Shantideva’s
Bodhicharyāvatāra
བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་པའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།།
Group Study with Venerable Lama Gelong Sangyay Tendzin
Session 23 – July 03, 2021
Chapter Four: Developing Carefulness
Good morning everyone, I am happy to meet with you again to study the sacred Dharma.
Let us make the most of this opportunity and start our session by reciting the preliminary prayers.
REFUGE | MANDALA | REQUEST for TEACHINGS
Lama’s Invocation | Mental Quiescence
It has been two weeks since we last met about studying the Bodhicaryâvatâra since last week we shared the wonderful time of celebrating the birthday of H. H. Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje.
To refresh your memory, we completed the explanation of Chapter Four - Sloka 16 in which Shantideva stated the impermanence of the opportunity that we all possess right now: that of having a precious human body. We need to use this opportunity and not let it be wasted. Otherwise, we will loose it as stated in the next stanza.
Chapter Four: Sloka 17
And with my behaviour like this,
I won’t even attain a human body (again).
And if I haven’t attained (another) human body,
I’ll have only (my) negative force and nothing constructive.
Previously and until this time, Shantideva says that he has been careless of what he should and should not do. Hehas indulged in negative deeds. If he continues to behave in this way, not only can there be no hope of liberation inthe future, but he will not even obtain a human existence!
Moreover, if one fails to obtain a precious human existence and is born in the lower realms, the suffering is such that there is no opportunity to practice virtue. For instance, the majority of animals cannot live unless they consume the flesh and blood of the species on which they prey. And in the slaughtering of their victims, they are far more skilled even than human beings.
Chapter Four: Sloka 18
If even when having the chance for constructive behaviour,
I do nothing constructive, then what course will I have
When completely struck dumb by the sufferings
In the worse rebirth states?
When one obtains a precious human existence endowed with freedoms and advantages, one is fortunate in having the capacity to do good with one’s body, speech, and mind.
However, says Shantideva if one fails to practice even to the slightest degree, he will, as the result of his evil actions, be tormented in subsequent lives in the hells and other of the lower realms.
Being ignorant of what to do and what to avoid, how will one ever be able to accomplish virtue? It is impossible.
Chapter Four: Sloka 19
If, while not doing anything constructive,
I continue to build up negative force,
Then for hundreds of millions of eons
I won’t even hear the words “better rebirth state.”
It will also be impossible to escape from the lower realms. For if, Shantideva says, he does not perform even the slightest positive action, but instead accumulates nothing but intensely negative acts for a long time, it follows that he will continually wander in evil states for hundreds of millions of kalpas. How could he possibly take birth in the realms of happiness? He will not even hear of their existence.
Chapter Four: Sloka 20
Because of just this, the Vanquishing Master has said
Rebirth as a human is so difficult to attain,
Just as it is for a turtle to stick its neck through the hole
In a yoke adrift on the vast sea.
For this reason, the Lord Buddha refers to the example of a blind turtle living in the ocean depth and coming up to the surface… it is an immense ocean on the surface of which there floats a yoke blown here and there by the wind. Coming to the surface once in a hundred years, such blind turtle could theoretically find its head inside the yoke. But since the ocean is vast, the yoke mindless, and the turtle blind, the probability of such a thing happening would be almost inexistent. And yet, said Patrul Rinpoche, to obtain a human birth is far more difficult than this!
Chapter Four: Sloka 21
If, by the negative force of committing (a heinous act) for an instant,
I must spend an eon in a joyless realm of unrelenting pain,
What need to mention not going to one of the better rebirth states
Because of the negative force I’ve built up over beginningless samsara?
In the two next stanzas, Shantideva shows the need to develop carefulness in action resulting from reflecting on thedifficulty to escape from the lower realms.
A single instant of evil (such as a hostile impulse toward a Bodhisattva), is said to lead to the suffering of the Hell ofUnrelenting Pain, where beings must stay for a very long time not to say an entire kalpa.
Saying so, Shantideva reflects that the evils he has committed in samsara from time without beginning will cause him inescapable suffering for an immense duration. There is no need to say that they will keep him from experiencing the states of bliss!
A very tiny cause can produce immense consequences. Even though their actions take only a brief instant, such as killing, they will have to experience infernal suffering for a kalpa.
It is certainly not the case that all our evil actions accumulated in the past have already been exhausted through the experience of their consequences or through their being purified by confession. How many of them are still in store within our mind streams!
And, owing to the evil thoughts that constantly arise during a single life, how many actions did we commit that will themselves lead to rebirth in hell? The negative deeds we performed within this present life alone will make it difficult for us to be freed from infernal existence.
As stated in the Abhidharmakosha, there is an order in which the fruits of sin and virtue ripen:
- The actions performed nearest the moment of death ripen before all others.
- In the absence of such actions, the results of actions that are most powerfully ingrained by habit will occur.
- Otherwise, actions fructify in the order they were accomplished.
It might therefore happen that when death occurs, an evildoer may attain a favourable rebirth due to some early good action, and, conversely, there is no certainty that, on account of a negative action committed in an earlier life, a Dharma practitioner might not be born in the hell realms. For it is impossible to be certain that all past negative karmas have been purified by confession or exhausted through experience.
Chapter Four: Sloka 22
But just having experienced only that much,
I shall still not get free,
For while experiencing like this,
I’ll prolifically create further negative force.
It might be thought that the results of earlier actions have been exhausted through their being experienced in the lowerrealms and that freedom will now follow. But the simple fact of suffering in hell and the other states of loss does not meanthat the beings who have accumulated such evil karma are liberated from existence in the lower realms.
The reason for this is that even while they are suffering the pains of the evil destinies, the fruits of their former misdeeds,karmic effects “similar to the cause,” constitute a powerful stimulus for the occurrence of other negativities: aggressiveattitudes, anger, acts of killing, and so on.
Manifest phenomena may be assessed by means of valid perception; hidden phenomena are known through validinference; and extremely hidden phenomena, such as the karmic principle of cause and effect, are known on the authorityof the Buddha’s teaching.
It is said that it is possible for the karmic principle to be logically (*) established through the fourth of the principles of reasoning.
(*) The four principles of reasoning:
- the principle of causal efficiency.
- the principle of dependency.
- the principle of natur and,
- the principle of logical coherence.
I invite you abide in mental peace before dedicating the merit of this session for the benefit of all.
