Archive Result

19970513GRAABWL16

Side A of tape thirty-nine of 05/13/97 - fourth of five videotaped lectures

I would like to add another bit of sutra information in relation to what we talked about. Buddha was talking to a king again. He talked a lot to those kings. He was talking to him about death. He said

You are about to go. You are lying on your deathbed. Your life has become very weak. You have received the messengers of death. You are frightened. You don’t have much control over yourself at all. The continuation of the breath coming in and out is discontinuing. Your mouth and nose are all open. You are surrounded by your parents, children, nieces and nephews. You hear them talking about how they will divide your wealth. You are calling your father for help. You are calling your mother for help. You are calling your children for help. But they cannot hear you and they can do nothing. At that time you have no other protector, no other supporter, no other helper but the Dharma, your own positive karma you have built.

Great King, at that time Dharma is the only island on which you can rest. Dharma is the only protector who can help, the only master who can show the way to you. At about that time everybody around is looking at you and listening to you, however, they cannot help. The suffering you are going to experience is the separation between life and death, the separation of the individual person from life and the living. It is hard, it is like being cut by a sharp weapon. Only the positive karma, the good work you have done, the kindness -and compassion oriented work you have done will follow you and come to your aid. That will help you. You have no other friend and protector and helper and no other siblings and retinue than that.

Oh Great King, no matter how rich you may be, by the time you are going to the other side of the shore, you are like the single person who has been running away after having been defeated in war. You are running alone, you have no son, no children, no queen with you. You have no clothes to wear, you have no protectors. You may be a very powerful king right now. But at that time you will not have even a single soldier, you will not see nor hear even a single soldier, no matter how much you may scream. You are the only person travelling at that time. Nobody will follow you. Your king’s name is not even with you at that time. If even that is not with you, what is the need to talk about others? This is what happens when you travel to the other side of the shore.

I should have mentioned that last time but there was some disturbance and that is why I have brought it over to today.

Today we will deal with verse forty-two

Verse forty-two

O Protector, I, so unconcerned,

Unaware of such terror as this,

Accumulated a great deal of evil

For the sake of this transient life.

When you are in this condition at the death time, where you are looking around, seeking a protector, when the negativities come up at the death time it will be very hard to find a protector who can help you.

Now, as in this verse, we start calling out to a protector. In other words we are calling the refuge objects. We are telling them,

I have done everything wrong because of not knowing or wrong knowing. I did not know that I am going to have so much suffering just before dying and I did not know that there was so much suffering when I connected with the messengers of death. When I was seized by them, I did not know that I had so much misery and suffering. I do no know where after death I will exactly be reborn. In case I will be reborn in the lower realms I will have tremendous torture and suffering and not only one, but continuously, constantly, one after another. It is worse than the endless knot which goes on endlessly. I did not understand that it is that way. I did not know that my life was so short, I thought it would go on forever. I did not realize how transitory life is. By not knowing this, I committed tremendous negativities, in order to gain whatever I was attached to, like food, clothes, wealth, etc. I tried to stop my enemies and I tried to protect and promote my friends. For that reason I have collected tremendous amounts of negativities. I regret that now.

These are the reasons why you are calling for a protector and you want to tell them how regretful you are.

In short, we may not know exactly now whether we are going to have such difficulties, but looking at how we have functioned in this life we are bound to have those problems. Therefore we are seeking a way out. That is why these verses tell us about the importance of regret and about the importance of seeking the methods while we are in control of our lives. It is important to find the method at this time. Otherwise we will be in the situation which the next verse talks about:

Verse forty-three

Petrified is the person

Today being led to a torture chamber.

With dry mouth and dreadful sunken eyes,

His entire appearance is transfigured.

If we can not purify, what happens is this. The persons with heavy negativities are now being led to torture chambers by their own karma. You will be tortured, your limbs and hands will be cut off. You know the usual descriptions of the hell realms.

It is interesting. A lot of people now try to skip the teachings on hell in Christianity and come running to Buddhism. Okay, welcome to Buddhism! Well what they talk about is torture chambers!

Before talking about the torture chambers, let me have my cup of tea. You know the Tibetans, when they came to India and saw Gandhiji in 1947, they did not really know how to deal with him. They came in their old - style brocade dresses and dressed in this funny way. Gandhi had them sit around. They did not leave although the appointment was just for ten minutes. After forty-five minutes they were still there. By that time it was time for Gandhi’s lunch. An eye witness from that visit told me that a glass of milk and dried fruit was brought in. Gandhi said,’Look, I have only this one glass of milk. If I shared that with you all, neither you will have enough, nor I will have enough. So let me enjoy my milk and fruit.’ With that he started to have his milk. So I am following him and do the same thing with my cup of tea. That meeting with Ghandi did not go very well by the way.

The example in this verse is from India. It is a guilty person who has received the sentencing from the king. The punishment could be that his hands are going to be cut off. When the guards take the arrested person and take him to the chamber where his hands get cut off, other people will get very scared - not only the person who is going to be tortured. He will of course be in a totally dreadful state. But even his relatives and witnesses and even spectators who have nothing to do with it and are just watching, will be terrified. Today of course we can repeal and say that something like that is not good. This is the beauty of democracy. But if you are under the control of a dictator there is no way a single person can do anything. It is dreadful. All you can do is be scared and wait.

Likewise, the persons who are just like me, who lived and worked with me together, who shared the same interests, etc, some of them have already died and have been to the torture chambers. They are already in there. This particular text says, ‘with a dry mouth and dreadful sunken eyes’. So some of the people I knew are already suffering in these torture chambers, shouting and screaming, seeking help. In the hell realms are the terrifying agents of the Lord of Death, as the next verse tells us:

Verse forty-four

What need to mention the tremendous despair

When stricken with the disease of great panic,

Being clasped by the physical forms

Of the frightful messengers of death?

In this case the messengers of death are the agents of Yama. This is a Hindu-Buddhist mythological way of presenting. According to that, when you get to the hell realms, there are the agents of Yama who torture you. They will look at you very frightfully and torture you and beat you. I don’t want to go into too much detail. You know it. If such a thing is happening, you will be totally helpless.

The reason why this text is telling you this in verse after verse is not in order to put you off, but to remind you that while everything is in your hands, when you still have control, don’t waste your time. Don’t miss your opportunity, do the things you can really do - help yourself. This is the bottom line message. And it is building up more and more over the next verses.

So at the time when you are going to the hell realms, you are weak, you have no way of resisting. You are caught by the agents of the Lord of Death. You are afraid and don’t know what is going on. It is almost like what we had in World War II when the Nazis pushed the Jews into the torture chambers. They simply drove them into those chambers and the victims did not know what the Nazis were going to do. The Jews did not know how to get away. They did know something bad was going to happen, but they were totally helpless. When they told them to take all their clothes off, they did not have any choice. When they took all the clothes away they told them to take a bath. Again they had no choice. Naked they were driven through the corridors of those chambers and they just simply had to follow. We could see that in the movie Schindler’s List. It is a fact - it happened. When you go the hell realms, it is very similar to that. One hell just happens to be in the human land, the other in the hell realms .Exactly the same thing is happening. You have tremendous fear and you still hope something should happen to save you. The Allies may come and bombard right now. The Allies may just burst through the walls of these chambers and take you away. You hope and cry and scream but there is no help. You look to the four directions, looking for an escape. By the time you realize there is nothing, it is hopeless, you are more sad and defeated. You have no power to do anything. You are driven into the torture chambers and lose your life.

Luckily for us, as we are listening to this tape, the chances are we may not have to go there. We have great hope. We have an almost 80 per cent chance of not having to go. But if by chance you end up there, then no matter how much you look around for someone to protect you, no matter wherever you are searching you are nor going to find anyone.

When I was caught by the agents of the Lord of Death and they took me to the hell realms, I was looking in the ten directions, but I could not find a protector. However, by chance I remembered the Buddha Vajradharma. I thought, ‘I have ignored your advice and suggestions and now I have seen the real fear and so I take refuge to you and I make requests to you to clear and free me.

Those of us who are in Vajrayana, we have a chance even in the middle of the hell realms. Even though there is no help, there is the possibility of encountering the Buddha Vajradharma.

If you are good and great [you can make it]. There are stories that some persons were caught by the agents by the Lord of Death and taken to the lower realms. Then Avalokitesvara, Manjushri and Vajrapani came one after another, snatched them from the Lord of Death and took them to the Pure Land. There are stories like that also. These are the advantages of the Buddhist and Vajrayana practitioners. If we practice, there is only a 20 per cent danger of falling into the lower realms. Even within those 20 per cent, we still have hope of the Buddha Vajradharma appearing. So although it is very gloomy verse after verse, don’t feel bad. We have another bright way of looking at it.

end of side A and B of tape thirty-nine