Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Replacing Suffering with More Suffering (貪著五欲徒勞心苦)
Date:June.16. 2015
“The five desires, wealth and advantage are in essence suffering, but we do not know this. Sentient beings believe these bring pleasure, so they happily play. Greed, attachment and pursuit are fundamentally futile and taxing. Sentient beings have insatiable greed, so they do not fear the accumulation of karma.”
I have been talking about how the five desires really are unbearable suffering. In particular, I have previously brought up how the Three Realms are like a great burning house. The fire arose from all four sides. The five desires are like honey on a knife blade. Wealth and advantage are like floating clouds. This is what I told everyone before.
In this world, the Three Realms, especially the Three Realms of our minds, desires, forms and formless [thoughts] are all constantly creating karma in our minds. When a thought of desire arises, our greed for wealth and advantage is insatiable. There is no end to our greed. When a greedy thought arises, think about how much karma it leads us to create! The Three Realms, this entire world, is like a burning house. All kinds of disasters are concentrated here, like fire arising from all sides. This is due to our desire.
Desire is like a honey on a knife blade. An innocent child sees the honey and , thinking it must be sweet and not knowing how sharp the knife is, tries to lick it off with his tongue. This is really dangerous. This is what our desirous thoughts are like. Contained in our greed is [something dangerous], like a knife covered in honey.
We also say that wealth and advantage are like floating clouds. Awakened people can understand this; deluded people are not able to understand. These are like clouds floating in the blue sky. We see the clouds as they slowly pass by. If we reach out to touch them, they are fundamentally empty. When we live in a deluded state, we treat empty things as real, solid things and enjoy playing with them. Sentient beings, in the darkness of ignorance, pursue them endlessly. Out of ignorance and delusion, we never stop pursuing them. This causes the world to burn with the fire of the Five Turbidities and the Eight Sufferings. This is a disaster; many disasters are arising on all sides.
We also say that wealth and advantage are, in essence, suffering. But sentient beings are unaware of this. We are unaware because of the darkness of ignorance. When we are foolish and deluded, we are in a state of darkness, unaware that on the path ahead of us there are traps beneath every step we take. We are completely unaware. Sentient beings think satisfying their desires will bring them the greatest happiness, so for the sake of enjoying temporary pleasure, they indulge in a life of extravagance. In this world, they do whatever they want. They say this brings them pleasure so they can be happy and continue to play. This kind of pursuit, honestly, is completely futile and taxing.
Sentient beings have insatiable greed and are unafraid of the burden this karma brings. I often say, “Having one, people lack nine.” Is that enough? No. If they keep adding nine’s to get more zeros, would that be enough? It is still not enough. They keep adding zeros until they reach a “trillion”. When the Chinese character for “trillion” has the radical for “go” added to it, we get the character for “flee”. We are waiting until we have enough, but actually, even up to the moment we die, we will still say this is not enough. In the end, things are beyond our control, so we must flee. What are we fleeing from? From a debt. From what debt? We have already amassed so many material assets in this world, how could there be any debts? There are! In this world, we can build up our family enterprise, a large business, recognition and profit to a great extent only by putting our hearts into fighting over everything and exploiting many natural resources. We constantly expand our development and production. In order to manufacture all those things, won’t we have to exploit natural resources?
Natural resources include everything in the earth and on top of the land. We constantly cut down forests in the mountains, excavate and mine for ores and extract oil from the ground. All things in the world, all tangible things, are [exploited] for the sake of development. If we constantly consume these resources, aren’t we harming the earth and polluting the air?
The mountains, rivers and land we harm are part of the macrocosm of the world. The karma of harming the macrocosm of the world is more severe than that of harming the microcosm. In this way we are amassing much karma. But we sentient beings have insatiable greed, so “We do not fear the accumulation of karma.”
With karma, when our current life is at an end, we cannot take anything from this world with us, but our “karma will follow us.” We cannot fully pay off this debt in out next life. We harmed the mountain, rivers and land, everything in this macrocosm of the world. Think of how many disasters we have caused. Doesn’t this create severe karma?
“Sentient beings have insatiable greed, so we do not fear the accumulation of karma.” This suffering is truly unbearable.
The previous sutra passage stated that, inside the burning house, the minds of sentient beings are truly foolish and in the darkness of ignorance, so, they are in a state of endless pursuit. Sentient beings in the Three Realms do not understand the principles. In addition to endlessly creating karma, they have not awakened to birth, aging, illness, death, worry, sorrow, suffering and affliction, etc. They do not recognize them. For this reason, sentient beings are forever [trapped] in this suffering.
Next, we read, “They then dace the suffering of the hell, animal and hungry ghost realms. If they ascend to the heaven realm or remain in the human realm, they face the suffering of poverty and hardship, the suffering of parting with those they love, and the suffering of meeting with those they hate.”
Everyone, aren’t these sufferings what we constantly discuss? Even if we are born in the heaven realm, when that life ends and we deplete our blessings, we will fall into the human realm again. Once in the human realm, poverty and hardship are unavoidable. After we deplete heavenly blessings and come to this world, will we enjoy blessings here? After heavenly beings deplete their blessings, they will course experience karmic retribution. When blessings have been depleted, what comes next is poverty and hardship.
Moreover, in our interpersonal relationships, we suffer from parting with those we love and meeting those we hate. All these many kinds of suffering constantly appear in the sutra text constantly appear in the sutra text. The minds and bodies of sentient beings.
The bodies and minds of sentient beings are immersed in the sea of suffering, but instead of seeing it as suffering they think it is joyful. By not contemplating suffering and causation, they have no desire to be rid of them. By not contemplating the Four Noble Truths, they do not seek liberation.
In fact, all sentient beings’ bodies and minds are constantly immersed in the sea of suffering. But they do not recognize it as suffering; they do not feel they this is suffering. As we just mentioned, “Sentient beings believe these bring pleasure, so they happily play.” This world is actually full of suffering, but we continue to believe that everything is happy and fun. “I possess all this. Since I was born human in this lifetime, if I don’t have fun, won’t I have wasted this life?” Some people think this way, so they endlessly indulge themselves. This is what sentient beings think and how they act; their thoughts and actions are in concert. They think in this way, so their bodies act in this way. Thus they become submerged in the sea of suffering and keep sinking. “Instead of seeing it as suffering, they think it is joyful. By not contemplating suffering and causation, we are not being mindful”. The Buddha taught us the Four Noble Truths, suffering, causation, cessation and the Path. But in this way, we have no absorbed them at all. We have not taken the Buddha’s teachings into our hearts and have not transformed or awakened ourselves. If we do not transform or awaken ourselves, how can we use the Dharma to transform others? We do not contemplate the principles of the Four Nobel Truths, so we “have no desire to be rid of [suffering]”.
We ordinary people are like this; we do not earnestly engage in spiritual practice or value the principles and use them to enhance our spiritual refinement. When we “have no desire to be rid of [suffering]”, we are willing to remain in the human realm and the Three Evil Realms, the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. We are willing to return to the Three Evil Realms or to the human realm to experience more suffering. This is the state of delusion we are in.
So, we do not try to get rid of our suffering in the Three Evil Realms and Five Destinies. “By not contemplating the Four Noble Truths, [we] do not seek liberation”. If we seek liberation, we engage in spiritual practice. This is the most fundamental principle. If we cannot even accept this, then how can we find a path to walk? So, we must always be mindful. Otherwise, we will face extreme suffering in the Three Evil Realms. No one else can face it on our behalf.
“As for extreme suffering in the Three Evil Realms, no one can take on another’s suffering. Even if born in heaven, one’s longevity and blessings are still limited. One will still fall back to the human realm or the Three Evil Realms. In the human realm, one faces the suffering of poverty and hardship. The human realm is a mix of good and evil, but there is more suffering than joy, more afflictions being reproduced and more karma being created.”
If we are hungry, even if a loving person says, “That is so said! He is hungry. I have no way to send him food, but maybe I can eat on his behalf, so he can be full”, is this possible? If a father is sick, and his filial child says, “I will suffer on your behalf”, that is also not possible. Likewise, no matter how loving a mother is, she cannot endure her sick child’s pain for him. This is all the same principle; “No one can take on another’s suffering”. So, “Even if born in heaven, one’s blessings and longevity are still limited”. One will fall into a lower realm again, whether into this world or the Three Evil Realms.
The Three Evil Realms are the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms.There is endless suffering in the Five Destinies, in the heaven, human, hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. In these Five Destinies, only in heaven is there happiness. As humans, we experience so much suffering, and our happiness is limited. We also endlessly create more karma. The karma that leads to the Three Evil Realms is created here. Why do people fall into hell?
Because humans, out of their insatiable greed, damage the environment and themselves. This is how humans accumulate karma, leading them to the states of the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. So, it is as humans that we commit those wrongs. “In the human realm, one faces the suffering of poverty and hardship”. There is both good and evil in this world. Good and evil are evenly matched; however, now there seems to be more evil than good. “There is more suffering than joy”. Because there is less good than evil, and more evil than good, “There is more suffering than joy”. This is the human realm.
So, we endlessly reproduce afflictions and create much karma. Because we have afflictions, we are continuously reproducing them and creating and amassing more karma. If we think about this, we will be very worried and frightened because these lead to the Three Evil Realms. We need food, clothing and shelter to live.
In our lives, it is more necessary to wear clothes. As humans, we must wear clothing. No matter how hot it is, we still have to wear some clothes. This is a special characteristic of humans. Of all sentient beings, only humans have a sense of propriety, so we wear clothes. Besides wearing clothing, we also have to eat. If we did not eat anything, think about it, how would we sustain our lives? Hunger and freezing cold cause suffering. We also need a place to live. When a natural or manmade disaster happens, people end up living in tents, which makes for a very harsh life.
Then there is the weather. Their tents may be damaged and in a place where the snow is falling and there is water on the ground, so there is both freezing water and mud. The broken tents may be covered in frost and snow. Think about it, don’t people suffer if they have no place to live? Therefore, we can say that these three things are critical to our lives.They are “the three things we depend on.”
We need clothing, food and shelter. These are the things that humans need in order to survive in the world. However, desire knows no bounds, and that brings suffering.
In our lives, clothing, food and housing are the three things we depend on. Thus we must seek clothing, food and housing, but endless pursuit brings suffering, and the suffering in people’s minds arises from this. From this we replace suffering with suffering. The foolishness of people in the world is that they are greedily attached to the five desires and do not let go until death, thus in their next life they face boundless suffering.
When it comes to what we should use, wear and eat and where we should live, we just need what is sufficient. If we can buy a shirt for NT$200, we should not buy a shirt for NT$20,000. That is just because of a label which makes it a designer brand. This is the vanity that people have; we want more than what we need. We must understand that the suffering in our minds unceasingly arises without end because of this. People want to be fashionable and satisfy their vanity, so they keep pursuing more.
For this reason, they “replace suffering with [more] suffering;” they add suffering to their existing suffering, this is how people are deluded.
Our confusion leads to delusion. With delusion comes karma. Because of our delusions, we create karma out of ignorance and are “greedily attached to the five desires.”We do not want to let go even when we die. This is suffering.
We pursue the five desires and do not want to let go even when we die. Thus we continue to suffer in our future in our future lives. Earlier we spoke of the Chinese character for “flee.” After we die, when we return, we must repay our debts. We have created so much karma in this world. As we repay our debts, we face the suffering of parting of parting with those we love, meeting those we hate, etc.
We own karmic debts to each other, “The suffering of not getting what we want comes from pushing things that are not ours. This gives rise to the afflictions of greed, anger and ignorance.” So, we “commit all kinds of transgressions like killings, stealing, sexual misconduct and lying.”
In this way, we have created so much karma, yet what we have obtained is illusory.
The past is in the past. Once something we enjoyed is in the past, we wonder, “Is there anything left?” The things that we enjoy are also illusory. If our lives are not grounded, we just keep pursuing things and keep saying. “I must have it.” Pursuing these “illusory goals of the five desires, wealth and advantage” becomes the life we live. Perhaps we have constantly been pursuing things and have obtained the things we want, but in the end, we cannot keep them forever, as karma is the only thing we take with us. “We cannot take anything with us when we die, only our karma will follow us to our next life. We only possess these things temporarily. When we pass from this life, we will lose them. Perhaps we have not lost them yet, but in the end, the result is the same.
We are gone, but the object remains. In this case, we still have to let it go. Even if we do not want to, we have to. We are forced to let go of everything, except “all the bad karma created in the past roots in greed, anger and ignorance since Beginningless Time.” Isn’t this the case?
These things that we do lead us to the Three Evil Realms. Dears Bodhisattvas we must earnestly engage in spiritual practice. Think about this; all this suffering is caused by afflictions we cannot let go of. Thus we face unbearable suffering. So, we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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