Afflictions in our mind cause us to engage in negative actions or thoughts and thus collect negative karma. As long as we have negative karma, we will be reborn in samsara - either as a human (if the negative karma is light) or as an animal or in a lower realm (if the karma is heavier). We must understand these mental afflictions so that we can recognize them immediately and stop them!
Mental afflictions which drive karma and the realm of samsara:
Ignorant Desire - The important word here is ignorant. There is nothing wrong with desire! We desire to be enlightened, to be happy, for all beings to be happy, to have love, etc. This desire is valuable for our practice and our desire can guide our behavior in meaningful ways. The important thing is to let desire guide us wisely, not ignorantly.
Ignorance comes in when we mistaken the nature of the object. We think the thing that attracts us to the object is in the nature of the object. We think the nature of the object comes from its own side and has the happiness that we get from it.
If the power of the pleasure is in the object itself, the important thing to us is to have it...to get it even if it hurts others. We see this all the time in relationships. Because we want someone who is beautiful and smart, we may be willing to hurt someone to get that person, that object.
It is not wrong to desire things. The point of this whole path is to learn how reality really works so that we can get all of our desires. The pleasure is not in the object. The pleasure is your own (good) karma ripening.
Understanding the true nature of reality will come later in this course as it is an entire topic in itself. To put it very briefly, objects do not have any inherent nature of their own. The way we experience an object comes from us (not from the object itself). The way we experience an object depends on what karma is ripening for us at the moment of perception. If I spoke beautifully to someone in the past, I may meet someone and perceive them as speaking beautifully to me. That person's beautiful words are coming from me (my past actions), not the person.
If I spoke harshly to someone in my past, at a particular moment, that karma will ripen and I will meet someone who I perceive as speaking harshly to me. But, that harshness is not coming from that other person, it is coming from me; my past actions, my karma that is ripening at that moment. Much more on this later...don't worry if this is hard to grasp or seems completely bazaar - we will have much more time to contemplate how reality works in the lessons to come....
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Other mental afflictions which keep us in samsara:
Anger: feeling of malice directed towards another, a harshness of mind, a hostile mental state when an unwelcome object or person is perceived. Very harmful to others and creates immense negative karma for ourselves while destroying good karma. We can't move to higher states of being if we have negative karma. Antidote: cultivate patience (more on this later)
Pride: perceiving self as having great power, wealth or spiritual knowledge, being from a better family, having superior intelligence, or pure morality, etc...difficult for a proud person to gain spiritual knowledge or for the teachings to have benefit. Antidote: contemplate the diversity of the elements within and around us - earth, water, fire, air, space - and recognize how little we know about them!
Ignorance: not being able to understand things such as karma and its consequences, not being able to perceive reality.
Doubt: uncertainty about teachings such as karma and its consequences will keep us from achieving births in the higher realms. Doubting the authenticity of your teacher or the teachings you receive may slow your progress and prevent liberation in this lifetime...reasons why doubt is so harmful!
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The causes for mental afflictions to arise in our mind, are
1) karma - bad karma from our past negative actions and thoughts can ripen at any time! Sometimes when bad karma ripens we feel one of the above mental afflictions
2) an object perceived as attractive or unattractive exists to bring on a mental affliction
3) meaningless interactions with others
4) bad advice
5) bad habits
6) improper attention to things that lead us to develop desire, hatred, etc.
Mental afflictions lead to negative thoughts and/or actions which cause us to accumulate karma leading to rebirth. This is why it is so hard to break out of the cycle of samsara! But, with all these tools and our firm determination and love, we can do it!
We can either let our mental afflictions lead us to misdeeds, bad karma, similar mental afflictions to be generated continually, more misdeeds, unhappiness to ourself and others --- endless cycle ---
Or, we immediately recognize our mental afflictions and try to overcome them. We can begin to catch afflictions a fraction of a moment before they even arise, and instead of ever thinking or acting in a harmful way to others, remember that everyone 'out there' is just trying to teach us how to be more loving, patient, kind, and joyful. So, in the midst of your most difficult time - when someone is yelling at you or so upset with you --- see if you can remember that everything is just your own karma ripening - and instead of getting upset, smile and maintain your disposition of love and kindness. This is so hard, but, it is the beginning to freeing ourself from samsara and establishing ourselves on the path of liberation.
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Preliminaries: If you feel overwhelmed with the length of the preliminaries - since this course is about getting an overview of this path -- feel free to do just #4 of the Preliminaries (the 7-fold path). If you have the time, please continue and enjoy all the prelim's!
Contemplation: review the mental afflictions described above. debate in your mind on how these afflictions are leading you to nonvirtuous thoughts and actions, which cultivate bad karma and the cause of more mental afflictions to arise...which lead to more disdeeds and general unhappiness to yourself and others.
As you contemplate, think of one person who bothers you the most in your world - who annoys you, or upsets you or just drives you crazy. Imagine your next encounter with them. Imagine them upsetting you as usual. This time, instead of getting upset and thinking or saying or doing anything negative...imagine seeing that person as a holy angel who is just trying to make you more patient, kind, loving, generous and joyous. This holy angel is appearing as an annoying person just so you can evolve into a being who maintains the energy of love in the midst of every challenge and obstacle. See yourself being kind to this person no matter how they appear. See yourself walking away from the encounter with having no mental afflictions and without having accumulated any new negative karma. See yourself feeling so happy with yourself for overcoming this mental affliction - such difficult work! Rejoice!
Meditation: After contemplating the negative consequences of mental afflictions and bad karma, feel a firm determination to immediately identify mental afflictions before they take hold of you and to counter them tirelessly by reminding yourself relentlessly that everything comes from you, not the object. This consciousness will eventually end your mental afflictions, clean up your karma and establish you on the path to liberation. Once this feeling is firm within you, hold it and meditate for as long as you can.
Again, I recommend 10 minutes for preliminaries and then 10 minutes each for contemplation and meditation. Feel free to meditate and contemplate for longer...or to do two sessions in the day.
Dedication: May the virtue of my study and meditation today go towards the benefit of all - towards my quick enlightenment as well as my ability to quickly enlighten others...May the virtue of this meditation not be destroyed by a mental affliction...
Subsequent practice: When you are off your meditation cushion, start to get sharp in identifying mental afflictions and in countering them.
Thank you, dear readers and meditators.
Much love
Reema
Some times in life lessons and teachings come to us exactly when we are receptive, and thirsty for them the most. It is so with these meditations being offered to me at this time during these particular weeks.
ReplyDeleteI have been a meditator for many years of the type of sitting and stilling my mind but without the preliminaries or the contemplation or the dedication. These other aspects have added so much more understanding to my meditation results, my understanding of myself and my understanding of the karma I create. The contemplation of this day about mental afflictions takes me deeper in my own awareness of the importance of realizing that each situation in life is an opportunity to transform. Thank you from my heart for sharing your wisdom.