Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: The Five Turbidities and Eight Sufferings (離煩惱修無漏)
Date:August.31. 2015
“Youthful magnificence passes in the blink of an eye, never to return. With the passage of time, people’s lives change and fade away. The moon reflected in the water vanishes without a trace. The aged and frail figure is the mother of a thousand children.”
Our lifetime passes very quickly. In the blink of an eye, our youthful years are behind us. This happens with no warning. From a young age, our youthful magnificence passes away without notice; our youthful days will never return.
The years of our lives easily pass by in this way. Like the moon reflected in the water, once it vanishes no trace of it is left. The old cells in our body are replaced by the new, and the appearance of our body goes through subtle changes that we are unaware of. We are so intimately connected to this body, yet we are not always conscious of its changes. This is to say nothing of the moon that we lift our heads to see, which is so far away from us, or the moon in the water we look down upon, which is illusory and has no true substance. This is the same as our lives!
“The aged and frail figure is the mother of a thousand children.” Look at the body of a woman. When she is beautiful, we say she is like [Guanyin] Bodhisattva. Though in the past her figure was so slender, and she would put on high heels and walk with a certain posture, look at the way she walks now. After decades of being worn down by hardships, aside from changes in her physical appearance, there are also changes in the joints of her feet and waist. When she walks right now, what is her posture like?
Think about it. Living in a whole [of constant changes], what is there to get upset about? Our time is so short and passes away so easily. Our youthful magnificence is simply passing and will never return. The days of our lives pass us by in this way. See, life is like a dream, a bubble, an illusion, it is like the moon in the water. It truly is. Therefore we must earnestly make full use of our time in this world.
Indeed, sometimes beauty in this world does not come from physical appearance, but from obtaining virtuous Dharma and putting it into practice in this world. That is true beauty. When we look at volunteers from South Africa, each of these Bodhisattvas is like a black pearl. Their skin is so dark they are radiant. One time a group of these volunteers traveled in their NO. 3 Tzu Chi car; it had been in use for over ten years and is very old. Nine South Africa Bodhisattvas used this old car to travel to Swaziland.
Swaziland is 600 km away. From Durban, South Africa, this trip would take eight hours. The car was also carrying supplies. When they finally managed to reach the border crossing between South Africa and Swaziland, they were held up there for a while. With great effort, they resolved the issues and were able to cross the border. They hurried on in this old car to get to where they were staying for the night.They were already many hours behind schedule.
Where were they staying for the night?In a factory owned by a Taiwanese businessman.
This factory belonged to Tex-Ray Industrial Co.
The chairman of this company is Mr. Lin.He was very supportive of Tzu Chi volunteers from South Africa going to Swaziland, so every time they made the trip, he provided a place for them to rest.
However, on this trip they were many hours past their scheduled arrival time.Still, when they arrived, they saw that the place they were staying was cleaned up nicely for them to rest.
Seeing this, they felt very grateful.Moreover, someone was still waiting there to provide them with things to eat like bread.
The next day, someone else delivered fruits and even gave them ten blankets.Actually, they had prepared everything they needed so when they were presented with these things, they did not accept them.
Although they were very poor, in their minds they believed,“If I am not greedy, I am not poor.”So, they insisted on not accepting these gifts.But the people giving gifts were very insistent.
The volunteers accepted them, saying, we can pass these things on to people who are in need.”In this way, they accepted these gifts.
Then they led the Swaziland volunteers to go out and conduct case visits.
The first person they visited was a female AIDS patient who was in her 30s.She was seriously ill, just skin and bones.She was lying in bed, and the South African volunteers immediately greeted her with a loving embrace.They bathed and cleaned her up then cleaned her surroundings and gave her the bread, fruits and a blanket.They arranged everything for her and then gave her these gifts.They are role models of giving with love.
Seeing this, the Swazilanders were deeply moved.Then they went to another household.
This old woman was frail and sick.The place she lived in was so broken-down that it could not shelter here from wind or rain.She was in a sad situation.
[The South African volunteers] again provided her with the same level of care.The Swaziland volunteer was deeply moved again.They saw how, after cleaning up her surroundings, the South African volunteers gave her a blanket and things to eat, like fruits and bread and so on.
They also told the Swaziland volunteers and this woman’s surrounding neighbors, “Please look after her. This old woman has no children and lives all by herself. If everyone can give her a bit of love that would help this old woman a lot.”
Because the South African volunteers led by acting out of love, [the Swazilanders felt,].
“The South Africans actually came all the way to Swaziland and gave so much love to our neighbors. If they can travel all this way, if they can do this, why can’t we do it too?”
So, her neighbors all said they were willing.
“We will take turns caring for the old woman.”
The new Swaziland volunteers also said, “We will also visit her often to see what she needs.”
Look at the love in the world; that is where we find beauty.
In summary, this is the power of love.[South African volunteers] live in hardship, but they maintain strict discipline and are not greedy.
They know that if they are not greedy, they will not feel poor.Without greed, there is no sense of being poor.
So, when other people give them things, they turn around and give them to families that have the greatest need.This applies to things to eat, to use and so on.They have cultivated very pure minds that are free of thoughts of greed.
Recently, we have been talking about the five chronic afflictions.
People’s [afflictions] arise from greed.Once we eliminate our thoughts of greed, we will be able to overcome any kind of difficulty.With this loving heart, we can transform others.So, in that place, when volunteers faced various difficulties, with a mind full of pure and unselfish love, they were able to overcome difficulties and transform other people.This is the power of love.
The previous sutra passage states, “Centipedes and house centipedes and varieties of poisonous snakes were burned by the fire and struggled to get out of their holes.”
Our minds are filled with greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance and doubt; they contain these poisons.Centipedes’ first pair of legs contain venom, and their last pair of legs are extremely long. This is an analogy for how greed extends outward. This is how the world is. This is what our lives are like.
Next, it states, “The kumbhanda demon was chasing and grabbing them to eat. There were many hungry ghosts with the top of their heads aflame. They were afflicted by hunger, thirst and heat and ran about in terror and distress”.
“The kumbhanda demon” was the mother of a thousand children, and because she treasured them, she captured other people’s children and fed them to her own. Many children in the countryside had disappeared all of sudden, so people tearfully reported this to the Buddha. The Buddha made a plan for Ananda and the other bhiksus to capture her children.
When the mother of demons saw that her children were gone, she wept and sobbed. Upon learning her children were held by the Buddha, she came to Him and begged piteously. The Buddha returned all her children to her except for one.
The Buddha said, “You have a thousand children, you will not miss this one”.
“No, you cannot keep him. He is my youngest, my favorite”.
“Your youngest and favorite child is just one out of your thousand children; I just want to keep this one”.
She said, “No.”
The Buddha said, “What if I trade him for another.”
“No, I cannot lose even one of them”.
The Buddha said, “You say you cannot lose even one child, but the parents you steal children from have only one or two children; how can they stand losing one?”
This mother finally awakened and deeply repented. Then she took refuge with the Buddha and vowed to be a protector of the Dharma.
“The kumbhanda demon was chasing and grabbing them to eat: The demon mother loved her children like her life. Capturing other’s children, she took their lives to nourish her own children. Thus it says, “chasing and grabbing them to eat”. Transformed later by the Buddha’s teachings, she deeply repented and vowed to become a protector of the Dharma”.
Next it states, “There were many hungry ghosts with the top of their heads aflame”. This represents “the suffering of aging”, how “a mind influenced by the aggregate of action is incessantly disrupted”.
“There were many hungry ghosts, with the top of their heads aflame: This is the suffering of aging. A mind influenced by the aggregate of action is incessantly disrupted. The suffering of illness, the suffering of death, the suffering of not getting what we want and the suffering of parting from those we love are inescapable obstacles. Then there is suffering of meeting those we hate. These sufferings disturb people’s minds, so they are likened to having the top of one’s head aflame.”
As we grow old we will certainly fall ill. When the illness runs its course, we die. Moreover, throughout our lives, even when we were young, we pursued our desires. Not getting what we want also causes suffering. Even if we get what we want, we will suffer when we part from what we love. There are obstacles to everything. Why, if we love someone, do we have to separate from them? Why can’t we get the things we want? This is due to obstacles. Because we obstructed people in our past lives, now we cannot get what we want. Because we once broke up others’ relationships, we will suffer our own parting from those we love. These are all due to obstacles which arise because of the causes and conditions we created. Perhaps there are people we do not want to see, yet we keep being thrown together with them. When we see them we argue; when we see them we fight.
“Enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road”. Or quarrelsome but loving people may be entangled with each other in a complicated relationship. They love, hate and resent each other. This is suffering from meeting those we hate. There are also many other sufferings that trouble and disturb our minds.
This is likened to “having the top of [our] head aflame”. Our entire head seems to be on fire. We often hear people complain, “My head is on fire”. This is a description for what it feels like to be very afflicted.
Next, it states, “They were afflicted by hunger and thirst, running about in terror and distress”. This represents the “afflictions of the Four Skandhas”.
“The afflictions of the Four Skandhas are the suffering of the raging Five Skandhas. Lacking the nourishment of flawless Dharma, they were afflicted by hunger and thirst. In comparison to cyclic existence, it says they ran about in terror and distress. These above phenomena occur invisibly and are analogies for fires arising in the formless realm.”
The Four Skandhas are the first four aggregates of the Five Aggregates, form, feeling, perception and action. Because we have this body, when it connects with external conditions, they disturb our mind and cause us to feel uncomfortable.
When our body is ill and in pain, we feel deep suffering. Matters from our surroundings will disturb our body and mind. When it comes to the most pressing things, those things that are directly related to us, we may not be deal with them as we wish. This is how the body and mind are connected to people, matters and objects in our surroundings. So, the body is responsible for processing external sensations and feelings etc..
Then we have “perception.” If we cannot see through things, the actions we choose to take will continue to aggregate and accumulate. The invisible aggregate of action leads us to accumulate afflictions. The afflictions we have accumulated come from “the raging Five Skandhas.” The first four lead us to create karma, which is then stored our “consciousness.”
Our mind-consciousness stores all these of afflictions. This happens because we “lack the flawless Dharma.”
The flawless Dharma, as everyone knows, is precepts, Samadhi and wisdom. We are short on precepts, Samadhi and wisdom. Because we do not listen to the Dharma, we have no Dharma with which to nourish our wisdom-life. The Dharma is spiritual nourishment. Without the Dharma to nourish our wisdom-life, we are afflicted by hunger and thirst.” Being hungry and thirsty disturbs our body and mind so we continue to transmigrate. We experience this cycle of suffering and are trapped in cyclic existence in the Six Realm. Thus we “run about in terror and distress.”
The things we have spoken of are all invisible. These invisible things refer to our thinking. In our minds there are many [thoughts and afflictions,] so these afflictions will continue to arise. We are filled with unbearable suffering, so the analogy of a fire is used. Fire is an analogy for “sufferings caused by the Fire Turbidities and so on.”
Fire is an analogy for sentient beings’ suffering caused by the Five Turbidities and so on. The house is an analogy for the Three Realms. This means sentient beings in the Three Realms are tormented by the Five Turbidities and the Eight sufferings, thus they cannot attain safety and stability. This is just as if a big house was burning, thus we could not live safely in it. Therefore, the burning house is used as an analogy.
Sentient beings have Five Turbidities, he turbidity of views, the turbidity of life, the turbidity of sentient beings, the turbidity of afflictions and the kalpa of turbidity.
We all live together in this same era. There are so many people in this planet, and everyone’s opinions vary greatly. Everyone has their own afflictions, which frequently arise. See, when we fight with and take from each other, everyone is disturbed and this causes turmoil in society. In everyone’s mind there is a fire, this we suffer from the Five Turbidities.
This “house” is an analogy for the Three Realms. In this space, there are so many things which can start fires. Everyone’s minds has these kinds of turbidities, these firestarters. This is not to mention how sentient being in the Three Realms are tormented by the Five Turbidities and the Eight Sufferings. “They cannot attain safety and stability.”
In this Way, the Three Realms are like a burning house. The fire keeps arising and spreading. Now, we are truly running out of time. How can we put out this fire? The only way is with the Dharma-water. We need the Dharma-water to put out the Fire in our minds. We must see through this world. “Youthful, magnificence passed in the blink of an eye, never to return.” “With the passage of time, people’s lives change and fade away.” “The moon reflected in the water vanishes without a trace.” “The aged and frail figure is the mother of a thousand children.”
Take this mother of a [demons] for example. After turning her mind around and deeply repenting, she was able to become a Bodhisattva as well and be worthy of people’s respect.
So, we must be mindful of our daily living and constantly remind ourselves to be vigilant. We must not have “the tops of [our] head aflame. When “Our head is on fire, “we will feel miserable.
The more we pursue, the less we feel we have; we end up “running about in terror and distress.” Though we run around in all directions, we cannot find a way out because obstacles are everywhere. Therefore, we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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