The Suffering of Samsara

The Suffering of Samsara

Date of Advice:
October 2016
Date Posted:
January 2017

Rinpoche gave this advice to a monk who asked whether it was beneficial to go to Myanmar to meditate for three months.

Dear one,
It comes out best to go to Bodhgaya and then to meditate on Liberation in the Palm of your Hand. Study this text from beginning to end, and do this twice. On top of this, it important to meditate on how samsara is in the nature of suffering, and the six types of suffering.

[The first type of suffering] is that nothing is definite in samsara and secondly, nothing gives satisfaction, however much we enjoy it, so of course there is always dissatisfaction. Nothing is definite in samsara, from life to life. Relationships change—friend, enemy, stranger, they all become like this—changing even in one life, even in one year, one month, one week or one day. In the morning that person is your friend, then by the evening they become your enemy. Also relatives change, so from life to life even relatives become enemies, changing from friend to enemy to friend.

The third one is having to leave the body again and again, whatever body is taken, however many beautiful bodies we have taken—as humans, non-humans, or worldly gods—we have taken all these bodies. Those looking very beautiful, male, female—all the human bodies that people think are very beautiful—also insects, butterflies and so forth, we have taken all these bodies numberless times. If we collect all the bodies we have taken, from one life to another life, there would be no empty space left.

Lama Tsongkhapa explained, for example, our father’s father’s fathers. It goes on and on like that, and also our mother’s mother’s mothers and so forth. From that meditation you can get an idea that this body is just a collection of old sperm and egg. Sperm from our father’s father’s fathers, and egg from our mother’s mother’s mothers. Realize it is garbage, it's extremely old garbage, and do not get attached. In this way, it helps to be free from samsara and to end taking rebirth [the fourth type of suffering], even though it has no beginning.

[The fifth type of suffering] is that after being high you become low; it’s always like that. We have been higher in the desire realm, as devas—form realm devas, formless realm devas, and the tip of samsara. We have received these rebirths numberless times through meditation, shamatha, but still we are not free from the suffering of samsara.

The form and formless realms are both in the nature of suffering. The form realm has no suffering of pain but it has the suffering of change. All the samsaric temporary pleasures are the suffering of change, therefore the form realm has the suffering of change. The formless realm doesn’t have those two [the suffering of pain and the suffering of change] but it has pervasive compounded suffering, from where the other two sufferings arise, being totally under the control of delusion and karma, and the contaminated seed of delusion. From there, suffering, delusion arises.

When you think about this in regards to the suffering of other sentient beings, then you develop compassion, from that you develop bodhicitta, and from that you generate the Mahayana path. If you practice tantra, on the basis of that, then practice tantra. This is the shortest path to enlightenment, so you can free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to buddhahood, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations.

So that’s my talk. Don't only read one time, please read again and again and study it. Also you can show your friends, if you want, those whom you want to understand.

Thank you.

I checked and what comes out best is for you to do is prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas. You need strong purification to have realization of the path to enlightenment.

With much love and prayers...