The Tara Compendium. Chokgyur Lingpa
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Animals living in water are equal in number to grains of brewed chang. Animals living on the earth and in the sky are so numerous they could fill an entire valley. In comparison, beings in the higher realms are as few as the number of dust particles on the top of your nail. Moreover, in general, there are very few humans and exceptionally few in the Jambudvipa continent. In particular, those who practice the dharma are as rare as stars in the daytime. Most sentient beings indulge solely in misdeeds; those performing virtue are very rare indeed. From among the virtuous, those who are able to maintain discipline, the cause of obtaining a human body, are extremely rare. To illustrate this, we have the analogy from the scriptures of the blind turtle in the rough ocean.
You must also reflect on how this human life is extremely meaningful. By means of having this human body, you can accomplish worldly success and pleasure in this life and all your future lives. You can attain liberation and also the highest fruition of enlightenment, buddhahood.
There is no guarantee whatsoever that one will have these freedoms and riches in the next lifetime. So casting aside the dreamlike worldly pleasures and activities of this life, one must persevere in practicing the dharma. As Shantideva said:
If one, after having attained the freedoms and riches, then squanders them away, there is no greater waste than that.
2. Death and impermanence
You must reflect on the fact that your death is imminent. In the sutras, Buddha said, “Bhikshus, all composite things are impermanent.” In general, everything that is composite is not beyond the four limits of disintegration. Especially, the life force of beings is just like a bubble; one is never sure when it will burst. Even though we have obtained a human body now, we will definitely die, since no one in the past has escaped that.
Since the body is something composite, it is not permanent or stable. Life does not linger on for a single moment. It passes by with each moment, as we grow closer and closer to death, just like an arrow shot by a skilled archer, like water cascading down a waterfall, or like a person being led to the scaffold. Buddha said in the Between Tree Sutra:
Like a convict being led towards the scaffold,
With each step you come closer to death.
Unlike some other kinds of beings and other realms, where the life spans are fixed, here in Jambudvipa the life spans of beings are not fixed. Therefore, many people die the moment they are born, and so on. Aside from the unclean substances that comprise it, this body has no real substance whatsoever.
There are so many conditions for death: external conditions like fire, water, cliffs, wild animals, and so on; internal conditions like physical sickness, evil influences, and problems from eating the wrong kinds of food or medicine; and so forth. So you never know when you are going to die.
As Nagarjuna says:
The circumstances for death are many.
Those for staying alive are few,
And even they can become circumstances for death.
So please, practice the dharma constantly.
When you arrive at the time of death, nothing except for one’s dharma practice can really be of help. No matter how much wealth we may have, at the time of death we cannot take along even as much as one needle. No matter how many friends, family members, and employees we may have, we cannot take even the most junior servant with us. Leaving our body behind, our mind must follow after its own virtuous and nonvirtuous karma. As it is taught:
Holy Subhuti,
Apart from virtue and non-virtue,
When a sentient being passes on,
Nothing else will follow.
So understand this and make the right choice.
This being so, there is nothing else whatsoever that can help you at the time of death. After death, in all of your following lifetimes, the only thing that can truly be of benefit is the sacred dharma, nothing else. Therefore think, “From this very day onward, I will apply myself wholeheartedly to practicing the sacred dharma.”
3. The sufferings of the lower realms
When we die, it doesn’t end there. We have no choice but to take another rebirth. We also have no control over where we are reborn; based on our own virtuous and nonvirtuous karma, we will be propelled into either the higher or lower realms.
If we are unable to perform virtue now and our three doors are solely involved in negative actions, we will be reborn in one of the three lower realms and undergo inconceivable suffering. The life spans there are extremely long, so there is no escape.
In the hot hell realms, the ground is red-hot iron blazing with extremely hot fire. There are rivers and lakes, whose waters transform into molten copper and trees made from red-hot iron, and so forth. They are filled with hordes of Yamas (Lords of Death); cannibals; vicious birds; and wild, ferocious animals. Each of the eight hot hells, from Reviving down to Incessant Torment, is even more torturous than the previous one.
In the cold hells, the ground is made of snow and ice, and violent storms and blizzards constantly rage. The cold is utterly unbearable. In each of them, from Water Bubbles to Lotus-Like, one’s skin cracks and splits open wider and wider. The suffering in each of the lower cold hells is progressively seven times worse than the suffering in the cold hell just above it. The life spans there are extremely long.
In the four cardinal directions of the eight hot hells are the Pit of Fiery Embers, the Swamp of Rotten Corpses, the Path Filled with Swords, and the Forest of Blades. There are also the temporary hells above and below ground, where one experiences other types of suffering in different bodies and forms. Reflect on these immeasurable sufferings.
Some of the hungry ghosts live underground in the Realm of Yama. Some live on land, underground, or dispersed throughout space. In the sutra called the Close Habitation of Mindfulness, the Buddha mentioned thirty-six different kinds of hungry ghosts. However, they can all be contained within three main types. Those in the first type have the external obscuration. They see food and drink as pus and blood. Even if they reach the bank of a river, it immediately dries up; or when they see other food or drink, they see armed guards protecting it; and so forth. In this way, they go for many years without finding anything to eat or drink and are constantly ravished by hunger.
Those in the second type have the inner obscuration, and they are unable to eat or drink. In Letter to a Friend, Nagarjuna says:
They feel they have a mouth like an eye of a needle and a belly like a valley. Every time they manage to get just a little scrap down their throat, it doesn’t help anything, because they are immensely hungry.
Those in the third type have the obscuration of food and drink. Whenever they eat or drink