Living one’s life under the control of ignorance is actually the heaviest prison—and everyone is living in it.

The inner prison

People who are not in prison think that only people like you are in prison, but they have no idea about all the prisons they themselves are in. Ordinary people, those who are not practicing Dharma—including people from the courts, the police, kings and presidents—are actually living in prison. People who are free to travel around, going wherever they want, doing whatever they like, or billionaires who think they have everything, all the desire objects, are all living in prison. Your external prison, the building you live in, is nothing in comparison with their inner prisons!

It is very important to look at other sentient beings in this world and see how much they are suffering. They are the real prisoners. There are so many examples of this, people who are suffering so much, their inner life is so miserable, they are crying and unhappy. Wealthy people, for example, having so many things but still not having found satisfaction, can be more unhappy than people who have very little. Even if they’re billionaires, trillionaires, zillionaires, living in a house made of diamonds, with billons of cars, swimming pools, millions of servants—they are not happy.

Some years ago, the most successful person of the year was on the cover of Time magazine—successful in making money, that is. After he became rich he couldn’t even go outside, because he was so scared that people would kidnap him. So he stayed inside his whole life, which means it was exactly like living in prison, mentally living in prison, and mentally suffering even more than a person in prison. So much suffering!

The prison of wrong concepts

In fact, we are all in these inner prisons. We are trapped in the prison of wrong concepts: believing that impermanent phenomena are permanent; believing that samsaric temporal pleasure is happiness; believing that the body, which is only a container of dirty things, is clean. There are so many wrong concepts and views, and these prisons are from time without beginning.

The prison of attachment

We are living in the most harmful prison, the prison of attachment, of desire. Normally we live just for this life’s happiness. We look at samsara as if it’s a beautiful park, but in reality it is suffering.

When we live with attachment—doing the things that attachment wants twenty-­four hours a day, always working for attachment, always clinging to this life—all our actions become negative karma, the cause of samsara.

Attachment traps us like a fly trapped in the hot wax of a burning candle. It overtakes us like a giant tidal wave. The result is so many problems, one after the other. Our heart is filled with misery. There is no peace. There is only confusion and dissatisfaction.

I talk about attachment in depth in chapter 9.

The prison of anger

And when we don’t succeed in getting what our attachment wants, anger arises and we harm other sentient beings, thus destroying the causes of our happiness, our merit and good karma.

Our mind is wild, not only now but since beginningless rebirths. We are wild, out of control, like a mad elephant.

The prison of self-­cherishing

We live in the prison of self-­cherishing, living our life with self-­cherishing thought. We feel this self is the most important one, more precious than others, the most precious one among all sentient beings. Perhaps we think that we are the most important one even among all the holy beings, the buddhas and bodhisattvas!

When we follow the self-­cherishing thought, whatever we do, all the actions of our body, speech and mind, become an obstacle to achieving happiness and, eventually, enlightenment, and an obstacle to liberating numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and leading them to enlightenment.

The prison of karma

And not only that. We are imprisoned in the heavy iron box of ignorance, our limbs fastened by the chains of karma. It is pitch black: there is no light, no sun, no moon, no stars, and we are being carried away by the strong, violent waves of the ocean of samsara, forced to create only nonvirtue. It is so difficult to practice renunciation and the other virtues, such as patience; so difficult to have compassion and loving kindness for others.

Since beginningless time we have been caught, locked, trapped in this prison of samsara, these aggregates, which continually cycle from one life to another, without a second’s break, driven by past karma and the various delusions—disturbing emotions, defilements, nonvirtuous thoughts—such as attachment, anger and the rest. Because of this we have experienced so many hell-­realm sufferings, so many hungry ghost sufferings, so many animal-­realm sufferings, so many human-­realm sufferings, so many god-­realm sufferings—from time without beginning.

I talk about suffering and its causes in chapter 8.

The prison of ignorance

The heaviest prison of all is the prison of ignorance, the root of the other delusions. Even though there is no real self, no real I—there is only what is merely labeled by the mind—our self appears as real; it appears to our hallucinating mind as existing from its own side, as not merely labeled by the mind. Because of this ignorance, we believe that our self is truly existent. As a result, whatever we do with our body, speech and mind becomes the cause of samsara; we keep creating the cause to be in samsara.

Our mind is totally obscured by this ignorance, causing us to not know that there is no real I, that there is no such I in this body or on these aggregates, but we believe that there is. And not only do we believe that the I exists from its own side, as not merely labeled by the mind, we also believe that all phenomena exist like this.

Being trapped in the prison of this unknowing mind, this big, hallucinating ignorance, is the root delusion, the root of all suffering, the root of samsara. The suffering world came from this, was created by this wrong concept, ignorance.

This is the real prison. Being caught up in this hallucination becomes the basis for all other disturbing emotional thoughts to arise, such as attachment, anger and so forth. Living one’s life under the control of this ignorance is actually the heaviest prison—and everyone is living in it.

I talk about this in more detail in chapter 11.

All these prisons

Now you can see that there are so many prisons people are living in, even if they are physically not living in the same building as you. All these inner prisons are the most terrifying. Because our aggregates are contaminated, full of delusions and karma, they are in the nature of suffering. Until we are free of these prisons, this samsara, we will take rebirth again and again, experiencing suffering without one second’s break, continuously, life after life after life.

But samsara can end

However, samsara can end. We can be liberated from these prisons by realizing the four noble truths: true suffering, true causes of suffering, true cessation of suffering and the true path. By realizing what suffering is, and its causes, we can achieve the cessation of them. We should try to be free from samsara right away, without delaying for even a second. See chapter 8.

Right now, our mind is under the control of delusions and karma. By disciplining our body, speech and mind—stopping creating negative karma by living in vows (see chapter 14) and purifying what we have created (see chapters 15 and 16)—we can conquer them. Then we become free, like the arhats and, especially, the Buddha.

Remember that numberless beings who were just the same as us—suffering from beginningless rebirths, totally wild from beginningless rebirths, totally controlled by delusions and karma—have transformed their minds. This includes Guru Shakyamuni Buddha himself. We can be like them. By disciplining our body, speech and mind and living in virtue, we too can create the causes for not only temporal happiness but also liberation from samsara, as well as for buddhahood, when we can then liberate numberless sentient beings.

Remember

• Your prison is nothing in comparison with the inner prisons—
• The prison of attachment,
• The prison of anger,
• The prison of karma,
• The prison of ignorance.
• But these are prisons you can escape from by disciplining your body, speech and mind.