The Realm of Birth and Death
Divided into the Three Realms of Existence
Samsara
The following lists the states of existence within Samsara, the realm of birth and death. In Samsara there are three distinct levels of existence. The highest is the Formless Realm, in which there are the greatest gods who have transcended the physical body, having mentality only. There are four heavens on this level.
The next level, the Form Realm, also, only consists of heavens. The gods in these eighteen heavens have a form, but they have gone beyond the greed and lust for the pleasures of the five senses. They have attained a state of very profound and sublime happiness that it is a result of their skill in meditative concentration. Their greed for the five senses has been eclipsed by means of the force of their concentration-power. This is just like when a boulder is placed on grass, the grass is temporarily unable to grow. In the same way, their meditative power and ability has temporarily suppressed their thirst for the pleasures of the five senses, but it is still latent. The only way it can be eliminated forever, is by means of prajna wisdom. The Sages, that is the Arhats and Bodhisattvas as mentioned in Chapter Five, attain permanent states of Enlightenment in which this greed is truly extinguished.
On the next level, the Realm of Sensual Desire, there are six heavens, the realms of Asuras, human beings, animals, ghosts, and the denizens of hell. The minds of all the beings in these states are dominated by the drive for sensual pleasures. Those in the heavens here enjoy an incredible happiness associated with the senses as a result of their practice of good karma in the past.
Those in the three lowest states, also known as the Three Evil Destinies, that is animals, ghosts, and denizens of the hell, undergo much suffering and difficulty.
As mentioned in the Introduction, the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is to see that all states of existence in Samsara lack substantial realty. As it says in the Shurangama Sutra (Volume 7) they:
Come into being from false thoughts, and their subsequent karma comes from false thoughts. Within the wonderful perfection of the fundamental mind that is unconditioned, they are like strange flowers in space, for there is basically nothing to cling to. They are entirely vain and false, and they have no source or beginning
Human Beings
All Buddhas become Buddhas in the human realm. The human realm presents the best state of existence for spiritual cultivation because it has a balance of good and bad. In the heavens life is too blissful to arouse concern over the problems of birth and death. In the three evil destinies (hells, animals, ghosts), intense suffering precludes any other awareness. One merely longs to escape the immediate agony, and is unable to consider the deeper significance of suffering as a universal condition of all the states of conditioned existence.
The Buddha once held up a clump of dirt in his hand and asked his disciples which was greater, the dirt in his hand, or the dirt of the whole earth. The disciples answered that of course the dirt of the earth was far greater than the dirt in the Buddha’s hand. The Buddha said that those beings who secure a human form are like the dirt in his hand; whereas those who had human form but have lost it (regressing into the three evil destinies) are as many as the dirt covering the entire earth. Thus we see that human life is extremely precious and fragile.
Asuras
Although asuras are an individual realm by themselves, they also can appear in both of the other good paths of gods and humans as well as in the three evil destinies of the hells, the ghosts and animals. In general, regardless of what path they are in, they like to pick fights and have bad tempers. They enjoy bossing others around and like to be supervisors, but they cannot stand being supervised by others. Among people, asuras can be good or bad. The good asuras include military officials and troops, and bad asuras are thieves, thugs, murderers and the like.
Asuras are unruly beings that love to fight. Their name means “ugly”. It also means “ungodly” because, although some asuras enjoy heavenly blessings, nonetheless, the lack authority in the heavens.
There are four categories of asuras in the three realms of existence. Asuras in the path of ghosts use their strength to protect the Dharma and can with spiritual penetrations travel through space. They are born from eggs and belong to the destiny of ghosts.
Those who have fallen from virtue and been expelled from the heavens dwell in places near the sun and moon. They are asuras born from wombs and belong to the destiny of humans.
There are also asura kings who support the world with a penetrating power and fearlessness. They vie for position with the Brahma Lord, the God Shakra, and the Four Heavenly Kings. These asuras come into being by transformation and belong to the destiny of gods.
Ananda, there is another, base category of asuras. Their minds dwell on the sea; they live submerged in underwater caves. During the day they roam the skies; at night they return to their watery realm. These asuras come into being because of moisture and belong to the destiny of animals.
The Three Evil Destinies
If you wish, you can enter the realms of existence mentioned above to try them out—put on a play—but you should not play around with the three remaining realms. If you try these out you may not be able to escape. It is said that after one life in a human body, 10,000 kalpas may pass before that form can be obtained again. Playing around with the three evil destinies can be very dangerous.
Animals
Eager animals feed on greed,
Never sated by a lot.
Because they make what is black white,
They don’t distinguish wrong from right.
There are billions of animals, an infinite variety—flying, crawling, swimming, and walking—on land, in the water and in the sky. Beings become animals as a result of one thing: greed. For them, no matter what it is, the more the better. Animals lack the ability to reason. They become muddled and ignorance envelops them so that they become totally oblivious to anything rational—even to the point that they are greedy to eat excrement.
Ghosts
The ghostly crew delights in hate,
Deluded by effects, confused about cause.
Their ignorance and upside-downness
grows greater each day, deeper each month,
Almost everyone has heard of ghosts, but not everyone believes in them. Ghosts are masses of yin energy which have shadow and no form, or form and no shadow. There are as many different kinds of ghosts as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River. Some ghosts are affluent and reign as kings over the ghost realm; some ghosts are poverty stricken and devoid of authority—it is often the poor ghosts who bother people. If you want to investigate ghosts in detail, work hard at your spiritual cultivation, open the Five Eyes and Six Spiritual Penetrations, and then explore for yourself.
Hells
The hells’ anxiety and suffering
Is devoid of doors yet one bores right in.
Giving rise to delusion deeds are done.
The retribution is born in due accord.
Anyone who would like to take a vacation in the hells can do so at any time at all. I can guarantee that. But the hells are a miserable place. Lamentation plants the seeds for hells; happiness plants the seeds for heavens. Unlike jails, the hells, although man-made by people who commit offenses, haven’t any doors. However, if you are due to go to the hells, when you arrive it is just as if a door opened, because you find yourself worming and boring in where there was no entrance.
If a sotapanna or sakadagami person died and then he born into human/deva realm, does:
1. He immediately become sotapanna/sakadagami from birth? (means his state of ariya is continued on next birth)
2. He born as puthujjana/non-ariya and must strive again to attain sotapanna/sakadagami? (means his state of ariya is reset on next birth)
Mind and Death
A virtuous mind at death is like water – it nourishes the virtuous potentialities that remain like dry seeds within our field-like consciousness. The minds we have when we are dying are of two types, gross and subtle. Whereas the gross minds of death can be virtuous, non-virtuous, or neutral, for ordinary beings the subtle minds of death are only neutral. When we are dying, if our last gross mind is virtuous it will cause the good potentialities carried in our mind to ripen as a virtuous mental action that will lead us directly to higher rebirth as a human or a god. A virtuous mind at death is like water – it nourishes the virtuous potentialities that remain like dry seeds within our field-like consciousness. If two kinds of seed, barley seeds and wheat seeds, are sown in a field, but only the wheat seeds are watered, these will be certain to ripen first. In a similar way, while we still carry both virtuous and non-virtuous potentialities within our mind, a virtuous mind at the time of death will ensure that our virtuous potentialities are the ones that will ripen. This holds even if we have led an immoral life and committed many non-virtuous actions. However, we do not thereby escape the effects of all our non-virtuous deeds. If we take a human rebirth our life may be afflicted with great suffering or our life span may be short. If we do not purify our negative karma we shall eventually experience the fully ripened effect of our actions by taking rebirth in the lower realms.