what it takes to get to the far shore of enlightenment, in the same way travelers who are about to travel miles and miles on foot need to check if they have the provisions they need for their journey; but instead of finding strength within myself I began to notice how lazy I was in my practice. The more I read about the sutras dire warnings about samsara, rebirth and death, the more I noticed my own incompetence to practice the Buddha-Dharma accordingly. 327 I read about masters like Tsongkhapa and Milarepa, and how committed they were to their practice, living in forests, mountains and caves, meditating and cultivating virtues, risking their own lives and their health to achieve enlightenment (the way it should be) and there I was sitting on my bed….a simpleton…eating noodles in front of a pc, watching documentaries about Tibet…I sincerely thought I was going nuts. I knew there were great practitioners in the past, but I did not recognize within myself even one little thing I had in common with those great practitioners of the 20th century, not to speak of centuries before. I thought about death, for the first time, after many months of useless practice focused on “spiritual entertainment”, and I remembered all the people I had met in my life that had passed away. Two of them were very young. I also thought about all the death and suffering that surrounded me, and it just stroke me like lighting, that life was fragile and impermanent. Far from feeling wise about realizing that essential truth about the world I felt a lot of impotence and pain, because I knew deep within that after training so hard on my own I was NOT EVEN ONE STEP CLOSER to real wisdom and true compassion. I was pretty sure I was not going anywhere and something deep inside me recognized that it wasn’t about the Buddhist group i went to, or the teacher I was studying with or the method I was using….it was simply ME. I felt all my evil and stupidity in a strong inner storm that was tearing me apart. I knew I was a samsaric being to the bone, so filled with inner madness that it did not matter how much I meditated, my foolishness just swept every sand castle of virtue and wisdom I desperately tried to construct within my heart. I felt I was trying to cross an 328 ocean swimming on my own. I knew in my gut that it was not about becoming a monk (going up a mountain monastery and engage in even harder practices and discipline). I admitted to myself that such arduous practices would only take me to an insignificant stretch of the path, the same way that you know that no matter how much you swim you won’t make it to the other shore if you measure the distance just by a sincere gaze. It is another continent that you are trying to get to by swimming on your own when you are attempting to follow the teachings of the Dharma the way it is taught. Buddhism felt like it was meant for super-humans, capable of noble and great deeds that a normal guy like me could only dream of. The world of the virtuous and committed Buddhist practitioners of the past seemed so far away. Clouds of shallowness and entertainment were like a dense mist covering all the Sanghas in the world. I noticed how many people simply don’t honor the Dharma; they don’t take it seriously at all. Wherever in the Buddhist world I looked at, old Buddhist countries like China, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan and Korea were clearly in Dharma-decline. The great monasteries of the past had passed into legend. Thousands of teachers wanted just fame and they combined the sutras with poppsychology. It was difficult to find just a handful of teachers who were genuinely teaching the Dharma as it was taught by the Buddha and the Patriarchs. I needed to be honest so I finally concluded, after trying to deny it many times, the painful and raw truth: “I suck at ALL Buddhist practices and I am just a stupid being who can’t even 329 live by simple moral standards, on top of that the condition of Buddhist doctrine and practice around the world nowadays really sucks too.” The more I sincerely looked at this situation the more I saw how the general state of Buddhism was in fact terrible and dangerous; it resembled a circus in my opinion. I saw how so called “gurus and masters” were changing the Dharma as they wished to “reach a wider audience” combining it with many outlandish ideas. What they teach is clearly not Buddhism what they teach are their own “spiritual chimeras”. The few teachers that I knew where teaching the real Dharma, where at odds with a growing population of lazy spiritual seekers, filled with so many mundane questions and concerns more suitable for a “success coach” than for the transcendental elements that constitute the True Buddha-Dharma: Samsara, Rebirth, Karma, Suffering and Buddhahood. I concluded two important things that summed up the situation that most Buddhist practitioners face nowadays (if you are not a spiritual prodigy or a Bodhisattva in disguise): 1) the state of the Buddha-Dharma is terrible in almost all aspects. There’s a total decline in discipline, precepts, doctrine and the quality of teachers.2) When I see deep within myself I see a total lack of spiritual capacities. I see a rambling fool inside myself. So I even if I found a good place and a serious teacher to practice, I would not go very far. Not with my mind. “This is indeed alarming” I thought. When you combine1) and 2), it is a lethal cocktail. I saw no hope to achieve even the first baby step towards Nirvana for a 330 fool like me. I felt doomed and forsaken. Back then I thought that Buddhism was ALL about meditation, and self-discipline, and that if you could not handle that, then it was just your fault. I was dismayed by all this terrible situation and I considered just “going with the flow” and adopt a “see what happens” kind of attitude. I remember I used to gaze at the sky at night and look at the the stars asking the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas for help, I said things like “I have found the truth I was always looking for in Buddhism. I find in the Dharma a way to look at the world that finally makes sense to me. I have struggled with my skeptical mind, but I have faith now in the Dharma and I consider all the Sangha, as my spiritual brothers and sisters; nevertheless all those great Masters from the past, I consider so vastly greater than myself. I am a buffoon, I can barely have 2 minutes without stupid thoughts, so what kind of virtues can grow in the dessert of this fool’s mind? Please guide me and lead me to a teaching that I can follow, and by which I can attain Enlightenment.” I tried to be at least an honest fool, even if I did not see one centimeter of goodness in my heart nevertheless, even back then, I already had faith in the BuddhaDharma, and I had no doubt that if were to find an specific path I wanted to follow it was certainly contained in the vast storehouse of the Buddha’s teachings. The problem was not my intention but my capacity. After years and years of being so confused about the reality I saw, the concept of samsara put great order in my mind and that very certainty I had awaken about the dangers of the cycle of rebirth, had also awaken an urgency to escape from it. But 331 How? HOW? How can a person who can barely drink soup without spilling half of it on his t-shirt, develop the mindfulness of an Enlightenment being, how can a person who cannot abstain from candy and cigars even for a single day develop the detachment of a Noble Disciple? How can an idiot like me be free from Samsara? 332 A light of Hope When I was studying Tibetan Buddhism I always knew there was a Buddha that always stood above the others in the sacred images and paintings. It was red. In the rich iconography of Buddhism I saw many religious paintings and icons where this red Buddha, always stood above Avalokitesvara (the beloved Bodhisattva of compassion so widely revered in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist Schools, called Kuang-yin in Chinese, Chen-Rezig in Tibetan, and Kannon Bosatsu in Japanese) it also stood above other Bodhisattvas like and Mahasthamaprapta. The famous Buddhist Master Padmasambhava was considered an emanation of this red Buddha as well. “Who is this Buddha? I thought” I later learned that He is called Amitabha the Buddha of infinite life and light. As I was experimenting with mantras I realized that there was something about this Buddha that was different from the rest. At a certain point, in the many practices I attempted, i used to recite all the time the mantras of Avalokitesvara, Guru Rinpoche and Amitabha (Amida) one after the other and I just chanted endlessly. I did it without thinking why. I just did it out of pure instinct. For some reason each time I recited Amida Buddha’s name my mind always had a strange feeling about it. It was like that mantra was trying to tell me something. It was something like “I am not like the rest”. 333 I began to read more about Amitabha/Amida and I was blown away. He had a particular Buddha-Land called Sukhavati, and according to the Tibetan masters I read, it was relatively easy to be born there after death. I was full with enthusiasm. There were many great Buddhist masters that had had a great devotion for Amitabha Buddha (Amida, as it is called in Japan). They included Nagarjuna and Tsongkhapa; both Masters were great practitioners who clearly had great selfdiscipline and wisdom; that was undeniable. Why did they have such a great devotion towards Amida Buddha? If they were such great practitioners why would they need a savior? Why would they need to be reborn in Sukhavati after death? Clearly if those great practitioners needed Amida’s help…I clearly did too. I read a beautiful prayer that Master Tsongkhapa wrote having been inspired by a vision he had of Bodhisattva Manjushri (The Bodhisattva of Wisdom), this is part of the aspiration prayer to be reborn in Dewachen (Sukhavati in Sanskrit and Dewachen in Tibetan): “I pray to Buddha Amitayus, teacher of gods and men. Your excellent activities give endless benefit to beings. Remembering you just once pushes away fear of the lord of death. Your mind always generates compassion towards beings like a mother towards her only son. Many times the good qualities of the supreme paradise, Dewachen, were praised by Lord Buddha. By compassion’s power and prayers to be born there, I will explain whatever I can. Blocked by thick ignorance of the points to be abandoned and obtained, the chances for beings to reach a higher life are killed by the weapon of anger. 334 We are locked in samsara’s prison, bound by the rope of desire, and carried away by the great river of karma into samsara’s ocean. Adrift in sufferings’ waves of sickness and old age, swallowed by the sea monster’s mouth of the ruthless lord of death, and buried under a load of unwanted sufferings, I am unprotected and moaning with depression. My mind aspires to witness a destitute person’s only friend, the Savior Amitabha. You are accompanied by the great bodhisattva, Lord Avalokitesvara, and surrounded by a supreme entourage. Please don’t forget your unwavering promise to benefit us, made for immeasurable eons by generating the bodhisattva mind. By the power of that, I supplicate you respectfully to come here through the force of your miraculous powers and compassion, just like the king of birds flies through the deities’ path of the sky. By depending on the power of amassing the ocean-like two collections of virtue accumulated by myself and others throughout the three times, I pray, Amitabha, that you, together with your two chief sons and your entourage, will stay close to me at the time of my death and protect me. Please, Buddha, may I see you directly along with your entourage. At that time may very strong faith in you arise in me. May there be no extreme pain at the time of death. Without forgetting, may I remember the object of my faith. At the moment of death, may the eight Bodhisattvas147 147 The Eight Great Bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism, embody different aspects of the Buddhas, (they are Enlightened Bodhisattvas, that is, Buddhas who choose to manifest as Bodhisattvas). They are: Mañjushri the Bodhisattva who embodies the Wisdom of all Buddhas Avalokiteshvara The Bodhisattva who embodies Compassion 335 come to me with their miraculous power and show me the exact path to travel to Dewachen”148 Master Tsongkhapa is the great founder of the Gelugpa tradition, which is the tradition of all the 14 incarnations of the Dalai-Lama. He wrote extensively about non dual teachings on emptiness, tantrayana and the demanding practices of the Bodhisattva path. He is revered as a Holy being in all Tibet. He is one of the great scholars and geniuses in the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, therefore I was surprised to see such devotion for Amitabha, and especially considering that this prayer is specifically made to ask for salvation at the time of death and be reborn in Dewachen/Sukhavati, Amitabha’s Western Pure Land. Other great Tibetan masters like the 15 th Karmapa (of the Kagyu lineage) and the Panchen Lama have similar prayers of adoration dedicated to Amitabha Buddha. It dawned on me that even if you are an accomplished practitioner you still need a humble attitude towards death, and they recognized their own limitations and the great power that Vajrapani / Mahasthamaprapta The Bodhisattva who embodies the Power of the Buddhas Maitreya: The Bodhisattva who embodies the Activity of the Buddhas Kshitigarbha: The Bodhisattva who Embodies the Merits of the Buddhas Akashagarbha: The Bodhisattva who Embodies the Blessings of the Buddhas Sarvanivaranavishkambhin: Bodhisattva who embodies Qualities of the Buddhas Samantabhadra: The Bodhisattva who embodies the Vows / Aspirations of all the Buddhas Samantabhadra: The Bodhisattva who embodies the Vows / Aspirations of all the Buddhas 148 8 prayers to benefit the Death translated by the Foundation for the preservation of the Mahayana, Prayer to Be Reborn in the Land of Bliss by Je Tsong-kapa pages 25-27 336 Amida has to save beings from samsara and take them to His Pure Land. If such accomplished Masters were cautious about the bardo realm and prayed to Amida for guidance and help them become Buddhas in His Pure Land…what to say of a random guy like me? Clearly those great practitioners had a profound awareness of death and impermanence. They had practiced hard (harder than most Buddhist disciples in history in fact) and STILL THEY CLUNG to Amida for help, because they wanted their path to be free from hindrances. I was totally humbled by their devotion. I hadn’t engaged in any practice worthy of being called “serious” by any true Buddhist standard, and yet I was stubbornly determined to find enlightenment on my own. I was being dangerously foolish. It is like a person who is in a boat that’s about to sink and considers taking swimming lessons before sinking not paying attention to the big recue ship in front of his eyes. That was beyond stupid. Death could come at ANY TIME. I said this to myself “Ok, I am on the fragile boat of my body, my ignorance is profound and I am DEFINETELY sinking before I cross the merciless seas of samsara. What do I do? Do I learn how to swim while I am sinking just to spend more minutes drowning?” AT LAST it was CRYSTAL CLEAR to me how desperately I needed a savior, not a teacher or guide but a SAVIOR….an enlightened Buddha who could take me in his arms and just SAVE ME from the mess I was trapped in” 337 I had listened to so much ideas like “be your own light” or “the Buddhas are not saviors but just teachers”, that it took me a while to finally understand why Tsongkhapa and so many other great masters call Buddhas saviors of gods and men, and not just “teachers”, before I thought they were just being poetic, but then I KNEW in my gut why they were NOT being poetic, but simply SINCERE and TRUTHFUL: I finally understood where Tsongkhapa was coming from and I could hear him telling me something like: “Samsara is a treacherous sea, the storm of evil karma spares no one, so better cling to Amitabha/Amida and be saved, because even an accomplished practitioner can drown in birth and death”. Another great example of this kind of humble and truthful attitude is Master Nagarjuna “The Second Buddha” for many Buddhists and the great writer of the supreme teachings on emptiness (Sunyata in Sanskrit). I was also blown away when I read this heartfelt prayer of devotion to Amida/Amitabha Buddha: “The twelve Adorations (“Junirai” in the Jodo Shinshu Tradition) Before Amida Buddha, whom Deva and men worship, I humble myself in deepest reverence. In His wondrous Land of Bliss Surrounded is He by countless Bodhisattvas. His golden form shines forth pure, like the King of Mount (Sumeru); His practice of Truth is steadfast, like an elephant’s pace; His eyes radiate, like pure blue lotus blossoms. 338 Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. His countenance is perfectly pure and round, like the full moon; His majestic light shines like a thousand suns and moons; His voice is like a heavenly drum, yet like a heavenly bird (Kokila). Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. Avalokitesvara wears upon his crown, The image of Amida adorned with many precious jewels, He subdues the arrogance of demons and heretics, Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. Incomparable, vast and pure His Virtues are, Clearly extending like vast open space, He acts freely benefiting all. Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. Bodhisattvas from the ten quarters And countless Maras always venerate Him. He dwells with Vow-power for the sake of all beings. Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. In the Golden treasure pond where the lotus flowers bloom, Established with goodness is a wondrous throne; Where the Lord reigns, like the King of Mount (Sumeru). Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. From the ten quarters Bodhisattvas come, Revealing wondrous powers, they attain blissful state; Honoring His face, they offer eternal homage. Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. All things are transient and without self Like the moon on water, lightning, shadow, or dew. 339 “The Dharma cannot be expressed by words,” the Buddha proclaimed. Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. No words of evil are in His Land; No fear of evil doers, nor evil paths; With sincere heart all beings worship Him. Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. His Land of infinite expediencies Is without degenerate things or wicked beings; Upon Rebirth, Non-Retrogressive Bodhi does one attain. Thus I prostrate myself before Amida Buddha. Thus have I praised the Virtues of Amida Boundless are they like the water of the sea. Upon receiving these pure and good qualities May all beings be reborn into his Land”149 These prayers certainly moved me. And I began to chant the name of Amida Buddha exclusively during my meditation practice. I stopped reciting Avalokitesvara mantra and also Guru Rinpoche’s (because Amitabha is certainly their spiritual father) I also tried to attempt the complex visualizations that Tibetan devotees do in order to have a deep karmic connection with Amitabha Buddha. My mind was still struggling to do Junirai was written by Bodhisattva Nagarjuna (c. 2nd –3rd CE), the first of the Seven Patriarchs of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. It expresses eloquently the depth of Nagarjuna’s gratitude to Amida Buddha, whom he regards and venerates as a true and real Buddha. The English translation of this gatha is adapted from the Shinshu Seiten, Jodo Shin Buddhist Teaching, published by the Buddhist Churches of America, 1978. http://web.mit.edu/stclair/www/Junirai.html 149 340 this, but at least I felt I was on a path I could follow and that could lead a foolish being like me to be reborn in a safer environment to practice. Great practitioners like Tsongkhapa and Nagarjuna recognized that even if they had advanced on their way to Enlightenment they still needed something to hold on to at the moment of death, something that assured their future Buddhahood in the Pure Land where they could never retrogress to the lower realms of existence. So even such advanced practitioners knew their spiritual limitations and their true capacities. This is the wise thing to do if you are trying to cross the dangerous storms of Samsara. Get on a boat, do NOT play the hero or you will certainly drown. 341 Amida’s Primal Vow is supreme and unconditional -Getting rid of self-power practices and entering the Jodo Shinshu Path of Faith in Amida’s Primal VowAlthough I felt a big relief having found a teaching that relied partly on the saving power of a Buddha, I was still looking at Amitabha through the lens of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist practices and their elaborated and complex visualizations and rituals. Amitabha visualizations and practices are very varied in Vajrayana schools, and they involve initiations by gurus, prayers and special visualizations that help the practitioner in building a bridge between the unenlightened mind and Amida’s. These practices suppose that there are still various practices (based on your own merit) that you need to do in order to be saved by Amida. They say something to the effect of: “Of course Amida will save you but still there’s some self-effort that you need to put, that is, you need to engage in formal practices designed to provide special conditions at the moment of your death so that you can easily be born in Dewachen150/Sukhavati.” One of those “extra practices” In Tibetan Buddhism is Phowa which is one of the six yogas of Naropa. It is a widely practiced teaching in Tibetan Buddhism that basically explains how you 150 Dewachen is the Tibetan name for Sukhavati (which is the original Sanskrit name) Amida’s Pure Land 342 can send your consciousness through the crown of your head to the Pure Land at the moment of death. “Marpa the Translator said that if you study Phowa, then at the time when death is approaching you will have no despair. If beforehand you have become accustomed to the path of Phowa, then at the time of death you will be full of cheerful confidence Although it is the most accessible of the Six Yogas of Naropa, it is unwise, as with many other Vajrayana practices, to undertake the Phowa without initiation, oral transmission and instruction from a Phowa lineage holder”151 There are certain Tibetan lineages and masters that specialize in Phowa and they give ceremonies of empowerment to receive the instructions of a guru. That fact put me down because until then i had thought that Amida’s salvation was unconditional. I was desperately trying to get out of exclusive and complicated practices and yet I found more and more formalities to be saved by Amida. Things changed when the Tibetan Center I used to attend back then was selling a little red booklet on how to do a preliminary practice for Phowa so I thought about giving it a try since that little booklet had Amitabha Buddha on the cover so I bought it at once and started to practice (it must be noted that most Tibetan Buddhist centers engage in a wide variety of practices Phowa Teachings, Extract from the Snow Lion New’s Letter Summer Issue, 1991 explaining the visit of a Tibetan Phowa Master The Venerable K.C. Ayang Tulku Rinpoche. https://www.shambhala.com/snowlion_articles/phowa-teachings/ 151 343 that involve several Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. It is very rare that they focus on a single practice.) The visualizations I found to be very exhausting, as it demanded that I imagined so many thousands of lights, colors and details that my mind was struggling to keep the rhythm. Another problem was that I had to recite Amida’s mantra in Tibetan at the same time I was attempting to visualize all those images. I must remind you that these were only “preliminary practices”, I consulted Amida visualizations and Phowa practices online and they were even harder. Would those practices assure me of being reborn in Sukhavati? The special conditions at the moment of death were highly emphasized in these teachings so you can naturally expect to feel a little nervous if you haven’t practiced this with a trained Phowa lineage master. I clearly saw why Phowa was just among the many practices in Vajrayana Schools. They did have “some faith”, and a keen interest in Amida, (just the cheer variety of practices and prayers available proved this to me), but I realized they didn’t have complete faith in Amida as they rely heavily on those complex visualizations. As I practiced I felt a mixed feeling that was at odds with my new found faith in Amida: I felt that this was the path for fool like me (who wanted a way out of samsara and who clearly lacked spiritual skills to engage in more complex practices) but at the same time I really ignored if those complex visualizations (learned indirectly in books and videos and not by a Rinpoche) would finally help me to be reborn in Amida’s Pure land at the crucial moment of death. 344 “What if just panicked in the crucial moment of death? What if I died in an accident? What if I die suddenly due to a violent illness? What if I am unconscious and unable to do those elaborated visualizations?” Those kinds of questions where like a splinter in my brain. I was only practicing for the afterlife, for my next rebirth in a safe Buddha Land, (because I had concluded that such a practice was certainly the wise thing to do considering how poor my skills were) but how could I be sure I would not mess it up? I wanted a simpler path. Something really tailored for ANYONE, and I did not want complicated rituals or practices that seemed to me unnecessary and tiresome. I needed to further explore the Pure land Schools and read the Pure Land Sutras themselves as taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. Tibetan Schools definitely excel at Vajrayana practices, but I had also discovered that the Pure Land Sutras had been widely studied, commented and practiced in previous centuries in places like India, China and Japan. As I continued in my journey I finally found a savior in Amitabha, and I discovered that Pure Land Buddhism (The schools of Buddhism that focus on Amitabha/Amida Buddha and birth in His Pure Land) were not just a little branch of Buddhism, but the most popular Buddhist School in the world. It is something that is very hard to understand for westerners but the last thing that an old Buddhist family in Vietnam, Korea, Japan or China will think of when it comes to their daily Buddhist practice is meditation. They simply have an altar and chant Amida’s name (be it Adida phat (Vietnamese), Namo Amituofo (Chinese) or Namo Amida 345 Butsu (Japanese).This practice of just chanting or reciting the name of Amida is called Nianfo in Chinese and Nembutsu in Japanese. I found a Chinese website that presented the practice of Nianfo as the main practice to be reborn in the Pure Land, and this was the first time that I was reading the Pure Land Sutras, without looking at them through the lens of Vajrayana Schools, they were just the words of the Buddha Shakyamuni in the sutras devoted to Amida Buddha and His Pure Land. The famous Pure Land Master Shantao had taught that if people just focus on the name of Amida, and recite it with deep faith, they will be born in Amida’s Pure Land EXCLUSIVELY due to Amida’s power, and not by any personal merit of the practitioner. It must be noted that Master Shantao had exclusively devoted all his life to the study of Pure Land Sutras and practice. Unlike other teachers that had devotion to Amida and they also devoted time to other practices I was amazed to discover that Master Shantao ONLY focused on Amida and His Pure Land and he spread the teachings to all sectors of society and founded temples that exclusively taught people how to be reborn in Amida’s Pure Land. This was just incredible to me, because until then, I had believed that Pure Land Sutras had only been studied and revered within larger Buddhist Schools as a minor or supplementary teaching; I didn’t think that it had become a separate Buddhist School, with its own commentaries and practices. Master Shantao lived from year 613 to 681 EC, centuries before Buddhism arrived in Tibet. Even before Shan tao Master Tan Luan (476-572 EC) had begun to spread the 346 teachings of Pure Land Buddhism in China and Shantao’s own master Daochuo (562–645 EC) inspired him to follow the Pure Land Path. When I discovered such a rich body of commentaries and sutras related to Amida Buddha I felt encouraged to return to the fundamental teachings that Shakyamuni Buddha Himself gave related to Amida Buddha His 48 Vows (promises) and His Pure Land (Sukhavati in Sanskrit). Master Shantao expressed something that I truly felt within myself. First a feeling of spiritual ineptitude and second, that Amida Buddha is the light in my dark horizon, and that I needed to be SAVED by him, because otherwise my future rebirth in samsara would be one of misery, like the countless others before. I clearly was not able to engage in elaborated practices but I had faith in Amida’s salvation, and until that moment I thought that it was not enough. According to Master Shantao I was wrong. Reciting Amida’s Name with faith is enough. He said: “Deep mind is deep entrusting faith. It has two aspects. First, to believe deeply and unwaveringly that we are actually ordinary beings of karmic evil subject to birth and death, ever sinking and ever transmigrating in samsara since innumerable kalpas ago without a chance to escape from it. Second, to believe deeply and unwaveringly that the Fortyeight Vows of Amida Buddha enfold sentient beings, enabling 347 them to board His Vow-Power and attain birth in the Pure Land”152 So by just reciting Amida’s name and having faith one can be born in the Pure Land. That notion was beyond surprising for me at that time. After all the complexities and rituals I was used to dealing, that simple and profound teaching touched me deep within my heart and mind. We must keep in mind that such a teaching comes from Buddhist Masters that focused all their lives on the Pure Land Sutras and the Pure Land commentaries of the Masters. Their sole specialty was always Amida’s salvation and nothing more. It is said that Master Shantao emitted light from His mouth when he recited the Name of Amida (Nembutsu) and he was called the “Master of Light” because of that. He was famous in the Tang Dynasty for spreading Amida-Dharma (the teachings related to Amida and His Pure Land) to all people: Aristocrats and peasants alike, women and children, no one is excluded from Amida’s salvation according to Master Shantao. Amida’s salvation was for him beyond gender, status, knowledge or virtue. I also discovered that Pure Land Buddhism had also spread widely in Japan, especially by Masters like Genshin (942-1017 CE), Honen (1133-1212 CE), Shinran (1173- 1263 CE) and Rennyo (1415-1499 CE) who considered Shantao, Daochuo and Tan-luan as patriarchs, as well as Nagarjuna (approx. 152 Master Shantao, as quoted by Shinran Shonin in chapter III of his Kyogyoshinsho, Kyogyoshinsho – On Teaching, Practice, Faith, and Enlightenment, translated by Hisao Inagaki, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Kyoto, 2003, p. 90-91 348 150-250 EC) and Vasubandhu (circa 400 CE) from India. The single denominator in all these teachers is that they all consider that in order to be born in Amida’s Pure Land one must NOT rely on individual power or merits but on Amida Buddha ALONE, by just having faith in His Salvation and recite Amida’s holy name without mixing it with other miscellaneous practices inside or outside the AmidaDharma Master Honen and his disciple Shinran spread the teaching of Amida’s salvation in Japan very rapidly. They included all ranks of society: prostitutes, warriors, peasants, nobles, merchants and hunters. It did not matter. Amida Buddha (as Honen and Shinran taught again and again) accepts all beings AS THEY ARE, full with limitations and evil karma. It was awe-inspiring to read things like these: As Honen said at the end of his one page testament: “Those who believe this, though they clearly understand all the teachings Shakyamuni taught throughout his whole life, should behave themselves like simple-minded folks, who know not a single letter, or like ignorant nuns or monks whose faith is implicitly simple. Thus without pedantic airs, they should fervently practice the repetition of the name of Amida, and that alone”153 153 Master Honen's One-Page Testament (Dictated 1212 C.E.) Coates and Ishizuka, "Honen the Buddhist Saint", pp. 728-29, English translation presented in "The Buddhist Tradition in India, China and Japan" by Wm. Theodore de Bary, NY 1969, p. 331. 349 In the famous work Tannisho, we also read: “It seems to me that with all your attempts to understand by reasoning and by learning you have fallen into confusion. It is completely in error. Once you have simply come to realize that Vow and Name surpass conceptual understanding, you should not calculate in this way or that. There must be nothing of your calculation in the act that leads to birth. You just need to entrust in the Tathagata”154 “Know that the Primal Vow of Amida makes no distinction between people young and old, good and evil; only shinjin (pure faith in Amida) is essential”155 These passages reveal how all-encompassing Amida’s vow of salvation is. Among all of them Shinran’s writing captured my heart and mind, since he included all of the teachings of the previous masters, the 7 patriarchs of Jodo Shinshu School: Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Tan-Luan, Daochuo, Shantao, Genshin and Honen Shonin (Shinran’s direct teacher). Shinran summarized the whole Pure Land doctrine and practice through the lens of Faith in the primal vow (Shinjin). When I began to talk with Reverend Cirlea about Shinran, I was eager to study Amida Dharma deeply and exclusively for http://web.mit.edu/stclair/www/onepage.html 154 The Path of Acceptance, Commentary on Tannisho, by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2015, p. 12 155 The Path of Acceptance, Commentary on Tannisho, by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2015, p. 15 350 the first time. Reverend Cirlea kindly guided me in the essential elements of faith and Nembutsu in the Jodo Shinshu School which stresses the element of Faith and the assurance of salvation in this present life. That assurance of salvation is something that is only hinted indirectly in the teachings of other Masters, but in the case of Master Shinran I noticed that he bluntly and clearly taught that Amida’s salvation is a certainty for those with deep faith and an entrusting heart, that is, for those who trust 100 % in Amida and 0% in themselves. When I was studying the teachings of the 7 Patriarchs as explained by Master Shinran, everything became crystal clear. I saw that Amida’s salvation is unconditional, supreme and perfect, and it requires no effort or special virtues from our side, the same way you can put a person who cannot walk on a plane, and that person is assured of being faster than the fastest human being even if he/she cannot walk. Amida saves people of all kinds, especially those who cannot achieve Buddhahood by themselves (with all their evil and relentless foolishness). He just takes them onboard the great ship of His vow and delivers them to the safe shore of Perfect Buddhahood. All that is required from the people onboard Amida’s Salvation is that they accept Amida’s help with faith and recite His Name at least once. We will explore the basics of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, the school of faith in Amida’s Primal Vow of Salvation based on the teachings of Shinran Shonin and the 7 Jodo Shinshu patriarchs. First we will briefly explain the most important teachings that Shakyamuni Buddha gave on Amida Buddha and His Pure Land, then the three Vows of salvation (which explain 351 the ways in which beings can be born in His Land) and finally we will explain that the principal vow is the 18 th (which only has three elements, to say Amida’s name, have faith in his primal vow, and wish to be born in His Pure Land) as this vow is the vow that embraces ALL beings, irrespective of their capacities, and takes them to the Heart/center of His Pure Land to attain Enlightenment. In the next chapter we will explore the many incredible enlightened characteristics of Amida’s Pure Land and the beings there. Understanding Amida Buddha, His Pure Land and The salvation he offers through the lens of the Primal Vow as explained by Master Shinran Shonin: These are the three main Pure Land Sutras that are revered in the Jodo Shinshu School and in most Pure Land Schools in Mahayana Buddhism. These are the Sutras in which the Buddha solely focuses on Amida Buddha and His Pure Land (Sukhavati). 1. The Sukhavativyuha (in Sanskrit) The Sutra on the Buddha of Immensurable Life, sometimes called “The Infinite Life Sutra”. It is also called The Larger Sutra because it is the longest of the three Pure Land Sutras. In Japanese it is called Busetsu Muryoju Kyo 2. The Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra. Also called “The contemplation sutra”. In Japanese it is called Busetsu Kamuryoju Kyo 3. The Shorter Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, the “The smaller sutra” also called the “The Amitabha Sutra” is the shortest of the three sutras. In Japanese it is called Busetsu Amida kyo. 352 It is not my intention to describe each sutra, but I will share a brief overview of the main themes of these teachings. The larger sutra is the most important one since this sutra is the principal one in the Jodo Shinshu School as it describes the 18th Vow/the Primordial Vow which is the heart of this sutra according to Shinran Shonin. This is done superbly by my teacher Josho Adrian Cirlea in his fine books “Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life” and “The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism”.156 In the first book he also includes a thorough analysis of all the 48 vows that Amitabha accomplished. So I highly recommend reading these books. An overview of Amida’s salvation as recorded in the Pure Land Sutras: The Larger Sutra contains the teachings given by Shakyamuni Buddha on Amida Buddha, He tells the story of Dharmakara Bodhisattva and how He established 48 vows157 to benefit Both books can be downloaded in Amidaji Temple’s Official website: http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/p/the-true-teaching-onamida-buddha-and.html 157 Amida’s 48 vows will be expressed in the next chapter. They can be classified into these 4 categories made by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea on his book “Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life”: page 82, in that book you will also find the 48 vows thoroughly explained one by one. You can download this book for free in Amidaji Temple’s website along with the rest of the books written by the author: http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/p/the-true-teaching-onamida-buddha-and.html 4 categories to understand Amida’s 48 Vows At the moment Dharmakara became Amida Buddha, His 48 vows and His Pure Land became real and effective methods for the salvation of sentient beings. For a better understanding, I arranged them in four categories: 156 353 sentient beings and then fulfilled them when he became Amida Buddha. These vows describe the enlightened qualities of His Pure Land, those of the beings there and the methods by which they can be born in His Pure Land. It is taught by Shakyamuni that Dharmakara achieved Enlightenment and became Amida Buddha 10 kalpas ago 158. 1. Vows about Amida Buddha and His Pure Land vows 12, 13, 31, 32 2. Vows related to the salvation of all sentient beings vows 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 33, 35 3.Vows explaining the characteristics, the capacities and activities of beings who attained Enlightenment in the Pure Land after being born there. These beings are sometimes called „humans and devas in my land”, Sravakas in my land” or bodhisattvas in my land”. (vows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15,16, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 38, 39, 40, 46) 4.Vows related to bodhisattvas in other lands not yet born in the Pure Land)(vows 34, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48 Among all the 48 vows, Shinran Shonin paid attention only to some while ignoring the rest. Why is that? Because not all the vows of Amida Buddha are directly related with our salvation as ordinary beings or they do not contain references that might be useful to us here in this present life. According to my classification we can say that the first two categories of vows are especially mentioned in Shinran’s writings. Commentary on the Sutra on The Buddha of Infinite Life by Rev. Jōshō Adrian Cirlea translated by Kōshō Arana, Dharma Lion Publications, 2020, Craiova, p 82 158 According to Buddhist cosmology as we have seen in page 262-264 there is an infinite number of universes in the ten directions, each world-system is composed of many worlds each possessing the 6 realms of samsara. Universes nevertheless differ from one another in terms of the physical laws that govern their environment and in the vast cosmic cycles they undergo the lifespan of its inhabitants change dramatically. It is mention in the shastras that when a universe is originated by the collective karma of beings it is born with a great amount of energy since it is the first impulse, so to say, and thus the inhabitants of the first cycles of a given universe possess great lifespans. So the lifespans of sentient beings vary greatly among universes and also depending on which cosmic cycle they are undergoing. 354 Shakyamuni Buddha also says that Amida spent 5 kalpas contemplating his vows (that is 5 kalpas in deep meditation and contemplation of His particular Vows to establish the best Pure Land to benefit sentient beings) He was guided by the Buddha of that remote era called Lokesvararaja Buddha who instructed him on the different qualities of the different Buddha-Lands. With that guidance Dharmakara was able to reflect on the special spiritual practices he would do to manifest His incomparable Pure Land, Sukhavati and thus bring forth the future salvation of all sentient beings in Samsara. Sukhavati as described by Shakyamuni is awe-inspiring: It is an emanation of Nirvana itself, the ground is made of gold, it has jewel trees that emit holy sounds and induce natural Samadhi on its inhabitants, birds that preach the Dharma, rain of flowers and Lotuses of light, (all of these incredible manifestations are direct blessings of Amida Buddha). Amida’s Pure Land also has billions upon billions of holy beings and from the Pure Land one can easily access all the lands of all the Buddhas in the numerous universes. Sukhavati is the crowning jewel of all the vast transcendental realms of the Buddhas, therefore, this incredible realm is connected to all the Buddha-Lands, the When a universe is going through its last cycles before its dissolution the life span of sentient beings is lowered due to the lack of energy that is available in a given universe as a whole. This is why the lifespan of the beings in the remote era in which Dharmakara Bodhisattva lived seems to us to vast (43 kalpas according to Shakyamuni Buddha); it is because lifespans vary according to the universe and the specific cycles the undergo. As this subject is very vast I recommend the reader this book in case one desires go deep into this subject of Buddhist cosmology. Treasury of Knowledge- Myriad Worlds by the Tibetan Buddhist sage Jamgon Kongtrul. Kalu Rinpoche Translation group. Pdf. Snow Lion Publicatgions, Ithaka, Boulder Colorado, 2003. 355 same way a great capital city has all types of roads that lead to it. Beings are born there in Lotuses and they are never reborn in samsara ever again; they are assured of Buddhahood, sooner or later (depending by which vow the enter if it is the 19 th or 20th vow they have to wait for some time in the Borderland but if they access it through the 18th vow, the primal vow, they will attain Enlightenment immediately upon their birth there, in the Recompensed Land159). Other vows state that Amida’s light will be unlimited in the universe and His lifespan will also be unlimited. All beings there have the same perfect immortal bodies of gold and possess all manner of spiritual powers, which include the heavenly eye and heavenly ear, which allows beings in Sukhavati to hear and see other Buddha Lands and samsaric universes. They can easily see or hear whatever sentient being they wish in the three realms in order to benefit them. They can also travel wherever they want in the different Buddha-Lands and therefore visit millions of Buddhas and learn from them. They can also manifest countless Nirmanakaya bodies Amida’s Pure Land has two aspects: The Borderland is where beings that still have doubts about Amida, by clinging to their own merits, are born. They have to wait there for some time until they overcome their doubts and are finally born in the recompensed Land. They never fall back to samsara; but they are not yet Enlightened due to their doubts. The Recompensed Land: is the center or the heart of Sukhavati/Amida’s Pure Land. Beings born there attain Supreme Buddhahood the first moment they arrive there by being directly exposed to Amida’s Powerful Light. They become Enlightened Bodhisattvas like Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta; always benefiting sentient beings by emanating numberless Nirmanakaya bodies through different universes (just like Amida Buddha and all the many Buddhas) to benefit sentient beings, leading them towards Enlightenment. 159 356 throughout the ten directions and in that way benefit countless beings.Amitabha also promises that beings born there will return as enlightened beings to various samsaric worlds in order to benefit sentient beings. The most important vows that Amida made are basically 3, which are the vows of salvation, that is, the vows that describe the way in which sentient beings can be born in the Pure Land. The 18th 19th and 20th vows , are of vital importance for without them the wondrous rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land would be impossible. In those vows he describes the ways in which sentient beings can create a bond with Him and therefore be benefited by all His great vows. The most important vow is the 18th vow (the primal vow of salvation) which says: "If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings of the ten quarters who sincerely entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and say my Name perhaps even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain the supreme Enlightenment. Excluded are those who commit the five grave offenses and those who slander the right Dharma."160 This vow states that Amida Buddha will take to his Pure Land ALL BEINGS (in the ten directions in the myriads of samsaric universes) who just recite His Holy name with faith and sincerity (“even just ten times”, this means there’s 160 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p. 7. 357 not a fixed number of recitations. It could be even just one recitation of His Name). This is called the Primordial vow/the primal vow of salvation because here Amida is assuring those who have faith in Him and say his name even once can be born in His Pure Land easily just by relying on Him alone and not any other practice or personal merit. This element is of extreme importance. According to the Pure Land Sutras Amida Buddha can save a sentient being by taking a sentient being to His Pure Land, and therefore liberating him/her from samsara forever and giving him/her Supreme Buddhahood. This includes an evil person like a criminal who has not done even ONE good action in His entire life. The only thing that is required is FAITH, a SINCERE DESIRE TO BE BORN THERE, and to RECITE AMIDA’S NAME EVEN JUST ONCE. Rev. Cirlea explains that the so called “exclusion” is not really and exclusion since we find in the Contemplation Sutra that Amida can save even a person who has committed the 5 grave offenses, because if Amida’s salvation is unconditional then it means he can save ALL beings, without being limited by their evil karma. : “In the Contemplation Sutra the situation is completely different. Here Shakyamuni Buddha tells Ananda and Vaidehi that a man lying on his death bed and who committed „such evils as the five grave offenses, the ten evil acts, and all kinds of immorality” and who, if left to the mercy of his evil karma, he „would fall into the evil realms and suffer endless agony for many kalpas”, can be born in the Pure Land if he meets a good spiritual teacher, listens to his advice and says Namo Amida Butsu even ten times: 358 “When he is about to die, he may meet a good teacher, who consoles him in various ways, teaching him the wonderful Dharma and urging him to be mindful of the Buddha; but he is too tormented by pain to do so. The good teacher then advises him, ‘If you cannot concentrate (meditate) on the Buddha then you should say that you take refuge in the Buddha of Immeasurable Life ’. In this way, he sincerely and continuously says, ‘I take refuge in the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (Namo Amida Butsu) ten times. Because he calls the Buddha’s Name, with each repetition the evil karma that would bind him to birth and death for eighty kotis of kalpas is extinguished. When he comes to die, he sees before him a golden lotus flower like the disk of the sun, and in an instant he is born within a lotus bud in the Land of Utmost Bliss.” This is a hint at the Primal Vow, where to say Nembutsu even ten times is mentioned as the assurance of birth in the Pure Land! Thus, we should look to the above passage as a proof that those who did the five grave offenses are not really excluded from Amida’s salvation. After presenting the same passage as the above from the Contemplation Sutra, Master T’an- Luan explained it as follows: From the evidence of this sutra, we clearly see that ordinary people of the lowest grade are all enabled to be born in the 359 Pure Land through faith in the Buddha, if they do not abuse the right Dharma”.161 The so called “exclusion” is just a skillful method that Amida Buddha employs in the Larger Sutra to warn His future Disciples that he doesn’t want them to engage in evil actions, even though He saves specially those beings that commit evil due to their relentless ignorance. Rev Josho Sensei explains that this is like a warning for crazy and naughty kids that don’t behave, the same way a mother sometimes reprimands her children. Amida saves all beings from samsara but still He knows that some disciples would presume on being saved and forget all moral codes willingly, This could be compared to a child that knows that his /her parents won’t do anything to punish him/her so the child breaks all the things in the house and laughs, because the child knows he/she is safe. Of course Amida’s love and power know no bounds but that doesn’t mean disciples are allowed and congratulated by Amida for doing evil deeds. This is exactly why Shakyamuni and Amida encourage us to be good and compassionate towards other beings and live a descent and moral live, but in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, whatever individual moral action or effort HAS NOTHING TO DO with Amida’s salvation. We are saved by Amida Buddha no matter what we do, be it good or evil, or neutral. Amida’s Primal vow is above whatever we can or can’t do so we just entrust to it and are naturally saved in Amida’s embrace. 161 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p 83-85 360 The only true exclusion from the Primordial vow is to “slander the right Dharma”. It means to insult the Dharma or deny it, by saying that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas don’t exist, or that the Dharma is false or speaking evilly against the BuddhaDharma. This exclusion is obvious because if you deny the existence of Amida Buddha and the story of Amida as taught by Shakyamuni Buddha, you are excluding yourself from the Primal vow. If you consider Amida to be a myth or just fiction, why would you want to be born in His Pure Land? It simply does not make sense, As Jodo Shinshu Patriarch Master TanLuan says: “Question 3): What are the characteristics of slandering the right Dharma? Answer: Saying there is no Buddha, no Buddha-Dharma, no Bodhisattva, no Bodhisattva-Dharma. Deciding on such views, whether through understanding thus in one's own mind or receiving the ideas from others, is called slandering the right Dharma.”(Master Tan-Luan) (Rev Cirlea) The Master’s answer is very logical. To deny the existence of transcendent Buddhas, including Amida, with their various manifestations is, according to him and Shinran who quoted him, the most evil act of slandering the right Dharma. This means that those who consider the story told by Shakyamuni in the Larger Sutra, of Dharmakara Bodhisattva becoming Amida Buddha, to be a fictional story, and Dharmakara or Amida to be fictional characters, symbols or metaphors, are actually saying, “there was no Dharmakara Bodhisattva” and “ there is no Amida Buddha”. 361 Their act of denying the existence of Amida Buddha in His transcendental form (Dharmakaya of Expediency/Sambhogakaya aspect) or the Body (Aspect) for the sake of saving sentient beings is abusing the right Dharma. For this reason, those who spread such distorted visions automatically exclude themselves from birth in the Pure Land”162 So the exclusion of the Primordial vow is the only logical one: to deny the existence of Amida as real and breathing Buddha that offers salvation from samsara and the transcendental place that is the result of that desire to save beings (Amida’s Pure Land). Amida doesn’t take beings by force to His Pure Land; so, if you don’t want to go there or if you don’t believe in Amida then you simply won’t be reborn in the Pure Land as a consequence. Reverend Cirlea makes it very clear that if you have slandered the Dharma in the past that doesn’t automatically exclude you from the primordial vow if you have repented and changed your mind and heart. Being reborn is the Pure Land is possible even for a person that has insulted the Dharma all his Life but in the last hours or minutes profoundly and sincerely repents from his evil actions and entrusts himself to Amida Buddha with all his heart and mind. Such is the power of Amida’s compassion. Of course we shouldn’t wait until our death to develop this faith in Amida, but we should try to awaken faith in our lives before we are at the verge of death. 162 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018 p 91-94 362 So the Primordial Vow of Amida Buddha is the most important Vow He made for the benefit of all sentient beings. Other Pure Land Schools focus on practices that are not entirely related with Amida’s power as they include elements of mixed faith, that is, some limited faith in Amida and some faith in personal merits and self-effort practices such as visualizations, rituals, meditation, self-purification or any Dharmic action that can be dedicated as individual merit for birth in the Pure Land. These practitioners, who still possess a partial belief on their merits and self-power practices, are under the umbrella of the 19th and 20th vows. As Reverend Cirlea explains: “In the 19th Vow Amida promised that those who do various meritorious deeds in order to be born in the Pure Land will be welcomed by Him into the Pure Land. The various meritorious deeds mean they continue to practice some kinds of meditative and non-meditative practices. For example, whenever they do a visualization or contemplation of Amida in accord with the Contemplation Sutra or even when they do other meditation techniques (meditative practices), when they observe precepts, do a good deed like saving a life, abstaining from meat (non-meditative practices), etc., they think this will help them to be born in Amida’s Pure Land and actually transfer the merit of these practices (meditative or nonmeditative) toward their future birth there. 363 Usually followers of various schools do meditation practices or observe precepts, etc., in order to become a Buddha in this life, like Shakyamuni, but practitioners of the 19th Vow change the goal of these meditative and non-meditative practices towards attaining Buddhahood in the Pure Land of Amida. They change the direction of their Buddhist practice toward Amida Buddha. This is the difference between them and other Buddhists, and this difference makes them enter Amida’s influence and guidance. In the 20th Vow Amida promised that those who exclusively say His Name even though they consider this recitation to be their own virtue and a practice that depends on their own capacities will also be born in the Pure Land. So, the followers of the 20th Vow make another important step further into the Light of Amida Buddha. They do not stop at meditative and non-meditative practices, but among all practices they choose only one, which is to say the Name of Amida. However, they are still dependent on their own power and their faith in Amida is not absolute.”163 So I finally realized that people who think they add something to Amida’s salvation are actually holding on to their own power. If you dedicate merits to your birth in the Pure Land it simply means that you don’t believe in Amida 100% yet. It is as simple as that. Of course as we have explained Buddhas have different methods for different types of people, so the complex visualizations mentioned in the Contemplation sutra 163 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2018 p. 121-134 364 or the Tibetan Phowa practices can clearly lead a person to the Pure Land, BUT they are only provisional methods tailored for practitioners who cannot entrust completely to Amida’s Salvation yet as they still have some faith (however minimum) in their OWN practices and merits. Amida Buddha has tremendous compassion since as we see in His 19th and 20th vows He can even save people that don’t rely on him completely. The two Aspects of Amida’s Pure Land: As Reverend Cirlea explains; according to the sutras and the commentaries of the Pure Land Patriarchs, being born in the Pure Land gives everyone the benefit of not falling ever again in Samsara as an unenlightened being. This is called nonretrogression as we explained earlier on. The moment a being is born in Sukhavati he is free from Samsara forever and he is assured of future Buddhahood. Nevertheless the practitioners who enter the Pure Land by the gates of the 20th and 19th vows don’t go directly to directly meet Amida, but they are kept in a sort of “waiting room” because of their own doubts. This aspect of the Pure Land is called the “Border Land” “The Womb Palace” or the “City of Doubt, pride and Sloth”. It is compared by Shakyamuni Buddha to a prison made of gold filled with luxuries fit for a prince who is kept there momentarily by the King. The prince in this analogy represents all the practitioners who still cling to their own merits and wisdom and have mixed faith in Amida. It must be realized that those born there are not there as a punishment by Amida; they are kept there due to their own doubts and they will eventually 365 overcome them, as the Pure Land is a place of nonretrogression to Samsara. Once they receive complete faith in Amida they will see Him and achieve Enlightenment in His Presence. As Reverend Cirlea explains the Pure Land can be compared to a house. A House has a main room and less important rooms. The beings that are reborn in the Pure Land by the gate of the Primal Vow (18th) are reborn in the highest aspect of the Pure Land, that is called the True Recompensed Land or Fulfilled Land and beings that are born by the gates of the 19th and 20th vows are born in the Transformed Land. Both the Transformed Land and the Recompensed Land are manifestations of the same Pure Land, so we must not think they are fundamentally separate planes of existence. They are in fact skillful means of Amida’s boundless compassion that extend even to beings that don’t rely on Amida completely. 164 In the Contemplation Sutra Shakyamuni Buddha provides teachings on different Visualizations of Amida’s Pure Land that some practitioners can perform. According to Master Shinran the fact that practitioners are divided into different grades/levels of spiritual accomplishment in the Contemplation Sutra means that the aspect of the Pure Land that is described in the Contemplation Sutra is the This is explained in the Chapter called “Birth in the Borderland of the Pure Land” in the book The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2018 p. 121-134 164 366 aspect of the Transformed Land, since in the heart of the Pure Land (the center of Sukhavati, also called the True Recompensed Land) All the practitioners are described as of one appearance and with the same Enlightened capacities. As we read Rev. Cirlea’s explanation: As Master Shantao called it, birth in the Fulfilled Land of the Pure Land is called “Inconceivable Birth” and all those born there “are endowed with bodies of Naturalness, Emptiness, and Infinity”. To have bodies of Naturalness, Emptiness and Infinity means to become a Buddha or to attain perfect Enlightenment. The Pure Land in the aspect of the Transformed Land (border land of the Pure Land) is as described in the “thirteen contemplations” and the “nine grades of aspirants” from the Contemplation Sutra”165 Amida Buddha knew the different predispositions of beings (their skills and karmic tendencies) so he naturally made different gates to access the Pure Land; of course the main gate, the one that leads to instant Enlightenment without delay is the gate of the 18th vow, which is a direct entrance to the heart of the Pure Land: the Recompensed Land. In Jodo Shinshu we are encouraged to seek birth in the Recompensed Land because that means that from the first moment we arrive there we will enjoy all the benefits of the 165 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2018 p. 125, please read all this section from page 121 to134. 367 48 vows and therefore we will become a Buddha quickly for the benefit of all sentient beings. On the contrary being born in the Transformed Land would mean that a lot of time is wasted. Time is precious as it could be used to benefit countless beings in Samsara. Those with EXCLUSIVE faith in Amida are rare, since people always find ways to attach to their so called merits and virtues. They recite the name of Amida thinking that it is somehow related to their own merits and they use it as a mantra to cleanse their minds, forgetting that it’s only due to Amida that His name is powerful and effective and NOT because we say it often or seldom, or due to our state of mind. Master Shinran, and the 7 patriarchs insisted that it is Amida who saves us, and we have nothing to do with that process. As Rev. Cirlea usually explains, Amida’s vow can be compared to a person who cannot walk and is on board a plane. The fact that a person gets onboard has nothing to do with the functioning and piloting of the plane. He is just taken by the plane; in the same manner Amida takes on the Ship of His Primal Vow, and we just rely on that. To think that the Primal Vow works because of your own merits that would be like thinking that a plane works just because you are onboard. The job of saving us is Amida’s and not ours. As Master Shinran explains: “Other Power (the other power is Amida’s Power to save us) is entrusting ourselves to the Primal Vow and our birth in the Pure Land becoming firmly settled; hence, it is altogether without one’s own working. Thus, on the one hand, you 368 should not be anxious that Amida will not receive you because you do wrong. A foolish being is by nature possessed of blind passions, so you must recognize yourself as a being of karmic evil. On the other hand, you should not think that you deserve to attain Birth because you are good. You cannot be born into the true and real fulfilled land through such selfpower calculations. I have been taught that with shinjin of self-power (false shinjin/unsettled shinjin) a person can attain birth only in the realm of indolence, the borderland, the womb-palace, or the city of doubt.”166 So to believe that we are too evil to be saved by Amida is not to believe that He has a method for delivering us from Samsara and our evil karma. Likewise if we think we have to add something (like special states of mind, visualizations or virtues) to Amida’s Salvation we are also lacking settled faith (Shinjin), and therefore that unsettled faith can only lead to the Borderland and not to the Fulfilled Land (the heart of Sukhavati). It must be noted that those practitioners who engage in complex visualization practices or esoteric teachings that are focused on Amida have a big chance to fail. That was actually my greatest concern when I was trying to study Phowa practices. I thought “if I fail at creating these especial mental conditions at the moment of death then I could fail miserably and wind up in Samsara again” in the same way those practitioners that believe that reciting Amida’s name is a self-powered practice (20th vow) would have to keep reciting non-stop all their lives if they wish to be born in the Pure Land, after all if one believes that Amida only saves those who are 166 Shinran Shonin, Lamp for the Latter Ages, The Collected Works of Shinran, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, 1997, p.525-526 369 diligent and virtuous, then being focused on the Nembutsu with diligence to create a virtuous mind is the only way to be born in the Pure Land. This does not mean that Jodo Shinshu Buddhists cannot recite the Nembutsu all day long and during all their lives if they wish, but they are not obsessed with virtues, mental states or personal merit, they just say the nembutsu, enjoying it in a devotional manner, because they are already assured of their salvation (their birth in Amida’s Pure Land after death) so the nembutsu for true believers in Amida’s Primal Vow is just an expression of simple gratitude and faith. On the contrary if people believe their salvation is not assured and they get obsessed with having a virtuous state of mind while reciting the Nembutsu, as a consequence, the moment of death then becomes a crucial moment for them, as their salvation is not settled at all. As Master Shinran pointedly explains: “To believe that each time you say the Name your karmic evil is eradicated is nothing but to strive to attain Birth by eliminating your karmic evil through your own efforts. In that case, you can attain Birth only by being diligent in the Nembutsu to the very point of death, for every single thought you have throughout the course of your life is a fetter binding you to birth-and-death. But since our karmic recompense restricts us, we may, meeting with various unforeseen accidents or being tormented by the pain of sickness, reach the end of our lives without dwelling in right-mindedness; in 370 such circumstances, saying the Name is difficult. How then is the karmic evil committed in that final interval to be eradicated? If it is not eliminated, is not Birth unattainable? […] The desire to eradicate one's karmic evil through saying the Name arises from the heart of self-power; it is the basic intent of people who pray to be in a state of right- mindedness when their lives end. It therefore reveals an absence of shinjin that is Other Power."167 Even if the Buddhist practitioners that engage in mixed practices to attain birth in the Pure Land are completely successful at those practices (like Phowa or other visualizations) they are clearly born in the transformed land since they put so much effort into self-powered practices and not in Amida’s Primal Vow. Nevertheless Amida has compassion for all beings and He does not abandon them, but, His main goal is to quickly save ALL beings in the simplest and most effective way through His Primal Vow. The teachings that relate Amida’s salvation with some sort of personal merit have only a provisional value, and they are tailored precisely for those beings obsessed with practices and personal merits, Amida is aware of those types of practitioners nevertheless if we deeply reflect on Amida’s Vows we will realize that His Primordial Intention is to save ALL beings, no matter if they are clumsy at meditation or visualizations; so the Vow that takes all beings under Amida’s wings is the 18th which only requires faith and reciting His name. This is why entering the 167 Shinran Shonin, Tannisho, chapter XIV, The Collected Works of Shinran, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, 1997, p.673 371 Pure Land through the gate of the Primal Vow, can be compared to entering a grand ship by its main entrance like a royal guest; since it is Amida who is inviting us on to His Pure Land; He is kindly asking us to take His hand and become Buddhas in His Pure Land. He is saying something like this: “Sentient beings, you are like my own children, I will not wait for you to become perfect to save you; I have taken care of your Buddhahood in my Pure Land, just come to me as you are, have faith in my primal vow, say my name and you will surely be born in my Land. Nothing else is required from you” Using the Ship analogy again, Amida is like the captain of a Ship (Amida’s Pure Land) and He is openly inviting all people in town (in all samsara) to board His ship. Nevertheless His ship is boarded by two types of people: those who paid attention to the personal invitation made by the captain Himself (Amida) and are then welcomed as royal guests by the crew (Enlightened Bodhisattvas of the Pure Land) and the captain (Amida) and the other type of people are those who fail to listen to the Captain’s open offering to all who are self-deluded and decide to board the ship through dangerous ways like attempting to jump into the ship not by the main entrance but by a window or jumping straight into the deck thinking that they have been clever to have gotten aboard, but in reality they were completely foolish because everyone was invited and it was for free in the first place, so in the end they needlessly endangered themselves. Nevertheless the captain allows people to enter the Ship from all angles because he wants everybody on board as soon as possible, so he makes sure they are helped by all means possible so they don’t hurt themselves attempting to get on board. The people that got into the ship foolishly 372 ignoring the main entrance and the open invitation, have a strange attitude of “heroes” or “secret agents”, they are sort of confused in the ship, so they don’t join the main room of the Ship (Amida’s Recompensed Land, where all beings get Enlightened at once) like the guests that entered the ship from the Main Entrance (The gate of Amida’s Primal Vow, 18th), so they are kindly taken to a separate room in a lower deck of the ship, that is quite comfortable, where they are calmed by the crew, that patiently explain them that they don’t need to have that “hero” attitude, because the Captain openly invited everyone on board; so as soon those people realize how foolish they were, they join the main hall and enjoy the beauty of the open skies with the Captain, the crew and all the people who keep coming in. “The hero attitude” in this analogy is the attitude of those beings who think they are in the Pure Land because they have done great spiritual practices with some blessings given by Amida. They trusted Amida would help them to be born in His Pure Land but nevertheless they falsely claim that their own merits and practices had a little or a lot to do with their present situation in Amida’s Pure Land, which is actually the aspect of the Border Land (the lower deck, in the previous analogy). There they have some time to calm down and acknowledge that the Enlightenment they seek in Amida’s Pure Land can only be provided by Amida’s infinite merits; so once they abandon their obsession with individual practices and completly entrust themselves to Amida (leaving everything related to their Enlightenment in Amida’s Hands) they will leave the border Land and attain Enlightenment in Amida’s Recompensed Land/The heart of Sukhavati. Actually they then finally realize 373 that they were born in the Border Land due to the mixed faith they had in Amida and certainly not because of the so called “merits” they think they cultivated. So, basically, they understood it all backwards, but since 19th and 20th vow practitioners have some amount of mixed faith, Amida never forsakes them. The border land as Shakyamuni describes, can be compared to a royal building that is meant to keep a prince inside for a limited amount of time, where he is provided with all manner of comforts; nevertheless the beings there don’t enjoy being there so much as they know that Enlightenment will not be attained until they get out from that place (however comfortable it may be). As Shakyamuni explains, those beings born in the border Land are born in an embryonic form, as little Lotus buds, not yet opened. This means those beings are not yet developed and they still need some purification (to purify their doubts, and entrust themselves completely to Amida’s Power) before entering the center of Amida’s Pure Land. We read in the Larger Sutra: “Let us suppose that a wheel-turning monarch (the model of a Powerful and virtuous monarch) has a special chamber that is adorned with the seven kinds of jewels and provided with curtained couches and silken banners hanging from the ceiling. If princes have committed an offense against the king, they are taken to that chamber and fettered with gold chains. There they are served with food and drink and provided with clothes, couches and cushions, flowers and incense; and they can enjoy music. Being treated just like the wheel- turning monarch 374 himself, they have no wants. Do you think that those princes would enjoy living there?” “No, they would not,” replied Maitreya. “They would seek various means of approach to ask a person of power to help them escape.” The Buddha said to Maitreya, “Those beings born within the lotus buds are like that. Because of their doubt of the Buddha’s wisdom they have been born in palaces. Although they receive no punishment or ill treatment even for a single moment, they must pass five hundred years there without being able to see the Three Treasures, make offerings to the Buddha, or cultivate a store of virtue. This is distressing to them. Though there are other pleasures, they do not enjoy living there. “If those beings become aware of the faults committed in their former lives and deeply repent, they can, as they wish, leave and go to where Amitāyus dwells.”168 Amida offers His salvation to all beings and He doesn’t demand ANYTHING from us, He does all the work, He is actually asking us to take His hand. We have all the chances to fail at complex practices to be born in the Pure Land (like initiations by Gurus, virtues and visualizations), I certainly know I could not have done them even if had no other choice. Sadly many beings doubt the Supreme Blessings of the Primal Vow and they try to board the Ship of Amida’s salvation in dangerous ways, trying to jump high over samsara’s treacherous waves to get to the deck 168 The Three Pure Land Sutras -A Study and Translation from the Chinese by Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Kyoto, 2003 p 59 375 when the only thing that Amida asks is that they safely enter the main gate as royal guests in the Ship of His perfect Salvation. (The Primordial Vow of Salvation) We should by all means be born in Amida’s Pure Land through the safest and supreme gate of the Primal Vow. As Shinran insisted time and time again, we should not endanger ourselves by trying to be wiser than Amida and mix our faith with practices that are not mentioned in the 18th vow. As Yuien-bo, disciple of Shinran wrote in the Tannisho: “How sad it would be to abide in the borderland instead of being born directly into the fulfilled land, even though one has the fortune of saying the Nembutsu”169 How sad indeed it would be to fail at those demanding practices, holding on to our deluded egos and to be reborn in Samsara again or in the Borderland (where a lot of precious time is wasted), when the Salvation offered by Amida is so simple and specially designed to deliver ALL beings from Samsara, irrespective of their spiritual skills. 169 Postscript of Tannisho, The Collected Works of Shinran, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, 1997, p.680 376 Amida’s Pure Land: The Supreme Enlightened Realm After covering the basic elements of Amida’s salvation as explained by Master Shinran, we will see now the wonders of Sukhavati, Amida’s Pure Land and how adequate it is as a place to bless sentient beings with Buddhahood compared to the terrible conditions of Samsaric existence. As we explained in the section dedicated to the Noble Realms and the Three-Buddha Bodies; the Pure Lands are enlightened realms manifested by Buddhas to benefit sentient beings (leading them to Buddhahood) Among the millions of Buddha Lands that exist Amida’s Pure Land is the most splendid Pure Land. We must remember that all Buddhas share the same Dharmakaya body (the Ultimate Body beyond name and form) but they differ in their vows to save sentient beings. When Amida was Bodhisattva Dharmakara in the remote past Buddha Lokesvararaja was His Master; and from the very beginning Lokesvararaja Buddha recognized something special in Dharmakara Bodhisattva. He was not an ordinary being who wanted to become enlightened but He wanted to do something unique and precious for sentient beings. Dharmakara expressed the Noble desire to create the greatest and most perfect Buddha-Land among all other Buddha-Lands. We read in the Larger Sutra: (Dharmakara is expressing His Noble aspiration here:) 377 “Even though the Buddha lands are as incalculable As the sands of the Ganges River, And other regions and worlds Are also without number, My light shall reach everywhere, Pervading all those lands Such being the result of my efforts, My glorious power will be immeasurable. When I have become a Buddha, My land shall be most exquisite And its people wonderful and unexcelled; The seat of enlightenment will be supreme. My land, being like nirvana itself, Will be beyond comparison. I take pity on living beings And resolve to save them all. Those who come from the ten directions Will find joy and serenity of heart; When they reach my land, They shall dwell in peace and happiness. I beg you, the Buddha, to become my witness And to vouch for the truth of my aspiration. Having now made my vows to you, I will strive to fulfill them. The World-honored Ones in the ten directions Have unhindered wisdom; I call upon those Revered Ones 378 To bear witness to my intention. Even though I must remain In a state of extreme pain, I will diligently practice, Enduring all hardships with tireless vigor.” 170 Such were the noble aspirations of Dharmakara Bodhisattva. He wanted to save ALL sentient beings in a way that was unprecedented in scale, by creating a Land exceeding all others in all the universes, He asked the Buddhas of the ten directions to bear witness of his desire and resolution. After that Dharmakara asked Buddha Lokesvararaja to show Him the specific qualities of the Buddha-Lands in the ten directions as to study them in detail and find a way to improve its qualities and blessings in His own future Pure Land. We read a beautiful and wise answer from Buddha Lokesvararaja in the Larger sutra: I announce that I have awakened aspiration for highest, perfect enlightenment. I beseech you to explain the Dharma to me fully, so that I can perform practices for the establishment of a pure Buddha land adorned with innumerable excellent qualities. So please teach me how to attain enlightenment quickly and to remove the roots of the afflictions of birth and death of all.’” The Buddha said to Ananda, 170 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 9- 10 379 “At that time Buddha Lokesvararaja replied to Bhiksu Dharmakara, ‘You yourself should know by what practice you can establish a glorious Buddha land.’ The Bhiksu said to the Buddha, ‘That is far too vast and deep for my comprehension. I sincerely beseech you, World honored One, to explain in detail the practices by which Buddha Tathagatas established their pure lands. After I hear that, I wish to practice as instructed and so fulfill my aspirations.’ “At that time Buddha Lokesvararaja recognized Bhiksu Dharmakara´s noble and high aspirations and taught him as follows: ‘If, for example, one keeps on bailing water out of a great ocean with a pint measure, one will be able to reach the bottom after many kalpas and then obtain rare treasures. Likewise, if one sincerely, diligently, and unceasingly seeks the Way, one will be able to reach one’s destination. What vow is there that cannot be fulfilled?’ “Then Buddha Lokesvararaja explained in detail the greater and lesser aspects of two hundred and ten kotis of Buddha lands, together with the good and evil natures of heavenly and human beings living there. He revealed them all to the Bhiksu just as he had requested. Then the Bhiksu, having heard the Buddha’s exposition of the glorious pure lands and also having seen all of them, resolved upon his supreme, unsurpassed vows. His mind being serene and his aspirations free of attachment, he was unexcelled throughout the world. For five full kalpas he contemplated the vows and then chose the 380 pure practices for the establishment of his Buddha land.”171 After that Buddha Lokesvararaja showed Dharmakara myriads of Buddha-Lands in order to help Dharmakara establish the unsurpassable Pure Land he envisioned. This is a clear example of how Buddhas selflessly collaborate with each other and are always working for the salvation of sentient beings. After Dharmakara Bodhisattva carefully studied these vastly numerous Buddha-Lands He contemplated His vows for 5 kalpas. After that, He revealed His 48 Vows which I will show here and latter explain the most important ones describing some of Amida’s inconceivable Enlightened Qualities and the unique blessings of His Pure Land. The vows always commence with the phrase “if when I attain Buddhahood” and they end with the phrase “May I not attain perfect enlightenment” which means that Dharmakara will not attain enlightenment if the 48 vows he proclaims are not perfectly fulfilled. As Rev Cirlea explains the terms “devas and humans in my land” doesn’t mean actual humans and devas which are samsaric beings, but they denote the most common places where beings come from, that is deva-realms and the human-realms in the different universes in the ten directions. 171 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 11-12 381 The 48 Vows of Amida Buddha172 1. If, when I attain Buddhahood, there should be in my land a hell, a realm of hungry ghosts, or a realm of animals, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 2. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should after death fall again into the three evil realms, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 3. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not all be the color of pure gold, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 4. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not all be of one appearance, and should there be any difference in their beauty, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 5. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not remember all their former lives, not knowing at least the events that occurred during the previous hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of kalpas, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 6. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not possess the divine eye of seeing at least a hundred 172 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 12-18 382 thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha lands, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 7. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not possess the divine ear of hearing the teachings of at least a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddhas and should not remember all of them, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 8. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not possess the faculty of knowing the thoughts of others, at least those of all sentient beings living in a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha-lands, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 9. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not possess the supernatural power of traveling anywhere in one instant, even beyond a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha lands, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 10. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should give rise to thoughts of self-attachment, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 11. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not dwell in the definitely assured stage and unfailingly reach nirvana, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 12. If, when I attain Buddhahood, my light should be limited, illuminating even a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha lands, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 383 13. If, when I attain Buddhahood, my lifespan should be limited, even to the extent of a hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of kalpas, may I not attain perfect enlightenment 14. If, when I attain Buddhahood, the number of the śrāvakas in my land could be known, even if all the beings and pratyekabuddhas living in this universe of a thousand million worlds should count them during a hundred thousand kalpas, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 15. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should have limited lifespans, except when they wish to shorten them in accordance with their original vows, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 16. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should even hear of any wrongdoing, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 17. If, when I attain Buddhahood, innumerable Buddhas in the lands of the ten directions should not all praise and glorify my Name, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 18. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten directions who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and think of me even ten times6 should not be born there, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. Excluded, however, are those who commit the five grave offenses and abuse the Right Dharma. 384 19. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten directions who awaken aspiration for enlightenment, do various meritorious deeds, and sincerely desire to be born in my land, should not, at their death, see me appear before them surrounded by a multitude of sages, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 20. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten directions who, having heard my Name, concentrate their thoughts on my land, plant roots of virtue, and sincerely transfer their merits toward my land with a desire to be born there should not eventually fulfill their aspiration, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 21. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not all be endowed with the thirty-two physical characteristics of a great being, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 22. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the Buddha lands of the other directions who visit my land should not ultimately and unfailingly reach the stage of becoming a Buddha after one more life, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. Excepted are those who wish to teach and guide sentient beings in accordance with their original vows. For they will wear the armor of great vows, accumulate merit, deliver all beings from birth and death, visit buddha lands to perform the bodhisattva practices, make offerings to buddha Tathagatas throughout the ten directions, enlighten countless sentient beings as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, and establish them in highest, perfect enlightenment. Such 385 bodhisattvas transcend the course of practice of ordinary bodhisattvas, manifest the practices of all the bodhisattva stages, and cultivate the virtues of Samantabhadra. 23. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in my land who would make offerings to Buddhas through my divine power should not be able to reach immeasurable and innumerable koṭis of nayutas of Buddha lands in as short a time as it takes to eat a meal, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 24. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in my land should not be able, as they wish, to perform meritorious acts of worshiping the Buddhas with the offerings of their choice, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 25. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in my land should not be able to expound the Dharma with all-knowing wisdom, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 26. If, when I attain Buddhahood, there should be any bodhisattva in my land not endowed with the body of the Vajra god Nārāyaṇa, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 27. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings should be able, even with the divine eye, to distinguish by name and calculate by number all the myriads of manifestations provided for the humans and devas in my land, which will be glorious and resplendent and have exquisite details beyond description, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 386 28. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in my land, even those with little store of merit, should not be able to see the Bodhi tree, which has immeasurable light in countless colors and is four million li in height, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 29. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in my land should not acquire eloquence and wisdom in upholding sutras and reciting and expounding them, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. 30. If, when I attain Buddhahood, the wisdom and eloquence of bodhisattvas in my land should be limited, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. 31. If, when I attain Buddhahood, my land should not be resplendent, revealing in its light all the immeasurable, innumerable, and inconceivable Buddha lands like images reflected in a clear mirror, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 32. If, when I attain Buddhahood, all the myriads of manifestations in my land, from the ground to the sky, such as palaces, pavilions, ponds, streams, and trees, should not be composed both of countless treasures that surpass in supreme excellence anything in the worlds of humans and devas and of a hundred thousand kinds of aromatic wood whose fragrance pervades all the worlds of the ten directions, causing all bodhisattvas who sense it to perform Buddhist practices, then may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 387 33. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the immeasurable and inconceivable Buddha lands of the ten directions who have been touched by my light should not feel peace and happiness in their bodies and minds surpassing those of humans and devas, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 34. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the immeasurable and inconceivable buddha lands of the ten directions who have heard my Name should not gain the bodhisattva’s insight into the non-arising of all dharmas and should not acquire various profound dhāraṇīs, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 35. If, when I attain Buddhahood, women in the immeasurable and inconceivable Buddha lands of the ten directions who, having heard my Name, rejoice in faith, awaken aspiration for enlightenment, and wish to renounce womanhood should after death be reborn again as women, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 36. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the immeasurable and inconceivable Buddha-lands of the ten directions who have heard my Name should not, after the end of their lives, always perform sacred practices until they reach Buddhahood, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 37. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in the immeasurable and inconceivable buddha lands of the ten directions who, having heard my Name, prostrate themselves on the ground to revere and worship me, rejoice in faith, and perform the bodhisattva practices should not be respected by all 388 devas and people of the world, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 38. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not obtain clothing as soon as such a desire arises in their minds, and if fine robes as prescribed and praised by the Buddhas should not be spontaneously provided for them to wear, and if these clothes should need sewing, bleaching, dyeing, or washing, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 39. If, when I attain Buddhahood, humans and devas in my land should not enjoy happiness and pleasure comparable to those of a monk who has exhausted all the passions, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 40. If, when I attain Buddhahood, the bodhisattvas in my land who wish to see the immeasurable glorious Buddha lands of the ten directions should not be able to view all of them reflected in the jeweled trees, just as one sees one’s face reflected in a clear mirror, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 41. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should, at any time before becoming Buddhas, have impaired, inferior, or incomplete sense organs, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 42. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should not all attain the samādhi called “pure liberation” and, while dwelling therein, should not, without losing concentration, be able to make 389 offerings in one instant to immeasurable and inconceivable Buddhas, World-honored Ones, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 43. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should not be reborn into noble families after death, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 44. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should not rejoice so greatly as to dance and perform the bodhisattva practices and should not acquire stores of merit, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 45. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should not all attain the samādhi called “universal equality” and, while dwelling therein, should not always be able to see the immeasurable and inconceivable Tathagatas until those bodhisattva 46. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in my land should not be able to hear spontaneously whatever teachings they may wish, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 47. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should not instantly reach the stage of no retrogression, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. 390 48. If, when I attain Buddhahood, bodhisattvas in the lands of the other directions who hear my Name should not instantly gain the first, second, and third insights into the nature of dharmas and firmly abide in the truths realized by all the Buddhas, may I not attain perfect enlightenment.” All of these vows were created to benefit sentient beings and lead them to Enlightenment in a profound and unique way. What Amida accomplished here is something remarkable; and for that He is praised by all Buddhas. We read in the sutra: “All Buddhas-Tathagatas in the ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, together praise the inconceivable, supernal virtue of Amitāyus”173 So the virtues of Amida (Amitabha/Amitayus) are not only praised by Shakyamuni Buddha but also by all Buddhas in the ten directions. This is something truly remarkable. All Buddhas praise and honor Amida for what he accomplished in His unsurpassable 48 Vows as they deliver ALL sentient beings irrespectively of their evil or lack of merits. That was something unheard of in all the universes. We might think that those promises are too good to be true; too sublime to be substantial, but consider Shakyamuni Buddha’s words and the testimony of so many great teachers like Nagarjuna,, Vasubandhu, Tan-Luan, Daochuo, Shantao, Genshin, Honen, Shinran and Rennyo, and countless other 173 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 31 391 monks and practitioners who have LITERALLY seen Amida, and have entrusted their karmic destiny to Him, having absolute faith in the tremendous salvation He alone offers among all other Buddhas. We shouldn’t dismiss the words of Shakyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of our world and era, and neither should we dismiss the wise words of so many great teachers, which with a single voice tell us: “Amida is real and you all should entrust to Him and be born in His Pure Land to attain Buddhahood” We must point out that something of crucial importance happened in the Larger Sutra. Shakyamuni made sure to leave a testimony of the LITERAL existence of Amida and His Pure Land for future generations. We will now read two important passages. 1. Shakyamuni Buddha taught that Amida Buddha is not only a Buddha from the distant past (neither a myth nor a legend) but a REAL Buddha that is preaching the Dharma in His Pure Land to countless sentient beings RIGHT NOW ( He was teaching 2550 years ago and He is still there benefiting beings while you are reading these pages). And 2. Shakyamuni allowed the thousands of monks and Bodhisattvas listening to Him to witness Amida Himself and the Pure Land. He didn’t want them to doubt His teaching. 1. “Has Bodhisattva Dharmakara already attained Buddhahood and then passed into nirvana? Or has he not yet attained Buddhahood? Or is he dwelling somewhere at present?” The Buddha replied to Ānanda, “Bodhisattva Dharmakara has already attained Buddhahood and is now 392 dwelling in a western Buddha-land called ‘Peace and Bliss,’ a hundred thousand koṭis of lands away from here.” Ānanda further asked the Buddha, “How much time has passed since He attained Buddhahood?” The Buddha replied, “Since He attained Buddhahood about ten kalpas have passed.”174 Ananda asked Shakyamuni Buddha if Dharmakara attained Buddhahood (and therefore accomplished all His great Vows) and if He was still alive in an individuated form and preaching the Dharma somewhere or if he had passed into Nirvana, that is, if he had passed into the ultimate Dharmakaya after using a physical body. The answer of the Buddha is a game changer for all Buddhist followers of all times. Shakyamuni said that Amida is indeed a Buddha and He is NOW dwelling in His Pure Land. He also gave a precise distance to locate Sukhavati from our Saha Samsaric Universe “a hundred thousand kotis of lands away from here”, which is an inconceivable distance considering that each Buddha-Land is the size of an entire Universe, but still it is not an infinite number, so Shakyamuni is clearly expressing the precise location of a real place. 174 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 21 393 After that we will see another crucial passage of the Larger Sutra in which Shakyamuni revealed Amida and His Pure Land to thousands of His disciples the day he taught the Infinite Life Sutra/the Larger Sutra: The Buddha said to Ānanda, “Rise to your feet, rearrange your robes, put your palms together, and respectfully revere and worship Amitāyus. Buddhas Tathagatas in the lands of the ten directions always praise with one accord that Buddha’s virtue of non-attachment and unimpeded activity.” Ānanda stood up, rearranged his robes, assumed the correct posture, faced westward, and, demonstrating his sincere reverence, joined his palms together, prostrated himself on the ground, and worshiped Amitāyus. Then he said to Shakyamuni Buddha, “World-honored One, I wish to see that Buddha, his Land of Peace and Bliss, and its hosts of bodhisattvas and Sravakas.” As soon as he had said this, Amitāyus emitted a great light, which illuminated all the Buddha lands. The Encircling Adamantine Mountains, Mount Sumeru, together with large and small mountains and everything else shone with the same [golden] color. That light was like the flood at the end of the period of cosmic change that fills the whole world, when myriads of things are submerged, and as far as the eye can see there is nothing but the vast expanse of water. Even so was the flood of light emanating from Amitāyus. All the lights of Sravakas and bodhisattvas were outshone and surpassed, and only the Buddha’s light remained shining bright and 394 glorious. At that time Ānanda saw the splendor and majesty of Amitāyus resembling Mount Sumeru, which rises above the whole world. There was no place that was not illuminated by the light emanating from his body of glory. The four groups of followers of the Buddha in the assembly saw all this at the same time. Likewise, those of the Pure Land saw everything in this world. Then the Buddha said to Ānanda and Bodhisattva Maitreya, “Have you seen that land filled with excellent and glorious manifestations, all spontaneously produced, from the ground to the Heaven of Pure Abode?” Ānanda replied, “Yes, I have.” The Buddha asked, “Have you also heard the great voice of Amitāyus expound the Dharma to all the worlds, guiding sentient beings to the Way of the Buddha?” Ānanda replied, “Yes, I have.” The Buddha further asked, “Have you also seen the inhabitants of that land move freely, riding in seven-jeweled airborne palaces as large as a hundred thousand yojanas, to worship the Buddhas of the lands in the ten directions?” “Yes, I have,” replied Ananda.”175 175 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 57 395 The Buddha clearly asked Ananda these three questions trying to confirm with his disciple that he had seen what EVERYONE in the audience saw that day: Amida, His Pure Land, and the many noble beings there right in front of their very eyes. Ananda answered “Yes, I have” three times, as a way to confirm also for us, later disciples of Shakyamuni and all Buddhas, that Amida is not a tale of a bygone age, a legend, myth or symbol, but a real, breathing and specific Buddha with a myriad blessings to give to us all. Since I have already explained the three vows of salvation 18, 19 and 20, I will now explain the basic characteristics of Amida Buddha and the main features of His Pure Land and its enlightened inhabitants. The special enlightened qualities of Amida Buddha and His Pure Land: Amida Buddha is the Buddha of Infinite Life and Light as expressed in His 12th and 13th Vows. His light is praised many times by Shakyamuni Buddha: “The majestic light of Buddha Amitāyus is the most exalted. No other Buddha’s light can match his. The light of some Buddhas illuminates a hundred Buddha lands, and that of others a thousand Buddha lands. Briefly, that of Amitayus illuminates the eastern Buddha lands as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River. In the same way, it illuminates the Buddha lands in the south, west, and north, in each of the four intermediate directions, and above and below. Further, the light of some Buddhas extends seven feet; that of others, one 396 yojana, or two, three, four, or five yojanas; and the distance covered increases in this way until the light of some Buddhas illuminates one Buddha land.”176 So here Shakyamuni praises Amida’s light and He teaches that Amida’s Light is the most exalted among the Buddhas. Buddhas are supreme enlightened beings whose skills are astonishing and inconceivable for us samsaric beings. Now consider that Shakyamuni praises Amida’s light and He puts it above all other enlightened beings. This 12 Vow is quite important as it reveals the transcendental quality of Amida’s Light, which permeates all corners of the vast universes in the ten directions. Nothing can resist Amida’s Light, and nothing is beyond its reach. This is one of the reasons Amida’s Pure Land is so famous throughout the universes; it is due to His Supreme Light which pervades the ten quarters. Amida’s magnificent Light reveals His Pure Land far and wide and thus it leads all beings to be reborn there. Amida is like a great magnet of Buddhahood, of Enlightened power, that draws all beings towards the Salvation He freely offers, His light embraces all places and beings from the lowest hellish being to the highest Bodhisattvas He will never stop emanating this light, until His wish to save all beings is accomplished. It is impossible to conceive with our limited samsaric minds Amida’s light. 176 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 22 397 Shakyamuni the Buddha of our world praises Amida’s Light, so we as His disciples should turn towards Amida’s infinite light as well and entrust to Amida’s Primordial Vow. The 13th vow states that Amida’s Life is Infinite. Amida as an enlightened being has the Dharmakaya Body (the supreme body beyond name and form), but as we have explained that doesn’t mean that Buddhas reject forms and when they attain enlightenment they get annihilated, or they melt with nothingness. Buddhas also manifest transcendental forms (Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya) 177 which help sentient beings to awaken (those compassionate forms are manifested out of their Transcendental Dharmakaya, which is the supreme reality beyond name and form). As samsaric beings we cannot have faith in the Dharmakaya. The deathless is something so far removed from our concepts and ideas that we cannot conceive it, for that reason Buddhas manifest enlightened forms such as what we could call tress, gems, pavilions, lakes, lotuses, flowers, gardens, aromas…etc. which are emanated directly from the Dharmakaya (ultimate reality). Amida’s light and life is infinite and pure and so are His enlightened manifestations. We cannot have faith in a formless Buddha Amida (His ultimate aspect beyond name and forms) but we can all have faith in Amida in name and form (that is a true and individuated Buddha called Amida), as described in the Larger Sutra: A unique Buddha with an specific 177 If you need to review these key Mahayana concepts please go back to the section on the Noble Realms where the Trikaya doctrine is explained: Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya 398 Sambhogakaya body and His specific Pure Land filled with spiritual treasures that capture our minds due to their beauty and splendor. Amida is not trying to please our sense organs; in fact each element in His Pure Land is teaching the Dharma. For example the birds in the Pure Land are not animals who are reborn there but enlightened manifestations made by Amida. The birds in the pure land sing the Dharma-truths to all and they lead beings to enlightenment in a skillful way. Amida uses beauty and splendor as a means to teach sentient beings. The ground of gold, the many gems, and rains of flowers and lotuses of light, inundate Sukhavati and all of these skillful manifestations are spiritual treasures as it is explained in the 32nd Vow. Shakyamuni Buddha clearly states in the Larger Sutra: “Again, the Bodhi tree of Buddha Amitāyus is four million li in height and five thousand yojanas in circumference at its base. Its branches spread two hundred thousand li in each of the four directions. It is a natural cluster of all kinds of precious stones and is adorned with the kings of jewels, namely, moon bright maṇi-gems and ocean-supporting wheel gems. Everywhere between its twigs hang jeweled ornaments with a thousand million different colors intermingling in various ways, and their innumerable beams shine with the utmost brilliance. The Bodhi tree itself is covered with nets of rare, excellent gems, and on it appear all kinds of ornaments in accordance with one’s wishes. 399 “When a gentle breeze wafts through its branches and leaves, innumerable exquisite Dharma sounds arise, which spread far and wide, pervading all the other Buddha lands in the ten directions. Those who hear the sounds attain penetrating insight into dharmas and dwell in the stage of nonretrogression. Until they attain Buddhahood, their senses of hearing will remain clear and sharp and they will not suffer from any pain or sickness. Whether they hear the sounds of the Bodhi tree, see its colors, smell its perfume, taste its flavors, perceive its lights, or conceive of the Dharma in their minds, they all attain profoundly penetrating insight into dharmas and dwell in the stage of non-retrogression. Until they attain Buddhahood, their six sense organs will remain sharp and clear and they will not suffer from any pain or sickness. “Ananda, when humans and devas of that land see the Bodhi tree, they will attain three insights: first, insight into reality through hearing the sacred sounds; second, insight into reality by being in accord with it; and third, insight into the non-arising of all dharmas. These benefits are all bestowed by the majestic power of Amitāyus, the power of his Original Vow, his perfectly fulfilled vow, his clear and manifest vow, his firm vow, and his accomplished vow.”178 Shakyamuni gives these breathtaking descriptions of the many wonders of Amida’s Pure Land by using concepts that we can 178 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 25 400 understand like trees, jewels and sounds, so that we are all able to create a connection with the transcendence of the Pure Land. We must bear in mind that the Buddha is using human language to describe something that is not human; not even heavenly within the samsaric heavenly realms, no matter how superb. He continues to say: “If Bodhisattvas and śrāvakas in that land enter the jeweled ponds and wish the water to rise to their ankles, it rises to their ankles. If they wish it to rise to their knees, it rises to their knees. If they wish it to rise to their waists, it rises to their waists. If they wish it to rise to their necks, it rises to their necks. If they wish it to pour over their bodies, it spontaneously pours over their bodies. If they wish it to recede, it recedes. Its temperature is moderate, cool, or warm according to their wishes. The water comforts the body and refreshes the mind, washing away their mental defilements. Clear and pure, the water is so transparent that it seems formless. The jewel sand shines so brightly that even the depth of the water cannot prevent its brilliance from being seen. The rippling water forms meandering streams, which join and flow into each other. Their movement is peaceful and quiet, neither too fast nor too slow, and their ripples spontaneously produce innumerable wonderful sounds. One can hear whatever sound one wishes. For example, some hear the sound ‘Buddha,’ some hear the sound ‘Dharma,’ some ‘Sangha,’ others hear ‘tranquility,’ ‘emptiness and no-self,’ ‘great compassion,’ ‘paramita,’ ‘ten powers,’ ‘fearlessness,’ ‘special qualities,’ ‘supernatural 401 powers,’ ‘non-activity,’ ‘neither arising nor perishing,’ ‘insight into the non-arising of all dharmas,’ and so on until the various sounds of the wonderful Dharma, such as ‘the sprinkling of nectar upon the head of a bodhisattva,’ are reached. As one hears those sounds, one attains immeasurable joy and accords with the principles of purity, absence of desires, extinction, and reality. One is in harmony with the Three Treasures, the Buddha’s powers, fearlessness, and special qualities, and also with supernatural powers and other methods of practice for bodhisattvas and Sravakas. Not even the names of the three realms of suffering are heard there, but only nirvanic sounds of bliss. For this reason, that land is called ‘Peace and Bliss.’179 It is difficult for us to conceive just how perfect and harmonious Amida’s Pure Land is. Everything from the ground to the trees; EVERYTHING you see, touch and smell is a pure enlightened manifestation, and it all leads to perfect enlightenment. Let’s compare this sublime environment with our samsaric world. When we look around our world, what do we see? And when I say “seeing” in mean REALLY seeing, without poetry. Let´s look at the crude facts of our world. The elements: fire, water, earth and fire are in constant friction. We can try to be sophisticated and call it a “dance” or whatever term we fancy but one thing is absolutely certain about the 179 Ibidem p. 26-27 402 samsaric universe we inhabit now: It is brutal and it has no concern for living beings. Just think about how filled with death and suffering the animal and human realm we see are. From merciless fighting ant armies to lions eating their own cubs, from bacteria consuming flesh to human beings murdering each other for sport. The fact is that Samsara, and all its zillions of planets and galaxies are violent and unreliable to the core; complete world system are devoured by clouds of dust and stars explode constantly bringing death and suffering to the beings that inhabit nearby planets. (As a kid I still remember the famous Shoemaker-levy 9 comet that hit Jupiter in the 1990’s; the explosion it caused was the size of our little planet earth) All these facts about existence should make us realize that there’s plenty of suffering and chaos in the vast universes within samsaric existence where deluded beings are trapped in the cycle of life and death. Contrary to what materialists claim, Buddhism teaches, as we have explained already, that the mind-streams inside the temporary bodies of sentient beings have transmigrated endlessly since the beginningless past. Not only this, but there are many samsaric realms of existence above and below our human realm where suffering is also abundantly found. Even the vast realms of the gods will crumble and leave nothing but oblivion and misery behind, and the helpless mind-streams of samsaric beings will continue to dance to the same tune of death and sorrow, time and time again if they don’t attain Buddhahood. Due to our existence as samsaric beings we inhabit samsaric realms that are the reflection of our collective evil karma. A 403 darkened mind manifests forms and experiences that lead to more attachment and suffering. the minds of hell beings produce the various and terrible tortures of the hell-realms on the other hand the Enlightened mind of Amida produces sublime and perfect forms and experiences that lead beings to enlightenment. Even as human beings (the realm of human beings, as we have explained in part II, is considered a favorable realm to study the Dharma) we encounter so many obstacles in our path here. Some people might try to quote some wise Zen quote to the effect of “make trouble your path…wisdom needs obstacles the way a sword needs a rock to be sharpened”….well, that is easier said than done. We are constantly surrounded by distractions and dangers in samsara. Even if we manage to be in the presence of a great master; the very fabric of our existence is pitiful; disease and death could come at ANY moment to spoil our training, no matter how noble our aspirations might be. This has happened many times, even to veteran practitioners who think they have figured it all out, and then….karmic grenades explode and they get into all manner of problems due to sickness and impermanence, and their so called “wisdom” crumbles into pieces. Isn’t it better to be in the Pure Land rather than suffering in samsara? In fact for us ordinary beings it is not only better but in fact being born in the Pure Land is the ONLY choice we have got to advance towards enlightenment in a secure manner, otherwise we will keep being reborn in samsara and encounter circumstances that don´t lead to wisdom but to more attachment, because, I insist, samsaric worlds are produced by 404 samsaric minds, and the samsaric experiences manifested collectively can only lead to more attachment and confusion, and ultimately to further death and misery in the cycle of rebirth. Cultivating wisdom (in a serious and profound way) is very rare as it requires that the practitioner trying to do that on his/her own swims against the violent waves of collective karmic evil. It is quite dangerous to consider ourselves strong enough to attain Nirvana on our own when we haven’t taken a hard look at our REAL capacities. The situation in samsara is clearly not in our favor as the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land Patriarchs clearly teach time and time again: we are endangering ourselves and others by perpetuating our ignorance when we ignore our REAL capacities and limitations. Shakyamuni Buddha wisely points out that even as diligent disciples we can practice in this world only for a short while whereas in Sukhavati we can enjoy limitless life and bliss and enjoy a blessed and secure environment where we can be benefited directly by Amida Himself and there attain Supreme Enlightenment swiftly: ““When Amitāyus preaches the Dharma to Sravakas and bodhisattvas, they all assemble in the seven-jeweled lecture hall. There Amitayus fully expounds the teachings of the Way and proclaims the wonderful Dharma. The whole audience rejoices, comprehends, and attains enlightenment” 180 180 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised 405 Just by being in the presence of Amida Buddha we become enlightened; If we are born directly in the heart of the Pure Land (The Recompensed or fulfilled Land) we will attain perfect enlightenment by being directly exposed to the tremendous light of Amida which will dispel our ignorance at once, and therefore the seed of Buddhahood inside all of us will finally blossom and we will become Buddhas at long last. I personally think that the suffering I see just in our human realm is too much to handle at times. When I add to that the suffering of the other 5 realms of existence…it is just beyond belief. This sense of dismay regarding samsara should make us realize how badly we need to be rescued from such a catastrophic situation. We should by all means acknowledge the profound sufferings of the various samsaric realms of existence and aspire to be born in Amida’s Pure Land. Amida’s Pure Land is like fertile soil and Amida is like the most skilled gardener. As we explained in the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, all sentient beings carry within themselves the potential to become Buddhas 181, but due to karmic evil and ignorance the mind streams of sentient beings are trapped in their own delusions. That sacred Buddha-seed rarely grows in the polluted soil of samsara; Buddhas are a rare gem in the dark night of delusion. Amida’s Pure Land is quite simply the most powerful blessing ever given by a Buddha as He has created the perfect environment to nurture our Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 37 181 We don’t only have the seed, or a potential. The Tathagatagarbha is full Buddhahood, with all its perfect qualities, and when beings recognize their Buddha Nature, they only awaken to what it is already there 406 Buddha-seed and make it grow strongly and healthily away from the poisons of evil karma, hatred, greed and delusion that are so prevalent within samsara. For a Buddha to grow you need special conditions, the same way a tree cannot grow without oxygen, water and sunlight. We need morality, wisdom, compassion and contemplation, that’s why when the Buddha of our world came here, one of the first things he did was to establish a community of disciples, the Sangha. He preached and founded temples and monasteries in order for beings to be separated from worldly concerns and devote their time and efforts exclusively to the Dharma. If he hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have Buddhism as a lineage of masters and teachings. By living austerely in the forest with his disciples the Buddha was trying to teach us that in order to become enlightened you need to establish the proper conditions the same way that in order to grow food you need good soil. Pure Lands emanated by Buddhas are an amplification of this basic need for a proper place to live the Dharma and be in accordance with the Dharma. Amida’s Pure Land, being the most perfect and luminous Pure Land of all, is the most perfect environment for beings to be born into, since there they are provided with all the nutrients (wisdom and compassion) that will allow us to nurture the Buddha-seed we all carry within. This precious Buddha-seed that has been neglected and abandoned by our aversion, greed and delusion during countless lives can finally grow in Amida’s perfect Land of Bliss. By choosing to be born in Amida’s Pure Land we finally recognize that we are not in control of our minds and our lives. 407 Deep inside we see the foolishness and the gross evil leading us perpetually from one samsaric realm to the next ad infinitum. We have to stop kidding ourselves attempting to fight a battle we cannot win on our own. We must finally see the three poisons as a three-headed monster that we simply cannot defeat alone. Amida can easily lead us to His Pure Land if we only let him do it. But in order to do that first we need to closely examine ourselves and be humble enough to admit we need help. Instead most Buddhists (especially nowadays) behave like they have all the time in the world to meditate and read sutras; they quote fancy books and they believe Enlightenment is just around the corner. I sometimes think to myself….are these guys even serious? Do they mean to tell us that they are in the same level as advanced practitioners from the past who meditated for months and years on end and engaged in practices that are beyond the range of what is human? Do they ACTUALLY believe that by practicing a few years in undisciplined and lax temples they are going to become Buddhas? From the bottom of my heart, I say to all those people, WAKE UP! There’s no time to be clever or sophisticated about such important matters like birth and death; I think it is clear that for 99.9999% of us common people a simple and mundane death is more likely to be around the corner than Nirvana. People nowadays show up in temples and say things like “my name is J S and I have Buddha-nature, I am already a Buddha, I came to re-discover that, there’s nothing to be worried about”. These people start their path with a sense of courage and pride; they feel they are capable of great 408 and noble deeds, and that Nirvana will be easy for them in the long run. This is their mindset. On the other hand Jodo Shinshu starts with a sense of absolute failure. My sensei Rev. Cirlea has a great illustration for this situation, he says that Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is like an AA (Anonymous Alcoholics), meeting. You show up and you say “I am J S, and I am an alcoholic”, that is the first step in your recovery if you are addicted to alcohol or drugs. if you say instead something like “I am J S and I am perfect as I am” and thus you don’t admit that the situation has gotten out of your hands and you are no longer in control of your life due to your addiction, then you are setting yourself up for failure in the meeting; since you are not even taking the first step towards your recovery by just admitting you have a huge problem. How could you expect to overcome your addiction if you don’t acknowledge you have a deep problem?; in the same way we have been addicted to our egos, our blind passions and our foolishness for countless lifetimes in our absurdly vast wandering in the dark asylum of samsara; is this not a far greater addiction than having smoked or drunk for 30 or 50 years? The poisons of greed, aversion and delusion are far more potent than the most powerful drug available and we have drunk them unceasingly in zillions of life times! These three poisons have led us to hell millions of times; they have tortured us in worst ways than a fearsome enemy time and time again. We have drunk these poisons for such a long time that we think they are water and we have ended up thinking we cannot survive without them. That is the terrible depth of our foolish egos. 409 In the same manner, in Jodo Shinshu, we don’t say “I am J S and I have Buddha-nature and I can become a Buddha right now in this life and body” but we say “Hi, I am J S, I am filled with evil karma and passions and I really suck at all self-powered practices. I am COMPLETELY incapable of attaining Buddhahood on my own, I need help” Even great beings like Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna and Tsongkhapa didn’t recognized in them an “invincible being capable of attaining enlightenment individually”, but they were humble enough to admit they needed help to become Buddhas by an external Power. How much more do we need that attitude, since we are not even competent Buddhist practitioners; as Master Rennyo said we should keep it simple and “Cling to Amida’s Sleeves”. And cling hard. Qualities of the beings born in Amida’s Pure Land: As we read in His vows Amida also promised to bless beings with incredible spiritual qualities. Master Genshin, one of the 7 Jodo Shinshu Patriarchs described in great detail the qualities of beings born in the Pure Land in His famous work Ojoyoshu: "The beings in the Pure Land, having bodies of golden color and being pure inwardly and outwardly, give forth a brilliant light and thus mutually glorify each other. They have thirty-two forms and they are so sublime, upright and marvelous that there is nothing with which to compare them in this world. [...] If we should compare the masters of the Six Devalokas with the 410 beings of the Pure Land it would be like a beggar standing alongside of a king."182 Amida’s Pure Land is supreme among other Pure Lands and it is also far beyond any splendor in Samsara. Not even the highest devas (in rupadhatu and arupadhatu) can be compared with the noble appearance of the inhabitants of the Pure Land. As Master Genshin says “it is like comparing a king with a beggar”. Everything in Amida’s Pure Land exists for a reason and the fact that the beauty of the bodies and garments that the Pure Land beings possess is so far beyond any samsaric realm is a manifestation of the enlightened qualities of Amida’s power and a way to transmit the nobleness of His blessings. Amida promises the various enlightened powers of enlightened beings to those who are born in the Pure Land. All those skills are not earned by the beings born there; they are spiritual gifts that Amida freely offers as fundamental qualities of the beings that enter His realm. This is greatly explained by Master Genshin and commented by Rev. Cirlea: “In His 5th Vow, Amida Buddha promised that after being born in the Pure Land we'll remember “all previous lives” and know “the events which occurred during the previous hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of kalpas”, while in the 6th Vow He promised we'll “possess the divine eye of seeing even a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha-lands”. In the 8th Quoted from the Ojoyoshu by Master Genshin in the book “The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind toward Amida Dharma” by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion publications, 2018, p. 214 182 411 Vow He assured us that we'll have “the faculty of knowing the thoughts of others”, and in the 9th Vow that we'll be able to go “anywhere in one instant, even beyond a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha-lands” so that we can always be together with any being we want to help. Master Genshin said: "As those born in the Pure Land have power to understand their own destinies, they talk to each other about their former lives, namely, as to what country they lived in, how their mind became enlightened by this and that scripture when they were seeking the way of the Buddha, how they kept this and that precept, and learned such and such teachings and thus developed the Good Root, and how they gave such and such alms. In this way they talk with one another about the virtues which they enjoyed, or they tell in detail the story from beginning to end of how they came to be born into the Pure Land." [...] The various beings of the Pure Land have all the five mysterious communications whose marvelous nature cannot be comprehended. They live a life of freedom according to their heart’s desire. If, for example, they wish to look across the universe without taking a step they can do so. If they wish to hear the voice of anyone in the universe they can do so without moving from their seats. Not only this, but they can hear also the things of the infinite past as if they were happening today. They know the inmost thoughts of the beings of the six realms as if they were reflected in a mirror. They can go and come freely as if all the lands of the Buddha in all the ten directions lay beneath their feet. 412 They can do anything they please in the realm of infinite space and in the realm of endless time. [...] For beings in our world it is impossible to see without sun light or lamp-light; and, without moving, it is impossible to approach an object. We cannot see through even one sheet of paper. We know nothing of the things in the past; we know merely the things of the present moment. We are still confined to the cage and obstructed in every direction. But as for the beings in the Pure Land there is not one which does not have this power (of mysteriously transcending space and time). Even though for a period of a hundred Great Kalpas they have not planted the seed (karma) of the Special Characteristic Forms and have not created the cause for the Mysterious Communications, during the Four Meditations, they still have this power as a natural consequence of having been born into the Pure Land. How happy, then, they must be!"183 Being born in Amida’s Pure Land does not only mean being blessed by the most excellent and magnificent enlightened environment in all the myriad Buddha-Lands, but also possessing these tremendous Enlightened capacities like total freedom of movement within all Buddha-Lands and recollecting all previous lives. As Master Genshin pointedly adds, “in this world we cannot even look through a sheet of paper, and we need lamps in the dark”. The Pure Land is a place of unimpeded wisdom and compassion so beings enjoy all of these remarkable abilities naturally by just being born there through Amida’s vows of salvation. Quoted from the Ojoyoshu by Master Genshin in the book “The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind toward Amida Dharma” by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion publications, 2018, p. 215-216 183 413 Great capacities like moving freely through space and time and knowing the thoughts of other beings are skills that require incredible efforts from the part of those trying to cultivate and master them by relying own their own efforts; but Amida’s incredible power just grants those transcendental powers by just being born in His Pure Land. This is truly remarkable. Amida’s Infinite Life (12th Vow) and Light (13th Vow) are not something just for Amida but actually, as we have seen, the blessings of His Pure Land are equally and freely given to all there: the 15th Vow promises that beings will also possess a limitless life just like Amida Buddha and in another part of the larger sutra it is said we will be granted bodies of “naturalness, emptiness and infinity”184 , to have bodies of infinity is in other words to attain Buddhahood as eternity and infinity is a reference to the ultimate Dharmakaya body, the Ultimate Body of Enlightenednature that all Buddhas share; so by being in Amida’s Pure Land our karmic evil just melts like ice before a great fire; we melt with the pure light of Amida and we will also possess all the 10 skills of a Buddha and the 3 Buddhabodies(Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya) and we will be able to use these transcendental powers for the benefit of all sentient beings. When we compare the transcendental abilities that those in Amida’s Pure Land possess, we realize how limited we actually are by our karma, our physical bodies and the terrible circumstances of the samsaric realm surrounding us. Even if we are advanced practitioners, the bodies in this Saha realm are a 184 Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Criaova, 2019, p 231. 414 constant inconvenient even for proclaimed Bodhisattvas in human bodies, like for instance, the many tulkus in Tibetan lineages, who are emanations from Bodhisattvas and ancient masters. The karmic climate in our world is one of pollution and storms of hindrances. Our mind faculties tend to be dull and darkened and our bodies are constantly nagging us; be it for food, sleep, sex, going to the toilet…etc. Just keeping our bodies healthy can be burdensome if we have inherited health problems such as high blood pressure or diabetes. It is not hard to see why having bodies and minds that are designed exclusively to incarnate wisdom and compassion and to transmit them skillfully is far better than possessing an impermanent and unsatisfactory human body or even a high celestial one. As Genshin says, even the gods look like filthy vagabonds compared to the noble tranquil and luminous appearance of Pure Land dwellers. Amida’s Pure Land Enlightened Bodhisattvas185(Buddhas who manifest as Bodhisattvas) are also blessed with perfect selflessness, so they don’t even have words for pride or greed. They are naturally cordial and kind to one another, their minds The qualities of Bodhisattvas in the audience “ Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Criaova, 2019, p 24 As Rev. Josho explains many times throughout the book, there are basically two types of Bodhisattvas; 1) in aspiration 2) Enlightened Bodhisattvas like Manjushri, Maitreya and Avalokitesvara who are actually Buddhas who manifest themselves as Bodhisattvas. When you carefully read the many nirvanic qualities of those born in Amida’s Pure Land (the center of Sukhavati) you will realize that those enlightened skills can only be possessed by a Buddha and not by ordinary Bodhisattvas, and not even by high level Bodhisattvas in one of the 10 Bhumis, so it is clear the Bodhisattvas in Amida’s Pure Land are Enlightened Bodhisattvas and not students of the path towards Buddhahood. 185 415 are completely tranquil and luminous all the time. In our world (and also in the worlds of Asuras and lower kamadhatu gods) even people who are wealthy and beautiful can always manage ways to make their lives miserable by being attached to their wealth and beauty and by being stingy and greedy. In Amida’s Pure Land the beauty of beings is a reflection of the inner purity of their hearts and minds. The incredible skills and splendor of Pure Land inhabitants are used solely for the benefit of all sentient beings. As we are not yet Buddhas we cannot benefit beings according to our wishes. If we love a person; we can give them love, food, clothes, pay for all of their needs, and spend quality time with them, but at the end of road our loved ones die and they will be reborn according to their karma to who-knows-where in samsara where we cannot follow them. Even if we could follow them, how could we benefit them with our present unenlightened minds? When we also die, we will follow our crazed karma tendencies if we aren’t born in Amida’s Pure Land and even if we managed to reunite in a next life with our loved ones, that reunion could be one of hate and misery. If we are not enlightened beings we just cannot do anything for all the beings we have loved throughout many lifetimes and we cannot repay those we have wronged either, since only Perfect Wisdom and Perfect Compassion can lead a being out of samsara and lead him to Buddhahood, which is the only true blessing a being can receive. As long as we are in samsara and as long as our loved ones are trapped here as well, we will end up just hurting each other and sinking in the ocean of tears deeper and deeper ad infinitum. 416 If we are born in the Pure Land, we are blessed with such enlightened powers and blessings that we will be able (after eons of unfulfilled love and wrongdoings) to give our loved ones the only true blessing that exists: Being a Buddha. Being free from the burden and slavery of birth, death and ignorance, and enjoy the everlasting freedom of Nirvana. We read again in the Ojoyoshu by Master Genshin: “Not being saints nor having the mysterious power of communication they cannot understand their former transmigrations. All beings fail to make retribution by kindness to others. All beings are caught on the wheel of birth and death. They pass around from stage to stage in the six realms like the wheel of a wagon, without beginning or end. At one time they are father or mother, at another time may be husband or wife, and they show kindness to each other during the various lives in this world. But if they are born into the Pure Land they are endowed with a superior wisdom and their clear power of mysterious communication reaches unto those who were formerly their benefactors and to those who were their acquaintances through many lives and generations, they can attract them freely. Endowed with a heavenly eye, they can see where they live, and with their heavenly ear they can hear their voice. Their wisdom of destiny enables them to remember the favors (of their former benefactors) and with their insight into others’ hearts they understand their hearts. Their mysterious powers of communication enable them to go where they are, and by changing their form they can adapt 417 themselves to their needs and in various ways teach them and lead them in the way of salvation."186 How many billions of people in this planet alone, I wonder, have lost a loved one: a father, a mother, a daughter, a child, a, son, brother or sister in tragic circumstances? So many people cling to religious superstitions and they say he/she is in heaven, or “resting in peace” or “just she/he went out of all existence…..so good for her/him I guess”. As a follower of Amida’s primordial Vow we know that as soon we are born in the Pure Land we can remember all our loved ones (from this life and from other lives) and we can help them to be free as well. Amida’s Pure Land is the certainty of salvation for ALL beings. He will literally extinguish all hell realms, all ghost realms, animals, humans, deva-realms…such are the vows of Amida; He will dispel the darkness of Samsara just like the a sun rising victorious over a dark night; He will dispel the clouds of birth and death with the luminous and powerful salvation He alone offers. The question is, how long will it take for all beings to realize they can go to His Pure Land so easily? We can be part of this amazing enlightened family in the Pure Land. We just need to open our hearts and minds to Amida Buddha and recite His name with total sincerity, with all our mind and heart. As my Dharma friend and colleague Gansen John Welch says in a good poem called: 186 The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the minds towards Amida Dharma, By Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2018, p 218 418 Amida’s (Amitabha Buddha’s) Infinite Light: Never give up or give in Persist and persevere No matter how severe The outlook appears to be Do not allow clouds of despair To fill your world with terrible strife And to darken your thoughts and life Please remember that Amida’s Light Is always there To provide comfort, encouragement, care And lighten the darkest night So never give up the fight For freedom, wisdom and love And soon the dark skies above Will clear as you begin More and more to listen to and read Amida Dharma and you will finally be freed From all the suffering in samsara Caused by your negative karma You will be forever free From ego’s ignorance and folly As you grasp Amida’s helping hand and Cling to Amida’s sleeve No more will you grieve As you say Each and every day Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Thank you Amida Buddha Homage to Amida Buddha 419 I take refuge in Amida Buddha”187 Like a flourishing marketplace: By being born in Amida’s Pure Land we will be part of Amida’s Golden Chain of Salvation, that is, we will also be part of the noble endeavor of all Buddhas and Great Bodhisattvas. Being born in the Pure Land is by no means like going to a nice holiday, where you just relax. I remember now a question that was sent once to a Pure Land Master in a letter. It said: Will we feel bored in the Pure Land? I think it was from a 9 year old kid, but the Master took it very seriously after he kindly laughed. The Master answered with a resounding NO. It is quite the contrary. Samsara is what is boring: having a dull mind, and dark passions is not a pleasant experience AT ALL, on the other hand being in Amida’s Pure Land is like being part of a flourishing civilization; constantly receiving honored guests, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, benefiting beings in this part in that universe then going to another, receiving sentient beings from all the vast parts of samsaric realms…etc. As Master Genshin says: Gansen John Welch’s Poems to Amida’s Pure Land,(Jodo Shinshu Poems) Volume II, p 36 available for free download at: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jprp7iXdQ7LIEe9Vr1HClfxLPzwxmBI G Gansen John Welch (Australia) is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist follower, Amida Dharma Teacher, and Jodo Shinshu Poet that belongs to Amidaji Temple, He is also the narrator for Rev Cirlea’s books in english; all of the audio books he has narrated can be found at Rev. Cirlea’s official Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/joshoadrian 187 420 "The great Bodhisattvas are numberless like the grains of sand on the Ganges River. Their color and form is beautiful and they are full of virtue. They live continually in the Pure Land and gather about Amida Nyorai. [...] The Pure Land is filled with a throng of holy beings who have a common life, see each other and hear each other’s voice and who seek after the same way. There is no difference among them. There are numberless beings and Bodhisattvas from the Buddha lands of the ten directions, as numerous as the grains of sand on the Ganges River. Each one of these reveals his mysterious power of communication and comes to the Pleasant Country (Pure Land) where he looks upon the precious face of Amida Nyorai and makes offerings to Him in reverence. Some of them make offerings of wonderful heavenly flowers, some burn a wonderful kind of incense, and some offer priceless garments. There are some who make heavenly music and praise the Nyorai with soft and calm voices. Some listen to the scriptures or propagate the teaching. There is no hindrance in their going and coming night and day. Some go away to the east while others are coming from the west. Some go away to the west while others are coming from the north. And again some return to the north while others are coming from the south. Thus the throngs come and go from the four corners, the eight directions and the directions up and down. It is like a flourishing marketplace. To hear once the names of such saints does not happen by accident. How much more likely then, must it be to meet with one through the hundred, thousand, ten thousand kalpas! And the beings in the Pure Land gather together continually in one place and talk with each other, exchange stories, ask questions, act with 421 prudence, respect and are friendly toward one another and become intimate with each other. Is this not real enjoyment? Nagarjuna said,' The various children of Buddha, coming from the ten directions, reveal clearly the mysterious power of communication. They behold the precious form of Amida and do Him reverence continually. Therefore I bow down before Amida Nyorai and worship Him.'”188 As we see in these wonderful descriptions of the Pure Land commented by master Genshin (of course they are also recorded in the Pure Land Sutras) and the noble actions of the beings there we can conclude that the dull place is actually samsara and certainly not the splendor and spiritual richness of Sukhavati. Beings are in constant enlightened activities there; be it receiving teachings from Buddhas, benefiting samsaric beings or welcoming them to the Pure Land. It must be noted that enlightened beings will possess the enlightened capacity to emanate Nirmanakaya bodies throughout all the samsaric universes and Buddha-Lands, so if a being is born in Sukhavati he will be able to be at many different realms of existence simultaneously. According to the vows 25th, 29th and 30th beings there also possess the transcendental skill of remembering all Dharmateachings and explaining them with perfect eloquence to sentient beings; this incredible skill combined with the ability Quoted from the Ojoyoshu by Master Genshin in the book “The Four Profound Thoughts that turn the mind toward Amida Dharma” by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion publications, 2018, p. 220-221 188 422 to manifest their minds wherever they please allows beings there to be united with all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas simultaneously. Amida’s Pure Land is unquestionably the crowning jewel of all Buddha-Lands. The Noble realms of Buddhas are like a net of holy jewels; they are interconnected, so Bodhisattvas are constantly coming to receive teachings from Amida and we can also learn from them and exchange skillful means to benefit beings. All Buddha Lands can be seen from Sukhavati, and Sukhavati also shines over all BuddhaLands. Being in the Pure Land means to belong to a flourishing civilization of enlightened beings that honor perfect wisdom and compassion with every single thought and action moment by moment. All Buddhas-Tathagatas in the ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, together praise the inconceivable, supernal virtue of Amitāyus189 Namo Amida Bu 189 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p. 31 423 Mappo: The Age of Dharma Decline Buddhism is certainly a profound and rich teaching. It has produced great scholars and enlightened beings throughout the centuries, in so many different cultures. Although it is true that Shakyamuni Buddha had many lay disciples (some of them very advanced on the path towards enlightenment) it is also the case that Path of Sages in Buddhism (that is, the schools that are not focused on Amida and His simple method of salvation but are instead specialized in meditation, precepts, rituals and personal merits) highly emphasizes monastic life. Buddhism has had many periods of splendor throughout history where high standards for practice and doctrine were soundly established and easily accessible in the great monasteries and universities of the past such as the case of Nalanda University (and many other institutions that where based on its system of education and contemplation) and the great monasteries of China and Tibet. There were golden eras for Buddhist practitioners where they could devote their whole lives to the Dharma (study and practice) as it was quite common for great monarchs and influential patrons to finance big monasteries and Buddhist universities that used to house thousands upon thousands of monks and lay students. Tibet for example (before the Communist regime wiped out all Buddhist monasteries and nunneries) used to have thousands upon thousands of monasteries. It is said than almost half of the total population of Tibet were monastics and the other half was 424 partially or highly involved in the elaborated rituals of religious life that were activities supported by big temples. Nalanda as I previously mentioned used to have many thousands of monks and nuns, and they had access to one of the most impressive libraries in Buddhist history190 (perhaps the greatest of them all). Great masters lived and practiced there all their lives. These two examples from the past should make us realize how important it is to have a culture/civilization that nurtures and supports high level practitioners. Nowadays things are quite different. The modern industrial society with its big appetite for banality, its rampant shallowness and consumerism has spread its tentacles into religion as well. People nowadays crave for “easy fixes” in their spiritual lives; fewer and fewer people are serious about their commitment to the Dharma. Buddhism has declined incredibly in the past century due to its acceptance of doctrines that are alien to the Buddha-Dharma as it had been taught throughout many centuries. Many monasteries nowadays don’t even mention key concepts such as: samsara, karma and rebirth, and they tend to focus more on superfluous topics that are not in accordance with any tradition within orthodox Buddhism. The concept of decadence is not new in Buddhism, and as we will explain the Pure Land Patriarchs and specially Shinran taught that we have been in decline for many centuries now, and that the mediocrity and evil we see around us is not new at 190 Dr. Thomas Yarnall, professor of Buddhist studies and translator at Columbia University (USA), has delivered this illustrative lecture on the academic and monastic tradition of Nalanda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV1vC3yTvUM 425 all. The Buddha clearly explained that the Dharma wouldn’t remain eternally available in our chaotic samsaric world. Eventually all Buddhist sutras will be forgotten in our planet; and not even the word “Buddha” will survive in the minds of humans in our particular world. Almost 6 billion years will have to pass until Maitreya the future Buddha (who is now dwelling in Tusita Heaven) descends and preaches the Dharma here in a very distant future. Buddhas want to deliver all beings from Samsara but they take into account the law of cause and effect, so before they manifest in a specific world system they first evaluate the conditions of their rebirth. Buddhas manifest themselves in the proper time when they know the circumstances are ripe for preaching the Dharma. Those circumstances involve world history, the proper cultural and social conditions and the particular karmic tendencies of the beings they are going to help. We have already explained that Buddhas have direct fields of influence they create for the sake of sentient beings but they also have a tremendous field of influence, by just being physically present in whatever realm of existence they happen to visit. In the sutras Shakyamuni Buddha described the benefits of being near a living Buddha. Even weather conditions improve (as they are controlled by various lower devas who can be benefited by the Buddha and so they honor His holy presence), people near him feel safe and blessed by just His mere presence. There is a famous case of a serial psychopath murderer called Angulimala; He was said to collect the fingers of His victims and he created a necklace with all the bones of 426 their fingers. Angulimala tried to chase the Buddha to murder Him, but the Buddha used his transcendental skills to move faster than Angulimala. Angulimala fatigued then asked the Buddha: “why do you move?” And the Buddha answered “Why does your mind move?” then Angulimala kneeled before the Buddha and He became His disciple. Another famous case of the Buddha’s incredible power to influence people is the teaching Shakyamuni gave to Nanda191, a disciple that was struggling to be determined in the holy life and maintain the arduous training of a Buddha’s disciple. Nanda was infatuated with a beautiful young woman so the Buddha taught him a lesson, with His transcendental powers Shakyamuni took him to the heaven of the 33 deities and there he showed him the heavenly nymphs who put to shame the woman Nanda was in love with. Nanda wanted to then practice the way of the Dharma so he could be reborn in heaven and enjoy the company of the heavenly maidens. Then the Buddha went to visit Nanda who was practicing ardently now and asked him if wanted to visit the hell realms. The Buddha took Nanda by the arm and took him with his transcendental powers to hell. There he was shown a hell torturer heating an empty cauldron, and when Nanda asked why was that cauldron empty, the tortured answered that it was for Nanda, a human practitioner who is following the Dharma path to be reborn in heaven and after many years pass and his heavenly rebirth is over he will then fall into hell to suffer. Nanda was shocked by 191 Nanda Sutta Ud. 3.2 Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bikkhu: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.3.02.than.html 427 this, and then he realized how futile it is to practice to gain a heavenly rebirth in samsara. There are many more examples of how the Buddha could influence people’s hearts and minds in a skillful and profound manner. Murderers, prostitutes and even people with cognitive disabilities were taught the Dharma with tremendous results. One could safely say that the Buddha’s sphere of influence was so powerful than even the evilest of persons could be changed. In many sutras the Buddha would teach and thousands and thousands of monks would achieve Arahatship. Many modern teachers fail to acknowledge that it is not only the teachings of the Buddha that are important, but it was also the Buddha himself who produced such marvelous results in people’s hearts and minds. The fact is that the Buddha could influence thousands of people by just being present. Some disciples kneeled before him by just seeing His face, or by feeling his tremendous spiritual power. This field of Buddha-energy is called a Buddha-field. One of the most important teachings in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism (and Pure Land schools in general) is the concept of a Buddha’s field of influence. The people who practiced near a living Buddha (or who met disciples who had met Him) had a tremendous advantage over us who are separated by more than two millennia from the Buddha’s direct presence. They could advance in an outstanding way, whereas if we practice meditation so far removed from the Buddha’s sphere of influence the results will certainly not be the same. 428 Imagine if the once crazed murderer Angulimala or the once lax and woman-lover Nanda came into a modern monastery; How many Buddhist Masters could influence their mindstreams? It would certainly be hard even for an accomplished practitioner to influence just one disciple the way the Buddha effortlessly did for decades. The sutras teach that there are three Dharma ages: These are: 1. The Right Dharma Age (500 years) 2. The Semblance Dharma Age (1000 years) 3. The Age of Dharma Decline (Mappo) (10.000 years) I will share a brief article written by Rev. Cirlea on this important subject 192 where he quotes the teachings of various sutras and the commentaries of the Jodo Shinshu Patriarchs: Amidaji Temple website article: “The Three Dharma Ages: I will explain in this article, the teaching about the three Dharma ages by using various quotes from the last chapter of Shinran's Kyogyoshinsho. These quotes are Master Shinran's own words or passages from sutras and commentaries that he himself used in his explanations. The Three Dharma Ages, Article published on Amidaji Temple’s official website on Monday, September 14, 2009. Link : http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/2009/09/threedharma-ages.html#more 192 429 Generally speaking, the doctrine of the Three Dharma Ages refers to the gradual decline of the capacities of beings to practice the Dharma and attain realization through it. Thus there is a difference between the time when the Buddha was in human body and influenced directly through His example and energetic field (Buddha field) those gathered around Him and the periods far away in the history when only the teaching remains, but not the Teacher. What a great chance it is to meet a Buddha in flesh and bones and receive instructions directly from Him, being constantly in His presence and influenced by His Buddha field. How quick and safe the spiritual development can be, just by seeing His face and having devotion for Him every day, not to mention the constant support He provides to your practice. Also if you live in the period close to the physical death of a Buddha, His influence is still felt and active through the working of His closest disciples or the disciples of these disciples. As it is stated in the Sutra of Mahamaya: "During the first five hundred years after the Buddha's Parinirvana, seven holy monks, sages all, including Mahakasyapa, will uphold the right dharma in succession so that it does not perish. After five hundred years, the right dharma will become completely extinct." The first period of 500 years after the physical death of the Buddha (Parinirvana) is called the right Dharma age. It is an age characterized by correct understanding and practice of the 430 Dharma in all its aspects (meditation, wisdom and precepts) with often attainment of emancipation. The second Dharma age is called the semblance Dharma age, which lasted 1000 years after the previous one. It is characterized by gradual decadence in the determination by which practitioners, both monks and lay people practice the Way. Self-indulgence slowly takes place and fills the minds and hearts of the followers. The breaking of precepts becomes more and more common among monks and nuns and "only a few attain the fruit of Enlightenment". The third and last Dharma age lasts for 10.000 years after the second age. In it "only the verbal teaching remains", while nobody is capable of observing the precepts and of truly practicing meditation or other Buddhist methods based on self power. Words like, "the right Dharma will become extinct" or "the teaching will be stored in the naga's palace", which can be found in Mahamaya Sutra, Benevolent King Sutra and others, means that although one can still find the written texts of the Buddhist teaching, the Dharma of personal power teachings and methods is as good as non-existent or practically nonexistent because nobody can attain Enlightenment through it. The requirements of the paths of self power within the Buddhist teachings do not accord anymore with the capacities of beings. Also even if we read about precepts in the sacred texts, nobody can actually observe them. So it is said that in this period there are no precepts. If there were people who at least have the 431 capacity to observe precepts in an imperfect manner, we could say that there is a breaking of precepts, but since people can't observe precepts at all, it is said that precepts do not exist anymore. The capacities of beings are so low that no requirement is made to them, hence there are no precepts (1). It is the same with having no pretention of healthy behavior from a terminally ill person with a chronic disease. The matter of accordance between the teaching and the beings to be taught and also the time in which they live in - close or far from the physical presence of the Buddha - is extremely important. Master Tao-ch'o (Daochuo) said that: "If the beings, the teachings and the times were not in accord, it would be difficult to perform practice and difficult to attain Enlightenment." A person living in the presence of the Buddha or close in time to it, can easily follow the paths of self power practice in comparison with someone living 2500 years far from the Buddha. The requirements and practices cannot be the same for them because their times and capacities differ. Master Shinran explained this: "With regard to the Dharma, there are three ages, and among people, there are three levels. The instruction imparting the teaching and precepts flourishes and declines according to the age, and words of condemnation or praise are accepted or rejected depending on the person... 432 ...the wisdom and enlightenment of beings of the five fivehundred year periods after the Buddha's demise differ. How can beings be saved by only one path?" "How can beings be saved by only one path?" - how can beings living in the last Dharma age attain Enlightenment through the means and practices given to those living in the presence of the Buddha or in the right Dharma age who have a different environment and different capacities. "It is like rubbing green wood to build a fire; fire cannot be made, for time is not right", said Master Tao-ch'o in a well suited comparison. Also Master Shinran said very clearly: "Truly we know that the teachings of the Path of Sages were intended for the period when the Buddha was in the world and for the right Dharma-age; they are altogether inappropriate for the times and beings of the semblance and last Dharma-ages and the age when the Dharma has become extinct. Already their time has passed; they are no longer in accord with beings." Thus the Great Collection Sutra states: "Out of billions of sentient beings who seek to perform practices and cultivate the way in the last Dharma-age, not one will gain realization." Master Tao-ch'o comments on this last quote by saying: 433 "This is now the last Dharma-age; it is the evil world of the five defilements. This one gate - the Pure Land way - is the only path that affords passage." The Jodo Shinshu path alone doesn't discriminate between the capacities of beings and doesn't depend on the time they live in, it doesn’t matter if it is the period when the Buddha was in the world, the right, semblance and the last Dharma ages, or the time when the Dharma becomes extinct, because it is the path that brings all to perfect Enlightenment, not through personal power which is changeable and not reliable, but through the Power of Amida Buddha.”193 The great importance of this teaching cannot be overstated. The Buddha offers different Dharma gates, which are different ways to attain enlightenment, for instance there are dual Dharma gates (like Amida’s Pure Land teachings) and nondual Dharma gates like Zen, Zogchen and Mahamudra teachings. Even if the purpose of all those teachings is to lead beings to Enlightenment they employ very different means to achieve this goal. The Buddha didn’t teach in the same way all the time since He encountered different disciples with different mental hindrances and skills. The Buddha also taught that the capacities of sentient beings would decline dramatically after his passing into Parinirvana. The Three Dharma Ages, Article published on Amidaji Temple’s official website on Monday, September 14, 2009. Link : http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.com/2009/09/threedharma-ages.html#more 193 434 The Masters clearly point out that after 500 hundred years the pristine Dharma and the Buddha-field of Shakyamuni would grow significantly weaker. The Semblance Dharma age then began and for 1000 years practitioners declined in both precepts and meditation skills. It was way harder for beings to attain even the first stages that lead towards Enlightenment and therefore mediocrity and laxity began to manifest in the Sangha. Of course this is also due to the weakening of Shakyamuni’s direct field of influence; His blessings over sentient beings were not as direct as before and practitioners couldn’t be benefited as much from the various Dharma gates He taught. And finally, in our present Age of Dharma Decline/The Age of Mappo (as it is called in Jodo Shinshu) the Dharma survives just in texts and rituals but practitioners are no longer able to obtain the benefits of wisdom, compassion and perfect enlightenment. Precepts are no longer kept even by many priests and monks so, they no longer constitute a viable path towards Buddhahood. As the Great Collection Sutra states: "Out of billions of sentient beings who seek to perform practices and cultivate the way in the last Dharma-age, not one will gain realization." This is certainly our situation now; it was the situation also for Masters like Shinran and Honen, who struggled with difficult practices in Mount Hiei (home of the Tendai Buddhist Lineage in Japan). Master Honen and Shinran where very brilliant Buddhist scholars but they realized how futile their efforts to 435 attain Enlightenment were by practicing difficult self-powered practices. As we have seen in the teachings of the 10 Bhumis/the ten Boddhisattva Stages; attaining Buddhahood is something very far removed from the usual skills of human beings. For starters, most humans can’t keep basic moral precepts to let alone lead a holy life fully dedicated to meditation, contemplation and wisdom. Many practitioners nowadays feel they have advanced a part of the path because they have gained some inner peace, and they think that’s enough. Buddhas can manifest countless Nirmanakaya Bodies, they can move freely across all realms of existence, know the minds of ALL beings in the myriads of universes and they can also manifest Lands like Amida Buddha, Aksobhya Buddha, Padmasambhava and Yakushi (Medicine Master) Buddha. These are just A FEW of all the myriad of marvelous spiritual skills that Buddhas have mastered. Can the people who claim to be enlightened nowadays REALLY do that? Or are they being fooled by their egotistical minds? If great practitioners from the past such as Milarepa and Tsongkhapa practiced for so many years in such an ardent manner, can we honestly say they just wanted to feel good or relaxed? All great Boddhisattvas and serious Buddhist practitioners from the past have practiced to scape samsara and achieve Supreme Enlightenment, with all the transcendental skills that Buddhahood entails: omniscience, clairvoyance, to have access to the three Dharma-bodies (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and 436 Niramanakaya), the mastery of all Dhyanas and beyond…all of that is really something that we should take very seriously and even more so to actually claim that we possess such noble virtues and capacities, especially when we take into account the teachings of the Three Dharma Ages and we realize that we are in a period of total decline (in mental capacities, Dharma teaching quality, the purity and Commitment of the Sangha and most importantly we lack the direct influence of Shakyamuni’s Buddha field). It is crucial that we recognize that we are living in decadent times for the Dharma, in fact our present spiritual capacities are non-existent. The Age of Mappo is also characterized by the intensification of the karmic evil of sentient beings. Not only are we know more incompetent than ever to practice the Path of Sages but we also lack even the most basic virtues, that were far more common in practitioners from the previous Ages of Right Dharma and Dharma-Semblance. We must also mention that in the myriad of Samsaric Universes our Saha universe is not among the less terrible places for spiritual cultivation. In the Larger Sutra we read how Shakyamuni Buddha describes the samsaric universe we inhabit and how particularly filled with misery it is: “Having become a Buddha in this world, I now dwell in the midst of the five evils, the five sufferings, and the five burnings. This is extremely painful for me. I will teach multitudes of beings, making them abandon the five evils”194 194 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised 437 As Reverend Cirlea summarizes these 5 defilements/evils: The five defilements are the five marks of decay of the world we live in: 1) the defilement of views, when incorrect, perverse thoughts and ideas are predominant, 2) the defilement of passions, when all kinds of transgressions are exalted, 3) the defilement of human condition, when people are usually dissatisfied and unhappy, 4) the defilement of life-span, when the human life-span as a whole decreases – according to the sutras, when it is less or close to one hundred years, 5) the defilement of the world-age, when war and natural disasters are rife.195 Here Shakyamuni describes the incredible sufferings of our Saha realm and the common evil karmic tendencies of beings. Shakyamuni’s description is indeed chilling: “Such are the afflictions of the five evils in this world. The five sufferings and the five burnings continue to arise from them. People commit nothing but evil and fail to cultivate roots of virtue, and so it is natural that they all go to evil realms. Even in this life they suffer from incurable illnesses. Longing for death, they cannot die; craving for life, they cannot live. Thus they are an example to others of what the retribution for evil acts is like. After death, driven by their karma, they fall into the three evil realms, where they suffer countless tortures and are themselves consigned to the flames. Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 47 195 Commentary on the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life, By Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova, 2020, page 500. 438 “After a long time they are reborn again in this world, only to foment hatred against each other. At first hatred is slight but finally develops into a major evil. All this is because of their greedy attachment to wealth and sensuous pleasures and of their refusal to share with others. Further, wayward thoughts arise from the desires born of stupidity. Their bondage to evil passions will never be severed. In the pursuit of selfish gain, there is no chance for them to reflect on their evils and turn to good. When wealthy and prosperous, they are happy and do not learn to be modest and virtuous. Consequently, their pomp and power are short-lived; when these are exhausted, they must undergo further afflictions. Their sufferings are bound to increase in time to come. “The law of karma operates like a net stretched everywhere; in its meshes it inevitably catches all offenders. The net woven of large and small ropes covers the whole world, from top to bottom, and those caught in it feel utterly helpless and tremble in fear. This net has been in existence from of old. How painful and heart-rending!”196 Sentient beings in Samsara blindly perpetrate their own hellish circumstances and this is even graver in our Saha realm, which is described in the sutras and commentaries as quite prone to evil, lack of virtue, delusion and ignorance (this is also true for all samsaric universes of course but in the case of the Saha universe these hindrances seem to be particularly problematic). We must remember that this is Shakyamuni speaking of the 196 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 54-55 439 characteristics of the Saha realm while He was still in physical form in this world. The five evils are present in all three Dharma ages since they are a characteristic of the present situation of our samsaric universe called Saha .All samsaric realms of existence are produced by ignorance, but some of them are worse than others when it comes to morality and spiritual capacities. This can be compared to a terribly dangerous city (samsara) and a particularly bad neighborhood within that city (the Saha realm). The bottom-line is this: We have two enormous problems as Buddhist followers 1) we live in the Saha realm, a particular samsaric universe which is filled to the brim with the 5 evils. The karmic tendency of the vast majority of beings is to do evil unceasingly and 2) We are living now on the Age of Dharma Decline/The Age of Mappo which is an age in which the Path of Sages is completely useless to save beings from samsara. Our capacities both mental and moral are very poor and the evil environment we are surrounded by doesn’t help us AT ALL. We must DEEPLY reflect upon these two points and sincerely ask ourselves what path we should follow to attain Enlightenment. We should pay attention to what Shakyamuni and the Patriarchs are teaching us about the real capacities of beings in this decadent age and the Dharma that CAN truly help such depraved and evil beings like ourselves in this asylum-Saha universe we live in. We must listen deeply to Shakyamuni’s wise exhortations in the Larger Sutra: 440 “It is time for all to seek deliverance from the pains of birth, sickness, old age, and death. [….] However hard you may practice in this life, it can only be for a short while. In the life to come you will be born in the land of Amitāyus and enjoy endless bliss there. Being forever in accord with the Way, you will no longer be subject to birth and death and be free of the afflictions caused by greed, anger, and ignorance. If you wish your life to be as long as a kalpa, a hundred kalpas, or ten million kotis of kalpas, it will be just as you please. You will dwell in effortless spontaneity and attain nirvana. You should each diligently seek to realize your aspiration. Do not entertain any doubt or give up your endeavors, lest as a result of that fault you should be born into the seven-jeweled palace in the border region of the Pure Land and be subject to various disadvantages for five hundred years.”197 Shakyamuni Buddha’s exhortation for us to be born in Sukhavati must be heard with all our hearts and minds. As Shakyamuni pointedly says even if we practice hard and seriously in this world for 30 or 50 years, that is only for a short while since we have such short lifespans and this world is full to the brim with the 5 evils and all manners of distraction and delusions, so we must receive faith in Amida and wish to be born in Sukhavati with all our hearts and minds. 197 The Larger Sutra-The Three Pure Land Sutras Translated from the Chinese By Hisao Inagaki in collaboration with Harold Stewart Revised Second Revised Second Edition Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research 2003 p 46. 441 The Buddha also warns us against being born in the Transformed aspect of the Pure Land, as our doubts can prevent us from enjoying the full benefits of Amida’s 48 great vows. We can waste a lot of precious time in the border region which could be better spent in the heart of the Pure Land (the Recompensed Land/the Fulfilled Land) and there attain Enlightenment swiftly in order to benefit countless sentient beings that have been drowning in death suffering kalpa after kalpa. The urgency of Shakyamuni’s wise exhortation cannot be overstated. In this world where evil is abundant; virtue is scarce and attaining Enlightenment on our own is tremendously hard so we must strive to be born in the most perfect environment manifested by a Buddha: Sukhavati, Amida’s Pure Land of Utmost Bliss and Peace. At the end of the Larger Sutra Shakyamuni says something very important and moving which reveals the crucial importance of the sacred teaching on Amida and His Salvation. “The Buddha further said, “I have expounded this teaching for the sake of sentient beings and enabled you to see Amitāyus and all in his land. Strive to do what you should. After I have passed into nirvana, do not allow doubt to arise. In the future, the Buddhist scriptures and teachings will perish. But, out of pity and compassion, I will especially preserve this sutra and maintain it in the world for a hundred years more. Those beings who encounter it will attain deliverance in accord with their aspirations.”198 198 Ibidem p 61 442 The Last Age of Dharma decline lasts 10.000 years but that doesn’t mean that the Dharma will be practiced until the last decades of this era. After 10.000 years Buddhism will disappear out of the face of this planet, and human beings will no longer remember there was ever a Buddha, a Sangha or a Dharma. They will have to wait billions of years for the coming of Maitreya Buddha. It could easily be the case that relatively soon in coming centuries Buddhism could become a relic of a bygone era, as has happened in some temples in Japan where Buddhism is not considered “fit for our modern times” and people throw parties and organize bazars with food and drinks to attract false practitioners. There’s no telling of what will happen in the future. Wars can erupt, fanatic religions or political regimes can wipe out the Dharma, and with the increasing false teachings that are poisoning modern Sanghas it is painful just to think about what spiritual chimeras they will come up with to lead people astray and fool them with their evil lies (Something that is already happening today at an alarming rate). The promise that is made in this sutra is something unique in all Buddhist sutras. No other Mahayana sutras have a promise like this. The Buddha vowed to protect the integrity of the Larger sutra after all other sutras had vanished from the phase of this earth. Just imagine that. There will come a time in which there won’t even be monks, temples or even other sutras to compare the Larger sutra with, but still, out of compassion, Shakyamuni has blessed the preservation of this particular teaching of Amida Buddha, and His outstanding salvation so that it can last a whole extra century only for the people that will encounter it and recite Amida’s Holy Name, 443 the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life and thus be born in His Pure Land after all other methods are simply buried in the thick sands of history. This makes perfect sense according to the Buddha-Dharma. Let’s now imagine a hypothetical future world in which it is not the Larger Sutra (or its primal message which is the primal Vow) that survives but instead the Diamond Sutra is the last sutra that remains available. (a sutra with profound passages on emptiness which is studied in Chan/Zen Buddhism). Just imagine a world wiped out by war and famine; a world where all Buddhist Sanghas have been destroyed, and the rich legacy of the sutras and commentaries have been so forgotten that not even the word Buddha or Dharma remains in public imagination. Temples will be buried under the sand and Buddhist communities have become extinct; so, taking this into account: what use could these future humans find in reading the esoteric and complex teachings of the Diamond Sutra?, of course I am not saying that the Diamond Sutra is not great in its own right for the particular Dharma Gate (method to awaken sentient beings) that is teaches; but in a world where not even the basics of Buddhism remain available, reading things like “all phenomena are empty of self” (something that is quite difficult to fully understand and even more so to actually experience in meditation) is not going to benefit anybody in this post-apocalyptic future. Instead the Larger Sutra offers a clear message to all: entrust yourself to Amida, say His Name, and wish to be born in His realm after you die. This is something simple. You don’t have to be an expert or particularly intelligent to get this; so even in the darkest social or political circumstances that may come in the distant future; 444 Namo Amida Bu will be kept safe, and the message of universal salvation of Amida’s Primal Vow will be the last thing that will disappear from this world when Shakyamuni Buddha’s dispensation of the Dharma finally ends in our human world after 10.000 years pass in the age of Dharma decline. Does this make more sense? Yes! It absolutely does; because, what do all Buddhas want? That ALL beings become Buddhas, and since the Primal Vow is the most universal and effective teaching of all the Buddha-Dharma (this includes all the teachings of all Buddhas in all the 10 directions) it is clear that this method of salvation (Amida’s Primal Vow) is dear to the hearts of all Buddhas (as it is expressed in the 17th Vow and in many parts of the sacred texts) and it is particularly blessed in all worlds so that it can save as many beings as possible. This promise of Shakyamuni Buddha to protect the Larger Sutra (and specially its core-message which is the Primal Vow) does not come out of the blue but it is in fact a promise that is in clear accordance with the deep intention of all Buddhas: to lead sentient beings out of samsara and towards Buddhahood regardless of their hindrances or circumstances. We live in a century where Buddhism is still practiced and most of the sutras are still known by many but the Age of Mappo started centuries ago according to Master Shinran and the Pure Land Patriarchs; so the teachings of the Path of Sages only survive in their outer form but they are as good as non-existent for foolish beings like us in this world of the five terrible evils since we cannot attain enlightenment by practicing these elaborated teachings. 445 The choice is ours to make. We have two options: We can either 1.listen to Shakyamuni’s advice and swiftly jump in Amida’s golden Ship (His Primal Vow of Salvation), recite Amida’s name with faith and be born in His Pure Land or 2.we can try it our way and attempt to swim to the distant other shore of Buddhahood and perish in the waves of birth and death, as we have done countless of times before in our futile wandering in the 6 realms. Will you be humble and hear Amida’s call? Will you accept Amida’s helping hand? That is precisely the advice of Shakyamuni Buddha. I think that we should deeply reflect on His wise words. 446 Shinjin: Adamantine Faith Shinjin: Adamantine Faith given to us by Amida Buddha Himself is they key teaching of the Jodo Shinshu lineage as taught by our Master Shinran Shonin. His revered Master Honen Shonin had said many times that as devotees of Amida’s Primal Vow we shouldn’t think that we are saved by our skill to recite Amida’s Name (to recite Namo Amida Butsu).This would be like using the nembutsu as a practice based on individual merits (Jiriki Nembutsu) instead of just entrusting to Amida and say the nembutsu out of pure gratitude and faith without being obsessed with numbers or special mental conditions (Tariki Nembutsu). Jodo Shinshu teachings bluntly declare that there’s absolute nothing to add to Amida’s Primal vow. It is Amida’s power that saves us and NOT our capacity to recite His name often or seldom. As Shinshu Master Seikaku used to say: “I have gotten the cold of the Dharma and I can’t stop coughing the Nembutsu” and as my teacher Rev. Cirlea often says as well: “to think about the number of recitations is like philosophizing about love; when you are in love with a person you just say “I love you”” Amida’s primal vow and His name are like a mother’s gift to us, so we shouldn’t calculate in this or that way, but instead, we should just trust in Amida and enjoy the Nembutsu in a free manner, always knowing that He will accept us in His Pure Land because we have faith in His salvation. We are truly like little seeds in His hands; when we leave it all in Amida’s hands then nothing can go wrong, He is in charge of our 447 Buddhahood in His Pure Land; we are just like peasants traveling in a luxurious plane; what could simpletons like us know about the workings of the Supreme Salvation that is praised by all the Buddhas in all the universes? At least for now, as long as we remain in our samsaric human bodies, we can’t understand anything about the workings of Amida’s Primal Vow of Salvation instead all we should do is to simply go on board Amida’s salvation. We should leave our salvation in Amida’s hands and trust Him with all our hearts and minds. Shinran teaches that from the first moment we have a thought of Faith in Amida, that faith (Shinjin) is Adamantine which means that it’s indestructible due to the fact that faith in Amida Buddha doesn’t come from us but from Amida Buddha Himself. We will explore this crucial concept of Shinjin as it is taught by Shinran Shonin by quoting the explanations given in the Tannisho written by Yuienbo, His disciple, who quotes the teachings of Master Shinran. The Tannisho is a fundamental text in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism since it clarifies many misunderstandings that obscure the notion of Amida’s salvation, faith and nembutsu. We will also quote some passages from Rev. Cirlea’s excellent book “The Path of Acceptance-Commentary on Tannisho” which thoroughly explains each chapter of this important Jodo Shinshu text. The first thing we have to make absolutely clear is that Amida’s Name works because of Amida Buddha and not due to our power. This may seem obvious by now but the problem is that our egos always manage to find ways to complicate our minds and hearts. 448 As it is stated in the 8th chapter of the Tannisho: ““The nembutsu, for its practicers, is not a practice or a good act. Since it is not performed out of one’s own designs, it is not a practice. Since it is not good done through one’s own calculation, it is not a good act. Because it arises wholly from Other Power and is free of self-power, for the practicer, it is not a practice or a good act.”199 So first, it is not a virtuous act, a moral or a good action. It is like you are drowning in the sea and a captain invites you to his boat and he promises to take you to his house on a nearby island. Grabbing the captain’s hand (Accepting Amida’s primal vow in faith) and being taken safely to his island (Sukhavatithe Pure Land) does NOT involve any personal merit from the part of those that are saved. This is also similar to putting a rock in a plane. If you let a heavy rock fall into a calmed lake it will naturally sink to the bottom. The fact that it can fly on a plane has nothing to do with its intrinsic nature. Likewise our nature as ordinary samsaric beings is to be filled with evil passions and evil karma. If we are left at the mercy of our samsaric minds we will naturally drown in birth and death (as we have been doing for innumerable kalpas). If we are put on Amida’s hands He will take us safely to His Pure Land, and He asks nothing in return. So we are like heavy rocks filled with samsaric obscurations and even if we have Buddha-nature we are like a jewel trapped under layers and layers of muddy rock and this jewel (our Buddha Nature) will never shine on its own without someone cleansing it and purifying it so we can 199 The Path of Acceptance-Commentary on Tannisho, by Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications Craiova, page 38. 449 become shining-jewels of Buddhahood. Our own power has absolutely nothing to do with our salvation, we just accept the fact of being saved by Amida and we say “Namo Amida Butsu” in gratitude. The expression “it is not good done through one’s own calculation” means that we have NO IDEA whatsoever about how it is that Amida can do what he does, namely: saving samsaric beings and taking them to His Pure Land regardless of their evil karma. Of course we can talk about merit-transference and the myriad practices that Dharmakara Bodhisattva made to become Amida Buddha, but in the end, we are really clueless as to what He really did in detail. Our present obscure minds can’t understand the full scope of Amida’s light and life. The mind we have is the result of karma, and it will not stay like this forever, so if we entrust to Amida Buddha, the moment our present obscure karma is exhausted, and we abandon this samsaric body, mind and world, we will finally become Enlightened and understand the workings of the Primal Vow. But for now we are just like a heavy rock in a Plane, and we rely entirely on Amida’s power to purify the rock of our obscure minds and transform it into Buddha-diamond once we are born in His Pure Land; without Amida we sink in samsara and with His Powerful Vow we fly to the Pure Land. It is that simple. We cannot add anything to Amida’s vow. We cannot have a “bad Nembutsu recitation” because no matter how good, relaxed or disturbed we feel, the fact is that no matter the contents of our samsaric minds, Amida’s Name remains 450 pristine and powerful because it is the expression of His Enlightened mind. Our defilements can’t harm Amida’s light. Our so called “merits” cannot improve His Primal Vow. I remember before I studied the Jodo Shinshu lineage I used to combine the nembutsu with meditations and visualizations. The moment you do that, is the moment that you create a trap in your mind, since, you put a burden upon yourself to reach the Pure Land. The only thing Amida mentions in His Primal Vow is, “say my name, have faith in me and aspire to be born in my Pure Land”, everything else we might try to do is just an expression of faith in our own capacities and therefore it obstructs Amida’s primal intention to save us unconditionally. There’s a key passage where Shinran clearly explains this fundamental point: "Whether with regard to the cause or to its fruition, there is nothing whatever that has not been fulfilled through Amida Tathagata’s directing of virtue to beings out of the pure Vow-mind. Because the cause is pure, the fruit is also pure. Reflect on this". 200 Mixed faith leads to mixed results and pure faith (shinjin) leads to pure results. The Primal Vow is perfect “there is nothing that has not been fulfilled through Amida’s Primal Vow”. So the moment we think that the many kalpas in which Amida practiced the Dharma and He perfected His 48 Vows are not enough to save us (so we add visualizations, faith in the vast 200 Shinran Shonin, Passages on the Pure Land Way, The Collected Works of Shinran, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, 1997, p.300-301 451 number of nembutsu recitations, meditation, good acts…etc.) we can only enter the Transformed land, where we have to remain for some time until we entrust completely to Amida and we abandon our foolish egos (That is mixed faith that leads to mixed results) On the contrary pure faith leads naturally to pure results. If we simply leave everything in Amida’s Hands and we say His name with deep faith in Him (100% faith in Amida and 0% faith in our merits and efforts) Then we will naturally enter the Heart of Amida’s Pure Land/The Fulfilled Land/The Recompensed Land, where we naturally enjoy perfect Enlightenment once we are exposed directly to Amida’s Light. So the cause of us being born in Amida’s Pure Recompensed Land is the nembutsu of faith that is based on Amida’s Power. It is called “rootless faith” because it is a faith that is given to us by Amida Buddha Himself. Reverend Cirlea has a great example to explain this. It is like a mother’s love. If you think about it, a child loves a good mother because of her love. The love of the child for his mother is the echo of a mother’s love for her child. A small baby, for instance, is nothing without his mother taking care of his/her every need. So we cannot say the love that a child feels comes directly from him out of nowhere. This love is the echo; it is the response for her mother’s unconditional love. In the same way, we recite Amida’s Name because of Amida’s power. Our Nembutsu is just the echo of His Primal vow. The Nembutsu-roots are not within our hearts. It is a tree with its branches in Amida’s golden heart. We are only eating the precious fruit of knowing we are saved by Amida’s power. The Nembutsu is Amida’s gift to us, so 452 counting it, calculating in this or that way, or being rational about it, is completely contrary to the spirit of the real Nembutsu of Faith and gratitude in which we just enjoy the gift of Amida as much as we want and wherever we desire. Our evil karma is like a particle of ash in the ocean of the Primal Vow, and whatever good we do is completely useless too, because the Primal Vow is beyond anything good or evil we can do. As Master Genshin said: “To part from the three evil courses and be born human is cause for great joy. Our position in the world may be wretched, but can it be worse than that of beasts? The household we are born in may be destitute, but our lot still surpasses that of famished ghosts. Our hopes and wishes may be frustrated, but this can hardly be compared with the pain in hell. Moreover, dwelling in this world consciously experiencing its sorrow is an opportunity to weary [of samsaric existence]. Be glad, therefore, at having been born a human being. However shallow our trust, the Primal Vow itself is fathomless; if we simply entrust ourselves to it, then, we will unfailingly attain birth. However spiritless our utterance of the nembutsu, if we but say it, we gain with certainty Amida's welcome at death. Vast are the virtues of the Primal Vow, so rejoice at having encountered it. It is taught that delusional thinking is, by nature, the fundamental ground of foolish beings' existence. Apart from our delusional aversions and attachments, we have no mind. Up to the very point of death we will be foolish 453 beings wholly possessed of delusional thoughts and feelings, but if we say the nembutsu in full awareness of this, we will be blessed with Amida's coming, and at the moment we mount the lotus dais, our delusions will be overturned, becoming the mind of enlightenment. The nembutsu emerging to utterance from our delusional thoughts is like a lotus blossom unstained by the mud. Do not doubt, therefore, that your attainment of birth is settled.”201 So as Master Genshin beautifully says our Nembutsu is like a Lotus unstained by the mud of our minds. It is the purity that comes from outside our minds and has its roots in Amida’s Power which takes us to the overturning of our delusional mind by melting the ice of our obscurations in the light of Amida’s Compassion and Wisdom at the moment of our physical death. Having pristine Shinjin is having the conviction that our attainment of birth in the Pure Land is settled. This conviction is a gift from Amida Buddha. If Shinjin was the creation of our deluded minds (like the concepts and ideas we create in our mundane reality) then it would not amount to much. It would be just another human created concept in our mind-streams susceptible to change and decay. But Shinjin comes from the power of Amida Buddha and therefore it is adamantine (diamond-like, a symbol for indestructability) it cannot be moved by anyone. No demon, no deva, (not even Mara or Brahma themselves), no delusion, no doubt, and no concept can penetrate it or even touch it. It is the Holy Light of Amida Buddha, the Lotus untouched by the mundane mud of this 201 Plain words on the Pure Land Way, translated by Dennis Hirota, p. 6970, Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan.1989. 454 samsaric world and our samsaric mind-streams. This is why the moment we have just the first true thought of trust and joy in relation to Amida’s unconditional salvation, is the moment the perfect gift of Shinjin is given to us, and from that moment on, we are ASURED of birth in Amida’s Pure Land after death. From that moment on, we just say to Amida (regardless of how we feel) “thank you, Namo Amida Butsu”. We know we have Shinjin not because of our thoughts or feelings (I repeat this because it is CRUCIAL), not because how calm or virtuous we feel, or how many times we recite….it is simple for what we ACCEPT to be true. As Rev. Cirlea clearly states: “Rather than asking yourself, "do I feel the right thing" in relation to shinjin (faith), you should better ask: 1-do I accept the real existence of Amida Buddha and His Pure Land? 2-do I accept Amida Buddha's salvation as promised in His Primal Vow, that is, do I entrust myself completely to Him? 3-do I accept that only Amida Buddha can save me through His Power from birth and death and that nothing which can be found in my unenlightened personality can help me in any way in achieving this goal? If your answer to the above questions is YES, I DO, then you are a person of faith. So, you are a person of faith not because you feel the right things, or because you have an intellectual understanding of all Buddhist concepts, including faith, but because you accept and you know that Amida Buddha and His Pure Land are real and that He saves you by assuring your birth there after death. When you say YES, I DO, this is Namo Amida Butsu as the expression of faith. Nothing special is implied here, 455 but only the knowing that you are saved by a real, existing Amida Buddha. This knowing may be, of course, accompanied by joy at the first time of the awakening of faith or from time to time during your daily lives. It is not my intention to deny that joy can accompany faith. All I want to say is that you should not depend on the presence or absence of a particular feeling. Faith is just knowing that you are saved by Amida Buddha. If you sometimes take great delight in this knowing, or you are simply too overcome by personal difficulties and sorrows, it has absolutely no importance. Faith is faith, no matter you are up or down. You are saved by Amida's Power, and NOT by your capacity to feel joy or any other feeling. “Your personal fears, problems or difficulties are not important in relation to faith and birth in the Pure Land, because they are part of your unenlightened personality, while faith and birth in the Pure Land are due to Amida's Power. The cause of your personal problems, difficulties, fears and anxieties are your delusions and attachments, while the cause of your faith, saying of the Name and of your birth in the Pure Land is in Amida Buddha's Power. This is why it is said in the Tannisho that no evil can hinder the Nembutsu and no good is superior to Nembutsu” Nothing which can be found in your unenlightened personality can influence or improve your chances of birth in the Pure Land. Only Amida Buddha can take you there, so cling to Him, not on your feelings.202 Reverend Cirlea has another great passage that describes the most important elements to receive Faith in Amida Buddha. 202 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p. 231-232 456 Remember we cannot attain Shinjin/Adamantine faith; nevertheless we can adopt attitudes that can help us to be receptive to Amida’s Salvation. Master Rennyo “Here are some examples of listening deeply to Amida Dharma: -Think that solving the matter of repeated births and deaths is the most important thing in your life. -Put aside all other Buddhist or non-Buddhist teachings, philosophies, and opinions and listen (reading is also listening) only to Amida Dharma. -Put aside what you think you know and listen to what Amida Dharma has to say. Empty your cup (mind) of your so called, personal "wisdom", and stay open to -receive the nectar of Dharma. Consider that you know nothing and that Amida Dharma knows everything. -Read the most simple and essential texts of our school -Listen with a devotional mind and heart -Listen again and again (constantly) in the manner described above Ask questions if you have doubts or if there is something you don't understand. Study the answers carefully and without hurry, and ask again if you need to. -Engage in a Dharma dialogue (not debates!) with people who are already established in faith and who do not embrace wrong views. -Think on the testimony of Shakyamuni Buddha himself, and of so many wonderful Masters like Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Shantao, Honen, Shinran, Rennyo, etc., who accepted the existence of Amida Buddha and the reality of His salvation. Always ask Amida Buddha for guidance. Bow to Him, and say His Name even if you are not yet established in faith. No matter how many doubts you have, or how awkward it might be at the beginning, find some time to sit with 457 Amida Buddha and ask Him for guidance. Give a chance to the idea that He and His salvation are real. You really have nothing to lose if you accept Amida's salvation. On the contrary, you gain everything! You will be born in the Pure Land at the end of this life and become a Buddha! Your suffering in the repeated births and deaths will be over and you will be capable of truly helping others, especially your dear ones. Please also meditate on what you have to lose if you do not accept the existence of Amida Buddha and the reality of His salvation. The chance you now have to be in a human body and listen to Amida Dharma might not be met in thousands and thousands of lives! So, just give it a try and do the above things for some time.203 I will provide now a commentary for these 12 recommendations given by Rev. Cirlea on how to listen deeply to the Amida-Dharma and receive the gift of Shinjin (Faith in Amida) 1.Think that solving the matter of repeated births and deaths is the most important thing in your life. This is of vital importance, because the objective of Buddhism is to escape the cycle of birth and death in Samsara once and for all. This point emphasizes that a person accepts the Buddhist world-view (right view) and therefore, acknowledges that what we are aiming for in Buddhism is Buddhahood and not quick fixes or momentary 203 The Meaning of Faith and Nembutsu in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, by Rev. Josho Adrian Cirlea, Dharma Lion Publications, Craiova 2018, p. 151-153 458 happiness. Once a person truly understands the miseries of samsara, it will be easier for them to awaken wise fear and earnestness and thus listen to Amida Dharma with the right motivation to escape the 6 realms and the consequences of evil karma throughout kotis of kalpas. (Awaken the twofold profound conviction of Shantao Nishu Jinshin) 2- Put aside all other Buddhist or non-Buddhist teachings, philosophies, and opinions and listen (reading is also listening) only to Amida Dharma. If we believe in a supreme creator deity, or if we reject karma, and samsara due to the influence of non-Buddhist religions and philosophies then listening to Amida Dharma will be a waste of time, or even worst, it could lead to great confusion and create the karma of slandering the Dharma (which is terrible), so we should abandon all non-Buddhist paths, and among all dharma gates choose the Primal Vow of salvation as taught in the Larger sutra and explained by Shinran and the 7 Patriarchs. Listening here means to listen exclusively to Jodo Shinshu-Amida Dharma. 3 Put aside what you think you know and listen to what Amida Dharma has to say. Empty your cup (mind) of your so called, personal "wisdom", and stay open to receive the nectar of Dharma. Consider that you know nothing and that Amida Dharma knows everything. Whatever so called “wisdom” we think we have got, be it from listening to the Dharma or other non-Buddhist philosophies is a hindrance that could prevent people from 459 truly listening deeply to Amida Dharma, since what we need is a receptive mind, eager to learn what Amida has to say rather than to modify the Dharma or distort it according to our whims, likes and dislikes. 4- Read the most simple and essential texts of our school Avoid reading without guidance the entire Kyogyoshinsho (Shinran's great treatise) at once, for instance, or other treatises of the Patriarchs, since it will be challenging to understand at first. So, stick to the Books of Reverend Cirlea (which contain many passages by Shinran, Rennyo and the Patriarchs, and they are also explained in a clear manner) and Ryosetsu Fujiwara’s standard of Shinshu faith. Read the Tannisho and the larger sutra as explained by Reverend Cirlea, since he doesn't put his own ideas before the Dharma and he explains these works in a simple manner the most basic teachings of our school. In Jodo Shinshu we don’t play with complicated subjects like emptiness or mudras or mandalas, but it is essential that followers understand basic notions like: shinjin, nembutsu, Amida's primal vow and the nature of Amida and His Pure Land, in a basic way. Since this is a School based on the Otherpower of Amida we don’t stress wisdom or sophistication, nevertheless we do need clarity and depth about the basic aforementioned concepts (and other basic general Buddhist notions like karma, samsara and Nirvana) 5-Listen with a devotional mind and heart A devotional mind and heart means that Jodo Shinshu is a 460 faith/devotional oriented school. So it is important that we acknowledge that we can’t receive the gift of shinjin with a prideful or a know-it-all kind of attitude. We need to be humble, and honor the tradition, even if we don’t yet have faith. We need to be humble before Amida Buddha in order to be opened to His Light and by being opened and humble, we can be influenced more easily and receive faith as a gift from Amida. -6 Listen again and again (constantly) in the manner described above Listening only once is not enough for most of us. We need to constantly listen with all our hearts and minds, because since we have been deluded by our egos so many times in the past it is difficult to become aware of a Path that relies totally on the Power of Another (Amida) to attain Enlightenment. So the more times we listen deeply the better. And even if we have awakened faith, listening deeply to the Dharma/studying the sacred texts is also a way to deepen our understanding and celebrate the gift of shinjin. 7- Ask questions if you have doubts or if there is something you don't understand. Study the answers carefully and without hurry, and ask again if you need to 8 Engage in a Dharma dialogue (not debates!) with people who are already established in faith and who do not embrace wrong views. A Dharma dialogue is when you try to understand in a clear 461 way the Dharma, and you are in a learning mood (as Josho says), a person who is in a learning mood will always be genuinely curious and ask questions and he or she will put aside his/her opinions and will not try to convince others; instead they are on a receptive mind state and they ask questions out a genuine desire to learn something new and put it into practice. A debate is just the opposite, when a person is full of ego and their own ideas and they are only trying to “defeat” the other person in a debate, which is a waste of time for both parties involved. 9 Think on the testimony of Shakyamuni Buddha Himself, and of so many wonderful Masters like Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Shan-tao, Honen, Shinran, Rennyo, etc., who accepted the existence of Amida Buddha and the reality of His salvation. When we think of the testimony of Shakyamuni, the seven patriarchs and Shinran Shonin, we are recognizing that Amida Dharma is a time tested method to attain enlightenment. Many people have had faith in Amida, starting with Shakyamuni Buddha Himself! Who constantly praised Amida’s light, power and virtues in the three Pure Land Sutras, and He also mentioned Him in many other sutras with profound admiration for His Unique and Powerful method of Salvation (Primal Vow). 10. Always ask Amida Buddha for guidance. Bow to Him, and say His Name even if you are not yet established in faith. No matter how many doubts you have, or how awkward it might be at the beginning, find 462 some time to sit with Amida Buddha and ask Him for guidance. Give a chance to the idea that He and His salvation are real. This is of vital importance. Even if a person doesn’t have faith yet, they should by all means create strong karmic connections with Amida, by just being exposed to His tremendously powerful influence. By bowing in front of an Amida Image, reciting His name or burning a candle in front of an altar of Amida Buddha, with an open and sincere heart that seeks faith. If we do that, Amida can influence us very easily. Remember that Amida wants us to be free from samsara by swiftly taking us to His Pure Land more strongly (millions of times) than the desire we might have for Enlightenment. So you can be sure, He is always emanating His Light and Life to all corners of the universe seeking to touch hearts and minds. By reading about Amida Dharma we open our minds and we grasp the message of His salvation, which is of vital importance. But we also need to have a devotional mind and heart and ask Amida Himself for guidance. If we do that sincerely, Amida can work in known or unknown ways to lead us to the moment we finally are open enough to receive the gift of shinjin and then it is game over for samsara and then Buddhahood will be our eternal destiny. This is beyond Amazing! 11 You really have nothing to lose if you accept Amida's salvation. On the contrary, you gain everything! You will be born in the Pure Land at the end of this life and become a Buddha! Your suffering in the repeated births and deaths will be over and you will be capable of truly 463 helping others, especially your dear ones. 12 Please also meditate on what you have to lose if you do not accept the existence of Amida Buddha and the reality of His salvation. The chance you now have to be in a human body and listen to Amida Dharma might not be met in thousands and thousands of lives! If what Amida Dharma says is true, imagine becoming a Buddha! If what Amida and Shakyamuni say is true, then the Pure Land is the best place in the universe to be, how could we not go there, when all the Buddhas praise Amida’s Pure Land? Wouldn’t it be silly to be trapped in samsara’s miseries of death and birth when Amida can take us to enjoy limitless life, wisdom, compassion and Nirvanic splendor in His Pure Land? Even if you are still doubtful about Amida Dharma, you should consider what you are missing if you reject Amida’s Hand. Consider the dire warnings of Shakyamuni about the dangers of being reborn in samsara (in many sutras including the Larger Sutra), listening to Amida Dharma is a great privilege and now you a have a unique chance to end your endless wandering once and for all. By becoming a Buddha we will finally be able to help those we have loved in this life and in many past lives, and we will be able to repay our karmic debt to many beings we have wronged in our long wandering in the 6 realms. Please consider this carefully. 464 Amida’s Call to all the Sangha I want to share now some thoughts about the importance of Amida Dharma especially nowadays since I consider we face a critical situation in our international Buddhist Sangha. This Dharma ending age began centuries ago. The great monasteries of the past in countries like Tibet and India have passed into legend. Very few temples and monasteries are preaching the Dharma as was taught by Shakyamuni Buddha and His great disciples. Many false preachers mix the Dharma with other religions and they display their so called “wisdom” hypnotizing the careless masses. Buddhism today has spread in the west, but far too often I see fancy Buddhist websites and magazines portraying Buddhism like it was a way to relax and have a good time in this mundane life. The Dharma is being now mixed with pop-psychology and new age ideas, and although some see this mass interest in the Dharma as something positive, I frankly don’t see why we should celebrate the trivialization of the profound teachings of the Buddha. Why should we be celebrating this shallow enthusiasm? The circus of false teachings making a flamboyant parade in the western sangha is just a clear example of the Dharma Ending age we are in: vice abounds (perhaps more now than ever before) and Dharma-wisdom is clearly in decline. Few are the teachers who teach about death, impermanence, suffering and the dangers of continuous rebirth in the 6 465 realms of samsaric existence. Shakyamuni knew all along that the Dharma would eventually enter into decline and then gradually disappear (as we saw in the teachings of the three Dharma ages). This is not a surprise. All things are impermanent, and so are the karmic conditions that allowed the Dharma to remain for 2550 years in our particular world and era. We should not take the Dharma for granted. We should value the fact that there are still teachers that are faithful to the Buddha-Dharma and they are willing to teach it with deep devotion, sincerity and love. Out of the myriad teachings of the Buddha only the Pure Land teaching was promised to last an extra-century after all other sutras become extinct. Why is this? Because it is the ONLY teaching that can lead ALL beings to Buddhahood in one lifetime REGARDLESS of their spiritual faculties. We need to constantly emphasize this point. Even if we happen to find a great spiritual master in a school of the path of sages (which is extremely rare) like Zen, Zogchen, Tendai or Shingon schools, before we engage in their complex practices we need to ask ourselves if that teaching is adequate to our capacities. Even before that we need to recognize the fact of the Dharma Age we are living in right now. These two aspects: 1) asking ourselves about our real capacities and 2) locating ourselves in the particular Dharma era we are living in now, are two things that rarely cross the minds of the many thousands of Dharma-enthusiasts who like me, as soon they found about Buddhism, they just started to practice like they were a great master from the very start: combining this 466 school with that other school, that meditation with that one…that teacher with another…etc. This is like getting sick, and then getting all kinds of medications from the pharmacy and consuming them without proper order or prescription from a qualified doctor. In our case, the pharmacy is the Buddha-Dharma (with its vast sutras and commentaries) and the doctor is the Buddha. If we approach the Buddha-Dharma in a careless manner we can end up poisoning ourselves with false teachings and practices instead of curing the disease of birth and death at once with the medication that is best-suited to our particular case. And our dilemma is simply this: 1 .Our capacities for spiritual cultivation in the context of the path to Enlightenment by our own efforts are very low. How do we know that most Buddhists nowadays have dull capacities to practice? Think about how few people can meditate just for one day straight nowadays. Think about how often you see Buddhist enthusiasts brake basic moral precepts and then make excuses for it. Consider the cheer volume of lies and deceit of teachers mixing the Dharma with other religions or new age ideas that have no relationship whatsoever with what the Buddha actually taught. Consider how lax modern temples and monasteries are if we compare them with the recent past (just 1 or 2 centuries ago). Even if there are spiritual prodigies out there (which I highly doubt), the sad fact is that our modern civilization glorifies banality and ignorance, and it is 10 times as difficult now to engage in prolonged spiritual practice in forests or serious monasteries 467 (something that was fairly common and even encouraged in many cultures in the recent past). Another aspect in this point is that we are influenced by this modern culture we live in. If you were born after the 60’s, chances are you were raised watching TV, reading magazines and you have engaged in all kinds of immoral acts during most of your life (which break the pure and strict Buddhist ethical code). We are also part of a civilization that now more than ever is sabotaging the planet with all manner of pollution and it threatens the life of thousands of animals. Our very way of life (buying meat, gasoline, cars, plastic, candy or electronics) has a great karmic burden since precious natural resources have been exploited in a criminal way by greedy corporations that have thrived due to our lack of concern for others and the environment. This should make us see that the very lifestyle most people have in our day and age is filled with negative karma, even if we are not aware of it. Trying to convince ourselves that we are virtuous and full with potential to become Buddhas in this sick world we inhabit is just a waste of time. The fact that wickedness and ignorance are so common nowadays leads us to the second point of our dilemma: 2) We are living in the age of Dharma Decline. So, our capacities are mediocre at best and we are living in an age where the Dharma is not available in its pristine doctrine and practice. As I showed in the section about the Dharma Ages, the capacities of beings diminish as they are removed 468 from the Buddha-field (the Buddha’s sphere of influence). The fact that murderers and truly ignorant people could so easily advance on the path to enlightenment during Shakyamuni Buddha’s time is the result of the tremendous power that a Buddha has to influence the minds of all sentient beings before their direct physical presence. The infinite blessing that the mere presence of a fully incarnated Buddha has is something beyond our imagination. We should take into account the after the first 500 years after the Buddha’s passing into Parinirvana (the abandoning of His physical body) beings could still practice to a lesser degree the various teachings of the Dharma. Not everyone attained enlightenment but there were still some good practitioners despite the fact that breaking precepts and misunderstandings in the Dharma where becoming increasingly common. After a thousand years when the capacities of practitioners were somewhat medium/low level came the Dharma Ending age (the Age of Mappo) when both theory and practice degenerate greatly to the point that Buddhist precepts are as good as nonexistent because no one can attain enlightenment through the practice of morality and meditation anymore. When we carefully examine points 1 and 2, we realize that both our capacities and the Dharma age we live in make it impossible to attain enlightenment with our present mind and bodies. Shakyamuni Buddha’s field of influence blessed those close to its direct influence but it certainly cannot help us today. Our capacities are as dull as they can be and yet most Buddhist nowadays try to engage in advance practices within Vajrayana like visualizations and 469 complex contemplation practices that are way beyond their limited level of spiritual development. This is like a guy who cannot even play a birthday song and attempts to play a Beethoven concerto at once without preparation. Likewise the vast majority of people who can’t keep impeccable moral precepts and engage in arduous ascetic practices vainly try to cultivate advanced esoteric teachings within the Dharma that have been practiced by advanced Buddhist saints and Bodhisattvas from the past two Dharma Ages. I ask all Buddhist friends reading this a few questions: what is more likely: that you will attain enlightenment in this lifetime or that you will die being an ordinary being? Can you guarantee that your karma won’t take you to the lower realms during the bardo? Even if you are peaceful and virtuous, are you sure you won’t be born in a samsaric heavenly realm? Just by observing your mind now, where do you think your thoughts can lead you? Even if you meet the Dharma in a future life, isn’t it risky to assume you will attain Nirvana later on? Are your practices leading you to absolute enlightenment in this life or the next? Can you be sure you are going to live enough in this fragile body to accomplish all you want from your spiritual practice? Can you be sure external conditions will remain the same for you to practice the Dharma accordingly? Are you sure your Dharma teacher is an Enlightened Boddhisattva? What will happen if you die tomorrow? Where will you go if you die right now, as you read these lines? As we have seen samsara is a fearsome place for unenlightened minds. Who knows how many times we 470 thought we could exit the prison of life and death when in reality we were just changing to a higher floor in the prison of samsara only to fall down again. As Master Shinran said: “Under the guidance of Buddhas who appeared in this world, Three times the sands of the Ganges in number, We awakened the aspiration for supreme Enlightenment, But our self-power failed, and we continued to transmigrate.”204 This statement made by Master Shinran should scare the hell out of us. Master Shinran Shonin is saying here that samsara is sufficiently old (actually it has no beginning) for us to have been in contact with Buddhas many times in the past and we simply didn’t listen to their wisdom. We failed at being benefited by their compassion. The Buddhas are always helping but they certainly never use force to teach sentient beings. They respect the choice that beings make. Our self power was not enough to get us out of the triple prison (kamadhatu, rupadhatu and arupadhatu, the three main divisions of samsara) and we ended up empty handed and continued wandering on like a lost dog in the dangerous streets of samsara….yet again. The Buddha repeatedly said (like for instance in the Assu Sutra, the sutra of tears) that samsara is so vastly ancient that the combined tears that we 204 Shinran Shonin, Hymns of the Dharma Ages (Shozomatsu Wasan), The Collected Works of Shinran, Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, 1997, p.403 471 have shed in this long wandering in the 6 realms would dwarf the 7 seas. As we have seen Shakyamuni Buddha and Shinran Shonin weren’t employing symbolic ideas; in fact Shakyamuni Buddha and Shinran were just pointing at our reality in samsara as deluded beings who have committed the same mistakes many times in numberless lifetimes. We shouldn’t run away from seeing ourselves just the way we are. We should look ourselves in a clear mirror, and recognize all the evil karma weighing us down in samsara’s ocean from times immemorial. What do you cling to now? Will you cling to your foolish self or to Amida’s sleeves? I will use the sinking ship analogy again. We are in the middle of a sinking ship and we cannot take swimming lessons in the middle of such chaos pretending that it will somehow help us not to drown. The sinking ship is our Dharma Age of Decline (Mappo) and those attempting swimming lessons in such a chaotic situation are those practitioners who think they can attain enlightenment in this lifetime ignoring their true capacities and the Dharma age they are living in. We are in no position to take it easy and combine different Dharma methods as if we were high level Bodhisattvas. We either take Amida’s Hand or we further sink in the vast sea of birth and death. Even veteran Mahayana and Vajrayana practitioners who follow the path of self-power know very well that they will not attain Buddhahood in this life (if they are sincere); instead, they say they run a marathon of many lives as they acknowledge that they still have tons to learn, 472 many passions to tame and, of course, many skills to master on their long way to Buddhahood (the paramitas). Good practitioners know that, with the blessing of the Buddhas, they seek to go beyond samsara and attain Buddhahood in future lives. This is heroic, but for most people, this is not the best alternative. The patriarchs of the Pure Land path teach us that running this long marathon is neither wise nor safe for beings of humble abilities. We must mention, as we have even seen before, that even Nagarjuna and Vassubandhu, who were both skilled Bodhisattvas, took refuge in Amida Buddha. So it is clear that Amida Buddha is the assurance of Buddhahood for all kinds of Buddha-Dharma practitioners and for those of us who lack noble abilities and virtues; He is the ultimate savior and good friend. Amidst these tremendous dark times for the Dharma how can we ignorantly indulge ourselves attempting complex practices that don’t guarantee our deliverance from samsara? As Buddhists we should all focus on the end game of all Buddhist life: Becoming a Buddha. Everything else is a waste of time. Amida’s Primal Vow is the most important teaching ever delivered by the Buddha, not because all other teachings about non-duality and meditation where pointless, but because, Amida’s vow can save all beings in a way that schools like Zen, Shingon or the tantric lineages simply CAN’T. The path of sages is called the path of sages for a reason. It requires the cultivation of wisdom through our own efforts and capacities. Those teachings are effective for CERTAIN beings with CERTAIN capacities and are only 473 effective in CERTAIN situations, in CERTAIN eras. How many people can abandon their families, jobs and responsibilities and engage in constant retreats during all their lives non-stop? Very, very, very few. And even if they can, that does NOT guarantee they will succeed in attaining enlightenment. Many self-power schools have rituals for the dead that involve Amida and His Pure Land, due to the fact that most practitioners don’t attain enlightenment in one life time so at least they pray to be reborn in Sukhavati to ensure a safe environment to keep practicing after this life ends. This is the case for many schools from the Path of Sages like Chan, Tendai and Esoteric tantric schools. So, even those practitioners willing to risk it all by cultivating wisdom based on their own merits choose to entrust themselves to Amida Buddha when death approaches. Many practitioners on the paths of self-power died clinging to Amida's sleeves, confident and assured of the remarkable results that only Amida Buddha can bring at the final moment we leave this physical body. The Final Dharma Age of Decline is here, and now more than ever it’s the time when we need to hear true Dharma teachers who are not concerned with big numbers in their temples, but with the Buddha Dharma whose concern is to deliver beings from the triple dark prison of Samsara I have had the privilege to meet an honest teacher in this life who walked me through Amida Dharma and encouraged me to receive Amida’s gift of shinjin. My sensei Josho Adrian 474 Cirlea, not only provided me with his books for free but he also exchanged several letters with me, guiding me and encouraging me to listen deeply to Amida Dharma. I had met several Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachers before but I must say that it was the first time that I felt that a teacher was really concerned about me getting what they were saying. In this process I was really moved by Rev. Josho’s keen interest in communicating in a precise and clear way and I was also deeply impressed by his honest concern for my understanding as a Dharma practitioner. These two elements: deep and loving concern and clarity/precision are like the two wings of Compassion and wisdom in the Buddha Dharma. If you lack one wing you cannot fly in the skies of the Dharma. Too often I have seen in today’s sangha that most teachers emphasize just emotions and opinions rather than the Dharma as taught by the Buddha and the Patriarchs. There is certainly room in the our Dharma-lives for feelings, poetry, and diverse opinions related to the Buddha-Dharma, but the center of our Buddhist life must always be the BuddhaDharma (the sutras and the comments of the patriarchs) and we must NEVER put our opinions above the sutras. The Sutras are our guide and the comments of the Patriarchs are bridges to the teachings of the Buddhas, just as any text should always be supported and nurtured by the BuddhaDharma, this is of fundamental importance. In other cases they have an obsession with scholarship and their interest in the Dharma is only academic rather than a heartfelt interest in preaching with faith and concern for the benefit of sentient beings. I must say these two elements of clarity and deep concern are present in Rev. Josho Adrian 475 Cirlea and I highly recommend the reader to contact him and engage in a Dharma discussion with him as he is one of the few teachers who are teaching true Amida Dharma in the western countries. He speaks fluent English and he is always available for a Dharma dialogue. He has zero-tolerance for false ideas (notions that are not related to the sutras and the commentaries of the patriarchs) and he has total devotion and faith in the Jodo Shinshu teachings; his deep faith allows him to faithfully lead others towards faith in Amida Buddha. When so many outlandish ideas abound in today’s sangha, having a teacher that is so committed and faithful like him is the rarest and most precious blessing. Amidaji International Temple (the Organization founded by Rev. Cirlea in Romania) is a blessing to us all given by Amida Buddha. 476 Amida’s Beloved Children I want to end this book by sharing three anecdotes. Two in particular related to Honen Shonin, the beloved Master of Shinran Shonin and another one related to a conversation between Shinran Shonin and his disciple Yuien-bo. These anecdotes express Amida's unconditional love for all of us. Honen Shonin’s Anecdotes: Honen spread the teaching of Amida’s unconditional salvation throughout many places in Japan during the 12 th century (and part of the 13th century CE): “When Honen arrived at the port of Muro on his way into exile on Shikoku in the spring of 1207, a small boat drew near carrying a woman (a prostitute) in the night. She said to Honen, "I heard that this was your boat, and I have come to meet you. There are many ways of getting on in the world, but what terrible acts could have been committed in a former life of mine to bring me into such a miserable life as this? What can a woman who carries a load of karma like mine do to escape and be saved in the world to come?" Honen compassionately replied, "Your guilt in living such a life is surely great and the penalties seem incalculable. If you can find another means of livelihood, give this up at once. But if you can’t, or if you are not yet ready to sacrifice your very life for the true way, begin just as you are and call on the sacred Name (Namo Amida Butsu). It is for just such deluded 477 beings as you that Amida Buddha made that wonderfully comprehensive Primal Vow (hongan). So put your full trust in it without the smallest reservation. If you rely upon the Primal Vow and repeat the Nembutsu, your Ojo (birth in the Pure Land) is absolutely certain." Thus kindly taught, the woman began to weep out of joy. Later, Honen said of her, "She is a woman of strong faith. She is sure to attain Ojo." A year later when he was returning to the capital after his exile, Honen called at this place again and inquired about her. He found out that from the time he had instructed her, she had retired to a village near the mountains and had been devoting herself to the practice of the Nembutsu. A short time after, as death drew near, it was with great composure that she safely accomplished her Ojo (birth in the Pure Land). On being told this, Honen said, "Yes, it is just as I had expected." 205 Another touching story involves a couple of poor Fishermen: When Honen arrived on the coast of Takasago, on his way to exile in the spring of 1207, many people came to see the famous monk. Among them was an elderly couple, a man over seventy years old and his wife over sixty years old, who told him: “We are fishermen who live in these parts. Since childhood our business has been, day and night, to take the life of fish to maintain our life. We have been told that people who kill living beings must go to hell and suffer there, but we want to know if there is no way to escape this. ” While they were saying what they thought, they put their hands together before Honen and began to cry. Honen looked at them with compassion and spoke kindly to them: 205 Source of this anecdote: http://jsri.jp/English/Main.html , 478 "If you repeat‘ Namu Amida Butsu ’, by virtue of Amida's compassionate vow, you will be born in the Pure Land." Hearing this, they cried with joy and then repeated the sacred name all the time as they continued fishing during the day. Then, to the great astonishment of their neighbors, their voices were heard all night reciting the Nembutsu. Finally, when they died, it was with great composure that they performed their Ojo (Birth in Amida’s Pure Land). Honen after hearing this said: "This proves that anyone can reach Ojo (Birth in Amida’s Pure Land) by practicing Nembutsu."206 What can we learn from these anecdotes? well, basically everything we need to know about how to be saved by Amida Buddha. Just follow Amida’s Primal vow, and that’s it, entrust yourself to Amida Buddha, say His name, and wish to be born in His Pure Land. The simplicity of Amida’s salvation is something very hard to accept for a mind filled with pride. As you have seen throughout the book, my journey took me through many different teachings and I had to struggle a lot with my skeptical and foolish mind; but what about the prostitute of Muro? She just wept out of happiness and practiced with all her heart until she was born in Amida’s Pure Land. What about the couple of poor fishermen? They also cried out of joy when they heard Master Honen say: 206 https://jodoshu.wordpress.com/2020/02/12/tomar-la-vida-pero-nacer/ Jodo Shu Website created by Jodo Shu practitioner Shishin Daleffe from Argentina. I took the liberty of translating this short anecdote from Spanish. This anecdote is taken from the book. Honen: The Buddhist Saint by Harper Havelock Coates and Ryugaku Ishizuka. Kyoto: Chion-in, 1925. 479 "If you repeat‘ Namu Amida Butsu ’, by virtue of Amida's compassionate vow, you will be born in the Pure Land." So, they humbly recited Amida’s name while they were fishing as usual, and they attained Ojo (Birth in Amida’s Pure Land). As Master Honen said: "This proves that anyone can reach Ojo (Birth in Amida’s Pure Land) by practicing Nembutsu” Please imprint these words in your heart: Amida’s salvation is for ALL beings. Amida’s salvation is for High Level Bodhisattvas but it is equally destined for the evil; Amida’s salvation is for the foolish; Amida’s salvation is for those whose hands are dirty and for those who cannot read or write; let alone understand the sutras. Amida is only asking for us to: 1. Have faith in Him. 2. Wish to be born in His Pure Land after death 3. Say His name. When it comes to the transcendental virtues of a Perfectly Enlightened Buddha we are all just like the Prostitute of Muro, or the couple of poor fishermen; even Honen Shonin and Shinran Shonin who knew the sutras; even Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu who knew all types of sutras and complex teachings; they ALL simply entrusted themselves to Amida Buddha seeking salvation (birth in His Pure Land). There’s no difference at all between a fishermen or a High level Bodhisattva when it comes to Amida’s salvation. This is like a baby and a professional athlete that are both on board a private jet, it really doesn’t matter that a small baby is hundreds of times slower than a talented athlete, the fact is that both rely on the jet and the skills of the pilot to get to 480 their destination; likewise, the vast wisdom of Bodhisattva Nagarjuna, an accomplished Mahayana Master cannot be compared with the ignorance of an illiterate fisherman; and Honen and Shinran knew so many hundreds of sutras that the Muro Prostitute could not even dream of understanding them in her precarious intellectual and economic situation BUT; for Amida Buddha, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Shinran, Honen, the fishermen, you, me, your cat, your dog, a murderer, a criminal, a cow, an ant, the king of the Brahmas, a luminous deity of the highest heaven or a being in the deepest of hells are just seeds that He will carefully protect and nurture so they can grow into Buddhas in the fertile soil of His Pure Land. So please understand, dear reader, brother or sister in the dangerous streets of samsara, that even if you did not understand most of the things I wrote about; even if you feel confused by the many Buddhist teachings; please don’t worry; just like the two cases I quoted, the only thing you need to do is to entrust yourself with all your heart to Amida Buddha; wish to be born in His Pure Land and say his name. You will certainly be born there after your physical death. After the many warnings that Shakyamuni Buddha gave regarding the terrible dangers of being born again in the 6 realms of samsara; and the many benefits of being born in Amida’s Pure Land He also taught many times; could there be a simpler choice? We have samsara, on the one hand samsara with all its millions of miseries and agonies; and on the other hand we have Amida’s Pure Land. What do you really want? Do you want an ocean of death and suffering, or do you want Buddhahood? It seems like an obvious question; 481 but I have come to realize that what troubles our hearts and minds sometimes, especially when it comes to the BuddhaDharma, are very simple and precise questions like: Do you think you are going to be reborn in samsara in your next rebirth? Are you a wise and virtuous Buddhist practitioner or just a common person filled with flaws? Do you really wish to scape samsara? Do you believe Shakyamuni Buddha’s words on Amida Buddha’s salvation? Do you accept the Primal vow as it is? There are basically two things that the Prostitute of Muro and the Fishermen had in common. 1. They acknowledged they were in big trouble when it came to the fundamental question of their future rebirth; in other words they recognized they were evil and foolish beings 2. They trusted in Amida to take them to His Pure Land after death. (This is the twofold profound conviction, Nishu Jinshin) As Master Rennyo constantly says in his letters: “It has been said that those who do not know the importance of the afterlife are foolish, even though they may understand eighty thousand sutras and teachings; those who know about the afterlife are wise, even though they may be unlettered men and women”207 It really doesn’t matter if you have read the entire Mahayana Buddhist Cannon; it doesn’t matter if you 207 Rennyo Shonin Ofumi: The Letters of Rennyo, translated from the Japanese (Taisho, Volume 74, Number 2668) by Ann T. Rogers and Minor L. Rogers, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley, California, 1996, p.16 482 have memorized it and you practice hard during your entire life in the best monastery; the fact is that if you are not deeply concerned about the afterlife (your next rebirth); it will be a total waste of time. That is why Master Rennyo says that like a mantra to all people who ask him: “If you are not concerned about the matter of greatest importance: the afterlife, you are a fool.” It is as simple as that. This is not something that is exclusively valid for the Pure Land Buddhist schools but for ALL Buddhists, it doesn’t matter to what school they belong; Shakyamuni Buddha constantly warned people about the dangers of being reborn in samsara. (Something that we have explained time and time again in this book, by quoting several sutras and commentaries), so even if a the most foolish of beings doesn’t know how to speak properly or how to pronounce, let alone spell “Shakyamuni”, if he/she is aware of the grave danger of being born in the lower realms and accepts Amida’s salvation as his/her only hope; that is more precious and effective than reading all millions of sutras and tantras of the legendary Nalanda University. Just imagine that! If you see the incredible 48 Vows made by Amida Buddha you will see Amida resembles a Noble and rich monarch that has left a fortune the size of a mountain range to a vagabond. It really doesn’t matter that the vagabond doesn’t deserve a single grain of rice; it doesn’t matter he doesn’t have money even to buy old shoes; the king has left him all his property and he wants him to be a king. Amida has left us His Pure Land/Sukhavati as our rightful Inheritance; our names are already on the contract, we just need to claim our rightful fortune. It is ours because Amida sees every one of us as His own children; He is not going to wait for us to become 483 virtuous and diligent in meditation to save us from the flames of birth and death; He loves us so dearly and He has given us a treasure that makes the pomp of a million Brahma gods look like filthy rags. We just need to have the kind of sincerity that the fishermen and the prostitute had when they asked Honen about way to be free from their evil karma. Both the fishermen and the prostitute knew that their acts could only lead to hell, even if they didn’t understand all there is to know about samsara, they deeply knew that much; they heard something that was constantly said by Buddhist masters from previous centuries all the time: hell awaits evil doers. It was not superstitious or something they invented; they were simply quoting Buddha Shakyamuni Himself! As we explained in previous pages, in Shakyamuni Buddha’s day there were many doctrines that were denying karma, the afterlife and samsara and other doctrines like the soul and a supreme god were held dear by many people; He didn’t compromise the Buddha-Dharma (the truth) and adapted it to suit his historical context; as we have studied He defended the true Buddha-Dharma (ideas like karma, samsara, Buddhahood, depended origination) and He refuted many misunderstandings like the belief in an eternal soul or having blind faith in a “creator of the universe”. Why would Shakyamuni invent hell? He simply knew it existed based on his own knowledge and as we have seen, great Buddhist masters (like Genshin, Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna, and Tsongkhapa) confirmed this truth, along with the many saints and practitioners who have personally witnessed such woeful realms of samsaric existence. The fishermen and the prostitute, listened just a little bit of the Buddha-Dharma, “evil actions will lead you to hell, 484 to the lower realms” this is something simple yet incredibly powerful, they only listened to that, but they listened in a profound way; they realized that the Buddhist monks and priests were not playing games with such important matters such as birth and death; something deep inside these simple people recognized the timeless truths of the Buddha-Dharma, and they sincerely asked Honen for help. What do I do to scape such a fearful fate? Honen's response immediately connected with their troubled hearts. "Put your destiny in Amida's hands, say the Nembutsu and be saved just as you are", this is not difficult to understand, but it certainly changed the destiny of these ordinary people who wanted to go to a better world when they died, a concern that is both noble and wise, despite their particular karmic circumstances. Amida saves all those who want a brighter destiny and those that recognize they need help in the important matter of the afterlife. Yuienbo's question to Shinran: Amida's salvation has nothing to do with our unenlightened minds: Now we will see Yuienbo's beautiful anecdote with Master Shinran Shonin. This question asked by Yuien-bo to Shinran is recorded in Tannisho, Chapter IX: (Yuienbo asked Shinran the following question) “Even when I call the nembutsu, I rarely feel like dancing out of joy, nor do I have any fervent longing to be reborn in the Pure Land. Why is this so?” I asked. 485 (Shinran’s answer) “There was once a time when I, Shinran, also had doubts on this question. Now, Yuienbo, I find you sharing the same doubts. But when I reflect on this more deeply, I realize that our rebirth in the Pure Land is all the more assured because we cannot feel like dancing for joy as we would wish. That is how you should think of this problem. It is defilement by evil passions that oppresses our hearts and prevents us from rejoicing. But since Amida Buddha, knowing this already, has called us ‘common beings defiled by ignorance,’ I realize that the compassionate vow of the other-power was made for the benefit of just such defiled beings as ourselves, and so I feel it all the more worthy of trust. “Moreover, when we have no longing to be reborn instantly in the Pure Land, if we fall even slightly ill, we feel helpless with the fear of death. This is likewise because of our evil passions. How strong indeed must they be when we find it so hard to leave our native land of suffering, where we have been wandering through birth and death for numberless kalpas, and when we can feel no longing for Amida’s Pure Land, where we have yet to be reborn! We are reborn into that land when we have exhausted, even though reluctantly, our karmic relations to this world of suffering and end our lives helplessly. So Amida pities above all those who feel no urgent longing to go to the Pure Land. Reflecting on this, we realize all the more how trustworthy is Amida’s great compassionate vow and how firmly our rebirth is assured. If, on the contrary, our hearts were to rejoice with an eager aspiration for rebirth in the Pure Land, we might believe 486 that we had no evil passions at all.”208 This is yet another wondrous revelation of Amida’s unconditional love. Yuienbo's question came from a great inner turmoil. This question from Yuienbo represents the deepest fears of a Primordial Vow follower, and he surely must have hesitated a great deal before asking his Master Shinran, as Josho sensei suggests; perhaps he struggled with lots of pain and shame. Many would think that if we truly have faith and desire to go to the Pure Land, and if we acknowledge this salvation given to us by Amida, we should be smiling, and with enormous joy every day, eager to go into the arms of Amida constantly; however Shinran's response was a warm revelation to Yuienbo, who perhaps expected to be scolded or judged for his lack of enthusiasm by Shinran. Shinran says: It is defilement by evil passions that oppresses our hearts and prevents us from rejoicing. But since Amida Buddha, knowing this already, has called us ‘common beings defiled by ignorance,’ I realize that the compassionate vow of the other-power was made for the benefit of just such defiled beings as ourselves, and so I feel it all the more worthy of trust. When I first read this I honestly didn't know what to think. My mind was paralyzed. I confess that deep inside me I thought that on this journey of faith in Amida Buddha, I TANNISHŌ: PASSAGES DEPLORING DEVIATIONS OF FAITH By Yuienbō Translated from the Japanese (Taishō Volume 83, Number 2661) By Shōjun Bandō in collaboration with Harold Stewart, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, pdf version 2010, Chapter IX, p 13 208 487 needed to take care of my enthusiasm, I considered that perhaps I needed to cultivate beautiful feelings to be worthy of Amida Buddha’s salvation, like someone desperately trying to take care of a feeble candlelight outdoors. Yuienbo also felt that even though he recognized Amida Buddha's salvation, he had to have some special feeling day and night. In a way, he still thought he had to deserve to be saved by showing the Buddha Amida he was the real deal, a “good disciple”. Shinran's response is wonderful: It is precisely because of this foolish attitude, of not constantly rejoicing in what should truly cause us constant happiness that Amida saves us, in fact this addiction to samsara, to our worldly lives is what unmasks our falsehood and is what propels us to accept Amida´s unconditional salvation. Shinran himself felt what Yuienbo felt. He confesses that. Just think of Yuienbo's face when hearing such a confession from the lips of his revered Master. Shinran emphasizes that: “Moreover, when we have no longing to be reborn instantly in the Pure Land, if we fall even slightly ill, we feel helpless with the fear of death. This is likewise because of our evil passions. How strong indeed must they be when we find it so hard to leave our native land of suffering, where we have been wandering through birth and death for numberless kalpas” This means that our addiction to samsara is so deep that even if we accept that we are saved by Amida and say the Nembutsu of gratitude during a lifetime, even so, we do not feel a constant desire to go to the Pure Land. Our blind 488 passions make us not feel the joy that we should feel. But this, far from being a problem, is the greatest proof for Shinran that our salvation by trusting Amida is all the more assured. In truth there is nothing within our foolish minds that can save us from samsara; only Amida's power can; it is His primal Vow what saves us, and this salvation does not require any special feeling, nor a specific mental quality, but simply ACCEPTING Amida's hand, that is, simply trust in Amida and that He saves us just as we are. Amida sympathizes with people who do not want to go immediately to the Pure Land (for only He knows how necessary it is and what is the depths of danger for foolish beings like us trapped in samsara) and so, the Primal Vow does not discriminate against foolish beings like Yuienbo or like us or even like Shinran himself who, due to blind passions, are still tied to their worldly lives and their usual blind passions. Amida still takes us to his Pure Land without asking us to be constantly enthusiastic about his salvation. Desiring to go to the Pure Land is important but Amida never mentions that this desire must be something special or virtuous; it is simply wishing to be born there after death without embellishments or extra things. Illustrating this point, Shinran mentions in a warm and almost humorous way the following: “If, on the contrary, our hearts were to rejoice with an eager aspiration for rebirth in the Pure Land, we might believe that we had no evil passions at all.” Indeed there have been great practitioners who demonstrate 489 great joy and purity in their aspirations to be born in the Pure Land, and furthermore the larger sutra mentions such practitioners who have a noble attitude and revere Amida Buddha as they are great Bodhisattvas who have a little more clarity of how big is the universe of blessings that Amida has for all beings in Sukhavati ... maybe Yuienbo saw this in the commentaries of the patriarchs and the sutras and said ... "boy I'm a faker, I don't have this kind of joy in my life, I am an ordinary and vile being, I trust Amida but I feel that I am not worthy of his salvation, I should feel different…”Yuienbo, probably felt dirty. I felt that way as I saw that many practitioners of the Pure Land had what to my eyes seemed like some sort of holiness, a pure desire, a sublime joy that eclipsed my vulgar attitude towards Amida. I thought that way. However, no special feeling is required to be saved by Amida, everything comes from Him, He asks absolutely nothing from us. Amida only tells us: "just open the window of your mind. “You don't have to do any strange ritual inside your heart to receive my Light, just trust in my unconditional salvation. I am right here for you just as you are" So Shinran clearly explains that the Primal Vow is precisely for beings at the bottom of the sea of blind passions or as Honen said to the woman of Muro "it is for people as deluded as you that Buddha Amida made that wonderfully complete Primordial Vow" In other words, it is precisely for people so full of karmic problems and difficulties that Amida Buddha made His Primordial Vow. We can be energetic as the woman from Muro who retired to the mountains to practice Nembutsu (there is nothing wrong with it, if that is what we want), we may also continue to commit evil (if this is something we have no way of avoiding) as in the example 490 of the couple of fishermen who for economic reasons could only earn a living by fishing (killing animals, and therefore they were violating one of the most important Buddhist precepts which is not to destroy any kind of life. They did so on a daily basis as their livelihood depended on that), however, they continued to chant the Nembutsu innocently in their daily tasks entrusting themselves to Amida and still these people came into the arms of Amida at the end of their lives. We can even be like Yuienbo who confessed that he did not have a great enthusiasm and far from this preventing the Ojo (birth in the Pure Land), for Shinran, as we saw, it is the guarantee that for beings who cannot but be consumed by His blind passions, the Primordial Vow is the guarantee that we will all be born in the Pure Land equally (as it is Amida’s Power that allows beings to be born in His Land), precisely because we recognize that there is nothing within us that can make us go to Sukhavati. No feeling, practice, virtue, ritual ... nothing. Only Amida Buddha can do this. Only by virtue of Amida do we go to the Light of Amida. That is, "it is for fools like us that the Amida Buddha has created the Primal Vow." Amida does not ask us for anything, so instead of looking inside our blind passions (which we know very well) we should rather look with gratitude at the Power of Amida, that is outside our minds and it is never affected by our erratic thoughts or our doubtful feelings. Amida is the Lotus not stained by the Mud of samsara. Our good deeds cannot improve the Primal Vow. Our evil deeds will never be so serious as to harm Amida's power. Amida's power is like the sun and our good and bad deeds are like green grasses and other brown ones, how could something so tiny affect the sun? Amida is the same, His Great power is so great that our 491 evil deeds and our good deeds melt like pinches of ash in a sea of gold larger than the entire universe. The power of Amida is beyond our imagination that is why Shakyamuni Buddha and all the countless Buddhas of the ten directions sing in praise of Amida Buddha as He has a unique method for saving all sentient beings; The Primal Vow, which is the crown of all the compassionate efforts of the Buddhas. He is the Buddha of Limitless Life and Light, so it is in Him that we trust and not in our deluded minds or momentary feeling. It is in the Primal Vow and not in our fleeting feelings that we find refuge. It is in the Power of His Light where we find true solace, and the true salvation from samsara’s great suffering. In this book I tried my best to quote the Sutras, Shastras and the comments of my Dharma teacher (Rev. Cirlea), and I took the liberty to offer my humble (and very limited) reflections on these important matters. I am not a scholar, nor a wise Buddhist; I am just a common person, who saw the incredible dangers of samsara and got cold with fear; I confess the descriptions of the of the lower realms scared da hell out of me. As Master Nagarjuna said: "Sinners who hear of the boundless sufferings in the hells Separated from them only until the mere termination of their breathing - And are not completely terrified Have hearts as hard as diamonds. If you are frightened merely by seeing paintings of hell, By hearing of it, recalling it, 492 Reading about it, and by representations of it, What need to mention experiencing the fierce actuality of it?"209 So, as Bodhisattva Nagarjuna says, if at some point in your study of the Buddha-Dharma you are not completely terrified when you deeply reflect on the lower realms and on samsaric existence in general; then you have a heart “as hard as diamond”. When so many great Masters, starting from Shakyamuni Buddha Himself tell us in unison that we should scape samsara and aspire to become Buddhas, we should deeply reflect on their teachings and exhortations. The examples I brought up that tell us that common people were able to receive faith in Amida Buddha by taking one fundamental step towards salvation: How do I scape my evil karma if I am a foolish being? This world is dark and filled to the brim with suffering. How do I go to a save place? That fundamental step towards Amida’s light is asking those kinds of questions about the afterlife. This deep concern for the afterlife was the great game-changer for many common people, thousands actually, who came to Shinran and Honen, asking for “the most important matter, the afterlife” (as Rennyo says), how do I solve, once and for all, the question of birth and death? As we have already explained in the chapter devoted to Shinjin the moment we decide to recite the Nembutsu seeking Amida’s salvation (Namo Amida Butsu) we shouldn’t consider this to be an ascetic practice where the more we recite the name the more chances we have to succeed 209 Letter to a Friend, by Nagarjuna, as quoted in The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, volume I, by Tsong-kha- pa, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York, p. 168. 493 at our Ojo (Birth in the Pure Land). So, I repeat this because it is of vital importance; in Jodo Shinshu, Amida’s salvation is settled in just the blink of an eye, when the first-thought moment of entrusting to Amida occurs within our heart-mind; it is completely wrong to consider you are saved just at the moment of death (where birth in the Pure Land takes place, there’s no doubt about it); we are saved during this life; we are assured here in this world of our salvation, in other words, as we have explained in previous chapters, we enter the stage of the truly settled, the state of non-retrogression from the first moment we entrust ourselves to Amida Buddha. As Shinran Shonin says: "When one realizes true and real shinjin, one is immediately grasped and held within the heart of the Buddha of Unhindered Light, never to be abandoned. 'To grasp' (sesshu) means to take in (setsu) and to receive and hold (shu). When we are grasped by Amida, immediately - without a moment or a day elapsing - we ascend to and become established in the stage of the truly settled”210 Shinjin (faith in Amida Buddha) is nothing mysterious, or complicated; it is just the simple acceptance of Amida’s unconditional salvation regardless of our evil, good, thoughts, emotions, karma or practices…etc., everything personal is excluded from this process. As Reverend Josho pointedly says: “the words “personal merits” must disappear from the 210 Shinran Shonin, Notes on the Inscriptions on Sacred Scrolls, The Collected Works of Shinran Shin Buddhism Translation Series, Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha, Kyoto, 1997 p. 494 494 vocabulary of a Jodo Shinshu follower”. Indeed, our own personal merits have nothing in common with Amida’s Pure Land or His salvation. Our good or evil is completely irrelevant, since our Buddhahood is in His hands not in ours. Amida’s power is truly beyond my present capacity to understand; nevertheless, I say His name in gratitude. To all of you, dear readers, my brothers and sisters in the cold and dangerous streets of samsara, I ask you to consider Amida’s great gift. We are all seeds in Amida’s Hands. 495 The Future is Very Bright By Gansen John Welch Eternal life, love and light The future is unimaginably bright For those who accept Amida’s salvation No more distress and devastation In Amida’s Pure Land of perfect bliss, peace Wisdom and compassion that will never cease We cannot completely conceive Of a place where we will never grieve, Sigh, weep, wail, cry, die Or have to ask the reason why But thanks to Amida’s inconceivable gift of Shinjin We will at long, long last begin To realize the future reality of Amida’s Primal Vow In the present perpetual suffering that is life now In this tragic and sad saha realm or land That imprisons us until we accept Amida’s Helping Hand In Sukhavati truth, beauty and goodness reign Here there is a complete absence of pain Where kindness, love and pleasure prevail And there is a total lack of trauma or travail Amida created this place Unique in time and space For all who trust in Amida’s Primal Vow So, accept Amida’s promise now And you will become a Buddha At your death as you enter nirvana 496 Thanks entirely to Amida Tathagata Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Namo Amida Butsu Thank you Amida Buddha I take refuge in Amida Buddha Homage to Amida Buddha”211 Gansen John Welch’s Poems to Amida’s Pure Land,(Jodo Shinshu Poems) Volume IV, p 116 all of his poem collections and quoted Amida Dharma texts which inspire his Poems can be downloaded for free here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jprp7iXdQ7LIEe9Vr1HClfxLPzwxmB G Gansen John Welch (Australia) is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist follower, Lay Amida Dharma Teacher, and Jodo Shinshu Poet that belongs to Amidaji Temple, He is also the narrator for Rev Cirlea’s books in english; all of the audio books he has narrated can be found at Rev. Cirlea’s official Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/joshoadrian 211 497 “You most compassionate Dharma King, who revealed the true essence of the Pure Land Path and made it accessible to all beings, Shinran Shonin, Emanation of Amida Buddha and Avalokitesvara, at your feet I bow with the deepest gratitude” Verses in honor of Shinran Shonin (Founder of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist School) By Reverend Jōshō Adrian Cirlea Amidaji International Temple, Romania 498 May all beings in the ten directions and the six realms create unbreakable connections with Amida Buddha, recite His name and wish to be born in His Pure Land to attain Buddhahood. Namo Amida Bu 499 AMIDA BUDDHA The Buddha of Infinite Light and Life 500 I TAKE REFUGE IN/HOMAGET TO/ THANK YOU BUDDHA OF INFINITE LIFE AND LIGHT AMIDA BUDDHA NAMO AMIDA BU (Characters of the Name of the Buddha Amida, from top to bottom: Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese) 501 The author: Kōshō Arana, Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Teacher Certified by Amidaji International Temple Founder of Shinjin Dojo-Cali, Colombia, South America 502 503 504

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