The following is a quote from Red Tara Commentary: Instructions for the Concise Practice Known as Red Tara: An Open Door to Ultimate Awareness by Chagdud Khadro (Jane Tromge)
Next, these dualistic tendencies bring about fictitious formations, both elemental and mental, of self and grosser projections of other. As the whole mind-body makeup becomes increasingly dense, beings take rebirth after rebirth in bodies that correspond to the tendencies that develop in their mindstreams. They are subject to the karmic outcomes created by these tendencies, but, lost in the patterns of dualistic confusion, they are unable to trace karmic events back to their source in the mind. In their ignorance, they attribute tragedies to blows of fate, unexpected triumphs to luck. They do not see that all aspects of their situation, including the bodies they inhabit, have been self-created over countless lifetimes.
The dualistic mind, the mind that grasps at self and gives self-interest priority over the interests of others, arises as the five poisons, which in turn leas to six types of rebirth: ignorance leading to rebirth as an animal, greed to rebirth as a hungry spirit, anger to rebirth as a hell being, jealousy combined with some virtue to rebirth as a jealous god (also known as a demigod), pride combined with virtue to rebirth as a long-lived god (deva) and great virtue combined with a mixture of all five poisons to rebirth as a human.
Well, first of all, smile! You've been born as a human. That means you have accumulated great virtue in past lives. I love the way Chagdud Khadro says that humans have accumulated "great virtue," whereas devas have accumulated only virtue, and demigods have only "some virtue." Already, as humans, our oppurtunities abound.
This passage is difficult for me, because I am not predisposed to accept reincarnation as literally true, nor am I predisposed to accept the existence of devas and hungry ghosts and the other classes of sentient being as literally true. (Excepting animals and humans, I suppose.) And, according to Buddhist thinking, I shouldn't accept them until I come to believe them for solid reasons. I know when Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of reincarnation, he speaks of it much more in the way we live on after we die. How our elements are recycled, and how our behavior has ramifications. In an event, it would be helpful to me to try to interpret these paragraphs more metaphorically.
The following sentence may provide some clues:
...[L]ost in the patterns of dualistic confusion, they are unable to trace karmic events back to their source in the mind. In their ignorance, they attribute tragedies to blows of fate, unexpected triumphs to luck.
Perhaps one way to think of this is that a tragedy is a tragedy only if we perceive it as a tragedy, and an unexpected triumph is only so if we perceive it to be so. If we create the impression that tragedies and unwelcome events are, in fact, cruel blows of fate, we create suffering for ourselves. On the other hand, it is possible for such events to be regarded as teachers. When something that seems bad happens, one can ask oneself, "What can I learn from this?" Similarly, with the wisdom to see through tragedies, one also sees through triumphs. For me, I tend to get to connected to the triumphs, some might even say addicted to the triumphs. Only they are triumphs as conceived by me in my ignorance. If only things were this way, I will be happy. If only I achieve this goal, life will be good. When these "triumphs" fail to come to pass, I can get bitter and resentful, all because I ignorantly invested so much of myself in an illusion. I think it's good to let life flow, not being too attached to outcomes.
Here's a fascinating sentence:
They do not see that all aspects of their situation, including the bodies they inhabit, have been self-created over countless lifetimes.
In the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness, one realizes that nothing real is self-created. There is no separately existing "me" which exists entirely of my own creation. "I" am interconnected with the entire universe, in many complicated ways. So I guess what this implies is that tragedy and triumph are not truly real. This makes sense since these really are subjective concepts. And what of the fact that our bodies are self-created? I wonder what she means here. Certainly our perception of our bodies is not completely accurate, so that the mental construct we identify with our bodies is not real. I have a feeling there's something deeper that I'm missing. In the next paragraph, she describes how various mental poisons actually give rise to rebirth in various types of bodies, so that our mental activity now affects the body we live in the future. Wow! That makes quite a bit of sense! Actually our behavior now really does affect our future body, in all manner of ways. For example, being very bitter all the time can indeed have a deleterious effect on one's health. I do know that my feeling of well-being is closely tied to my mental state.
I'll bet there's a lot more to be dug up here. Comments welcome!
2 comments:
It occurred to me that the first paragraph is an excellent description of an alcoholic, who in the depths of his addiction, ascribes the events happening around him, to everything but himself. "I don't know why all this bad stuff keeps happening to me!" He ignores the fact that these events trace back to his own behavior. Even his own body, which is probably suffering the effects of chronic alcohol abuse, is created through his own actions. At some point he becomes a "hungry ghost," always thirsty for more of the sauce, but never able to get enough.
Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your sting?
When someone dies, why are you downcast? If only you knew what God was up to, you'd throw a party!
God will wipe away every tear.
This seems at odds with warnings about going to hell (or perhaps they are warnings about not getting out of a continuing bad space). Still, it seems to me that the weight of karma (you reap what you sow) is so heavy that no one can do anything but keep sinking (perhaps through the eons). By the time you work your way up, you've already lost more ground than you've gained. So maybe sitting there will do it. Or maybe pondering an idol will help. It's all the same. No way out. A power greater than onself (much, much greater) is the only way out of this flailing free fall into the abyss.
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