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Handout #4 The Problems we face
Human body is hard to come by, now you have got it;
Buddhadharma is hard to listen to, now you have heard it.
In this life, if you do not try to cross over this body,
Until when do you want to wait to cross over this body.
人身難得今已得 佛法難聞今已聞
今生不把此身度 更待何生度此身
Buddhism helps us to understand our life and the universe we are in. One of the most crucial aspects of life is the current moment we are in; and the most note-worthy beings in the universe are the sentient beings.
The term `current moment’ refers to any moment you are in during the entire course of your life, from birth to death. What we encounter or experience throughout our life is a series of pain and suffering presented in different forms. Such a statement may have led you to perceive Buddhism as extremely pessimistic. Instead, Buddhism reflects the true wisdom in which one knows how to honestly and wisely cope with any given adverse circumstance in one’s life. Among the Four Noble Truths, taught by the Buddha, the first one is the truth of suffering. Subsequently, the Buddha’s teaching articulates the practice of the Four Classes of Contemplation (四念處觀); one of them is to contemplate the consciousness as always resulting in suffering (觀受是苦). Such practice is the first step leading to the revealing of understanding (開智慧的起步).
It is in our human nature, to always feel inadequate, when comparing oneself with others. In the presence of others, we feel that our physical appearance or external appearance is not compatible to others. We endlessly seek for happiness and neglect the needs of physical and mental care. Therefore, the parcel of human life includes pain, pleasure, fear, worry, pressure, anxiety, cravings, selfish desires, pride, loneliness, frustration, etc. These can be categorized into five types of reception of people, incidences, or objects around us: suffering (苦受), pleasure (樂受), sorrow(憂受), joy (喜受), and the indifference or non-subjective feeling (捨受). (1) Suffering: It refers to such physical reception (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, or tactile consciousness) that hurts your feelings (指身之領納違情境界而感苦痛者). (2) Pleasure: It refers to such physical reception that gives you pleasure (指身之領納順情境界而感快樂者). (3) Sorrow : It refers to mental reception (the sixth consciousness) of any object that hurts your feelings (指心之領納違情境界而感憂惱者). (4) Joy: It refers to mental reception of any object that gives you joy (指心之領納順情境界而感喜悅者). (5) Indifference or Non-subjective Reception: It refers to any physical or mental reception that gives you a feeling of no pain, no pleasure, no sorrow, and no joy (指身心之領納不違不順情境界而感無苦無樂無憂無喜者).
Among these five types of reception, pleasure, joy, and the indifference feelings are always unreal and temporary. On the contrary, such feelings of pain and sorrow are real. The above characteristics can be better understood from two perspectives:
a). Illusive vs. Real: Pleasure or joy is illusive; suffering and sorrow is real and concrete. It is clear that the illusive feeling of pleasure and joy usually arises from a temporary relief from pain and sorrow. For instance, a man could feel very joyful after recovering from a seriously illness. However, if one was never ill before, where does the pleasure come from? It is not difficult to comprehend why our life is full of suffering and sorrow, since our life results from the wrong thoughts and deeds of our previous lives. None of us can escape the consequences incurred from our own actions.
b).Ever-Changing vs. Constant: Pleasure or joy is temporary and carries an ever changing nature. However, continuous pleasure and joy may eventually transform into opposite feelings. For instance, if one is continuously fed with ample food and sex, he will soon try to turn away from it. However, the pain does not transform into pleasure if one is continuously beaten.
Unfortunately, the majority of people do not understand the illusive nature of pleasure and joy, and thus never get fulfilled, though having devoted most of their life chasing after them (眾生不知樂是虛妄,所以窮逐不捨,終得不到真樂). People also often ignore the ever-changing nature of pleasure and joy, and consequently feel lost or sad when the circumstance changes. On the contrary, the Buddha realized that only suffering is real, and thus preached contemplation of the consciousness as always resulting in suffering. With such practice, we may eventually be released from endless suffering.
There are three major types of suffering: (a). the ordinary suffering, the inherent suffering (苦苦); that produced by direct causes, (b). the suffering of decay and destruction, the latent suffering (壞苦); that produced by loss or deprivation, and (c). the suffering inevitably the consequence of action (行苦) by the passing or impermanency of all things . The three sufferings are also called three kinds of feelings (三受):
1). The ordinary suffering: The ordinary suffering refers to both suffering and sorrow described above. The sufferings consist of physical and emotional suffering that is often referred to as the `eight suffering (八苦)’, i.e., the suffering of birth, aging, being sick, and dying (生,老,病,死苦); the suffering of being departed from the loved ones (愛別離苦); the suffering of meeting or dealing with the hated ones or enemies (怨憎會苦); the suffering of failure to acquire what one has wanted (求不得苦); and the suffering resulting from the flourishing of the five skandhas (五蘊熾盛苦).
This suffering of birth, old age , death and the five skandhas are incurred by one’s internal impure thoughts and deeds, which further lead to the endless samsara (transmigration in the six realms). These are also called the `active suffering (健康苦)’, which means the more one actively seeks to hold on to the five skandhas, the more miserable one becomes due to the wrong doings he does (五蘊假身,愈健康就愈往外攀緣,而苦也愈無窮).
The suffering of being departed from the loved ones, meeting or dealing with the hated ones or enemies, and failure to acquire what one has wanted are related to people, incidences, or objects in the environments. In addition, the externally related sufferings are often experienced in forms of famine, flood, drought, fire, hurricane, earthquake, robbery, war, and imprisonment.
2. The suffering of decay or destruction: Every existence goes through the stage of formation, existence, destruction and annihilation (成,住,壞,空). Neither pleasure nor joy is an exception. It is very true that, suffering and sorrow always follows pleasure and joy closely. Unfortunately, most people do not understand this truth, and often fall into deep sorrow and pain when they suddenly notice their pleasure and joy diminishing.
3. The suffering inevitably has consequence on action: Even though, we sometimes, do not feel pain or sorrow, it is indeed quite a suffering to notice. Our mind floats around across all spectrums of time and places. Under such circumstances , one may become anxious, irritable and antagonistic. In Formless Heaven, there is no sensuality, no form of female or male, and no material form. The inhabitants have no sufferings arising from external circumstances or deterioration. However, here exists the suffering of the realization that nothing is eternal, nothing lasts forever.
We understand that, all beings in the three realms all have to suffer, and none can be exempted. All Beings in the Realm of Desire have sexual and food desires. The greed is the fundamental cause for affliction, and thus, creates all types of suffering. It is so clear that one’s desires will never get fulfilled, if he keeps chasing one after another! And this is why Confucianism keeps preaching the conservation of sexual desire, and Buddhism requires the eliminating all sexual desire.
A careful investigation reveals that one suffers, because his true wisdom is concealed by his afflictions, which result from greed, hatred and ignorance. This is called delusion (惑). Because of delusion and ignorance, we act at will, and as such we create the karma (業). Eventually, in the future we receive the retribution; and this is suffering (苦). Unfortunately, the living beings encountering these sufferings are unable to reflect and reform their own faults, but complain that these all resulted from other’s actions. Therefore, the delusion, karma and suffering continue in a endless cycle. The sutra called these three `Three path (三道)’. The path means `lead to’. Delusion leads to karma, karma leads to suffering, and suffering leads to delusion.
Supplementary handout #2 Skandha1 (The Five Aggregates五蘊)
A living being is comprised of five groups of existence, components or aggregates. These are the five aspects in which the Buddha has summed up all the physical and mental phenomena of existence, and which appear to the ignorant man as his ego or personality.
The first is the aggregate of form, matter or the corporeality group (Rupa,色蘊). In this term, ‘aggregate of form’, are included the traditional Four Great Elements (Mahabhuta,四大), namely, earth, water, fire and wind. They represent solid (堅), liquid (濕), heat (煖), and motion (動). Motion produces and maintains life. The form-body comes into being when earth, water, fire, and wind unite. The skin, flesh, muscles, and borns of our bodies are the great element, earth. The saliva, urine, excrement, water, and sweat are the great element, water. The heat of our bodies is the great element, fire; and the circulation of the breath is the great element, wind. The four great elements unite to become a body, and when they separate, the body is destroyed. Each of the four elements returned to its original position, which is emptiness. Also included are the Derivatives of the Four Great Elements (四大的衍生物): our physical sense organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, body (the five perceptive faculties五根); and their corresponding sense objects, visible form, sound, odor, taste, and tangible things, and some thoughts, ideas or conceptions (the six objects of perception六塵).
Form is comprised of sub-atomic particles and empty spaces. These particles continuously arise and disappear. When these Four Great Elements are together in various combinations, they form structures. To us, they seem permanent.
In general the form skandhas can be described in three broad classifications:
1) . Form which can be seen and complemented, called complementary and visible (可對可見色).
2) . Form which can be complemented but not seen, called complementary and invisible (可對不可見色).
3) Form which can neither be seen nor complemented, called non-complementary and invisible (不可對不可見色).
The three kinds of form dharmas are discriminated with the fields of the six objectives of perception: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, and dharmas.
What are complementary, visible forms? They are dharmas which you can see and with which you can form a dharma-pair. People, living beings, mountains, rivers and the phenomena, all have visible form.
As to complementary invisible forms, you can pair yourself with them, but you cannot see them. They include sounds, smells, tastes, and objects of touch, all of which can be complemented but not seen. For instance, to pair yourself with a sound which is an object of perception is to enter into a complementary relationship with what you hear. You pair yourself with it and discriminations arise in the conscious mind, yet you are unable to see the sound. You use your tongue to taste; only the tongue can tell the palatable from the unpalatable. But the five flavors - sour, sweet, bitter, hot, and salty have no visible appearance.
The non-complementary, invisible forms refer to the shadows of the sight, sounds, smells, tastes, and objects of touch falling into the mind-consciousness. What is the shadow? For example, your eyes see a color, and your mind-consciousness knows, “What I just saw was red. I also saw yellow and green.” Although the color has gone by, its trace remains in the mind-consciousness. Only its shadow is left. The same is true of sounds, smells, tastes, and objects of touch. Maintain that a certain phenomenon exists, and it has already gone past; maintain that it does not exist, yet you remember it. Although the objects of perception are no longer present, although the events are past and the feelings gone by, its trace remains and shadows are stored in the mind-consciousness, and these are called dharmas, the sixth of the six objects of perception. It belongs to the form skandha, but is classified as non-complementary and invisible.
But physical sense organs, by themselves, are not enough to produce an experience. The simple contact between the eye and visible objects or between the ears and sound, cannot result in experience without consciousness (Vijnana, 識蘊). Consciousness is mere awareness, or mere sensitivity to an object. Consciousness is a reaction or response, which has one of the six sense organs as its basis and one of the six corresponding external phenomena as its objects. For instance, visual consciousness has the eye as its basis and a visible form as its object. It should be clearly understood, that, consciousness does not recognize an object. It is only a sort of awareness - awareness of the presence of an object without labeling or making judgment. The term ‘visual consciousness’ is a philosophical expression denoting the same idea as is conveyed by the ordinary word ‘seeing’. When the eye comes in contact with a color, for instance blue, visual consciousness arises which is simply awareness of the presence of a color; but it does not recognize that it is blue. It is the perception that recognizes that it is blue.
Buddha explained consciousness in detail: “Consciousness is named according to whatever condition through which it arises. On account of the eye and visible forms arises a consciousness, and it is called visual consciousness. On account of the ear and sounds arises a consciousness, and it is called auditory consciousness. On account of the nose and odors arises a consciousness, and it is called olfactory consciousness. On account of the tongue and tastes arises a consciousness, and it is called gustatory consciousness. On account of the body and tangible objects arises a consciousness, and it is called tactile consciousness. On account of the mind and mind-objects arises a consciousness, and it is called mental consciousness.”