I would like to share my thoughts reflecting on the reality of life from the different levels of beings’ mental dispositions, in ascending order. The continuum of consciousness between birth and death occurring in living beings with the support of vital wind-energy and substantial causes is called life. The existences of lives are distinguished by their common distinctive characteristics and habitual patterns. Thus, possessing varied life-patterns, all sentient beings are grouped into six classes—gods, demi-gods, human beings, animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings—according to Buddhist teachings. All sentient beings have some common propensities to sustain their life-force depending on their external realms. Regardless of being rational or irrational, all the beings of the three lower realms and the three upper realms have the inborn tendency to experience happiness and suffering. To some extent, every creature has the natural ability to carry out their lives and bring up their offspring under certain circumstances. Understanding this context is the realization about the reality of life on the most basic level.
From the mundane perspective, human beings have the intelligence to analyze what are righteous norms and what are not according to their ethics. Here, ethics means to abide by the laws of the country which are enacted for the well-being of its people and to achieve what the Bhutanese have termed ‘gross national happiness’. It would be very difficult for any country to carry on without laws and rules from generation to generation. Thus, regulations are an integral part of human civilization. Understanding such norms and adopting them with perpetual acceptance is the realization about life in its mundane aspects.
To have a clearer understanding about reality, one has to realize the co-existence of interdependent phenomena and their consequences, which bring an infallible impact on sentient beings and their environment. In this regard, one has to have proper insight to know about the causes of suffering and look for the ways to overcome it through certain methods like not committing any actions with harmful intention towards others directly or indirectly. Due to one’s harmful actions, others become direct victims of suffering, and indirectly the doer sows the seeds to bring irreversible fruition to oneself either in this life or in future lives. Hence, abstaining from non-virtuous action in all circumstances is the realization about life in its greater scope.
It is very important to cultivate good motivation. We must know that every sentient being seeks happiness and does not wish to suffer, just like oneself. This realization about the reality of life is the sublime path followed by the bodhisattvas.
The reality of life on the ultimate level concerns the union of pristine wisdom and luminous compassion, which is the unsurpassable means to benefit oneself and others spontaneously. Here one has to maintain a perfect state of mind through wisdom and compassion which are devoid of non-virtuous intent.
By Lopon Sonam Rinchen
NNI
