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THE ORDINARY OR OUTER PRELIMINARIES The upper part of the jar is like the higher realms of gods and men, and the lower part like the three unfortunate realms It is said that sarhsara is a circle because we turn round and round, taking rebirth in one after another of the six realms as a result of our own actions which, whether positive or negative, are tainted by clinging We have been wandering since beginningless time in these samsaric worlds in which every being, without exception, has had relations of affection, enmity and indifference with every other being Everyone has been everyone else's father and mother In the siitras it is said that if you wished to count back the generations of mothers in your family, saying, "She was my mother's mother; her mother was so and so " and so on, using little pellets of earth as big as a juniper berry to count them, the whole earth would be used up before you had counted them all As Lord Nagarjuna says: We would run out of earth trying to count our mothers With balls of clay the size of juniper berries There is not a single form of life that we have not taken throughout beginningless sarhsara until now Our desires have led us innumerable times to have our head and limbs cut off Were we to try to pile up in one place all the limbs we have lost when we were ants and other small insects, the pile would be higher than Mount Meru The tears we have wept from cold, hunger and thirst when we were without food and clothing, had they not all dried up, would make an ocean larger than all the great oceans surrounding the world Even the amount of molten copper we have swallowed in the hells would be vaster than the four great oceans Yet all beings bound to the realms of sarhsara by their desire and attachments, with never an instant's remorse, will have to undergo still more sufferings in this endless circle Even were we able, through the fortunate result of some virtuous action, to obtain the long life, perfect body, wealth and glory of Indra or Brahma, in the end we would still not be able to postpone death; and after death we would again have to experience the sufferings of the lower realms In this present life, what little advantages of power, wealth, good health and other things we enjoy might fool us for a few years, months, or days But once the effect of whatever good actions caused these happy states is exhausted, whether we want to or not, we will have to undergo poverty and misery or the unbearable sufferings of the lower realms What meaning is there in that kind of happiness? It is like a dream that just stops in the middle when you wake up Those who, as the result of 62 THE DEFECTS OF SAMSARA some slight positive action, seem to be happy and comfortable at the moment, will not be able to hold on to that state for an instant longer once the effect of that action runs out The kings of the gods, seated high on their thrones of precious jewels spread with divine silks, enjoy all the pleasures of the five senses But, once their lifespan is exhausted, in the twinkling of an eye they are plunged into suffering and fall headlong down to the scorching metal ground of hell Even the gods of the sun and moon,48 who light up the four continents, can end up being reborn somewhere between those very continents, in darkness so deep that they cannot see whether their own limbs are stretched out or bent in So not put your trust in the apparent joys of sarhsara Resolve that, in this very life, you will free yourself from the great ocean of its sufferings and attain the true and constant happiness of perfect Buddhahood Make this thought your practice, using the proper methods for the beginning, the main part and the conclusion II THE PARTICULAR SUFFERINGS EXPERIENCED BY THE BEINGS OF THE SIX REALMS The eighteen hells 1.1 THE EIGHT HOT HELLS These eight hells lie one above the other like the storeys of a building, from the Reviving Hell on top, down to The Hell of Ultimate Torment at the bottom In each the ground and perimeter are like the white-hot iron of a smith-there is nowhere at all where you could safely put your foot Everything is a searingly hot expanse of blazing, fiery flame 1.1.1 The Reviving Hell Here, amidst the burning embers that cover the incandescent metal ground, beings as numerous as the snowflakes of a blizzard are gathered together by the force of their actions As the actions which drove them there were motivated by hatred, the effect similar to the cause makes them see each other as mortal enemies, and furiously they fight Brandishing inconceivable weapons-a phantom armoury created by their karmathey strike at each other until everyone is slain At that time, a voice from the sky says, "Revive!" and they immediately come back to life and start fighting all over again And so they suffer, continually dying and being 63 THE ORDINARY OR OUTER PRELIMINARIES revived: How long they live there? Fifty human years equal one day in the god realm of the Four Great Kings Thirty of those days make a month, and twelve months make a year; five hundred such years equal one day in the Reviving Hell, where again, twelve months, each of thirty days, make up a year They suffer there for five hundred of those years 1.1.2 The Black-Line Hell Here Yama's henchmen lay their victims out on the ground of burning metal like so many firebrands and cross-rule their bodies with black lines four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and so on-which they use as guidelines to cut them up with burning saws No sooner have their bodies been cut into pieces than they immediately become whole once more, only to be hacked apart and chopped up over and over again As for the length of their life there, a hundred human years correspond to one day for the gods in the Heaven of the Thirty-three, and a thousand years in the Heaven of the Thirty-three is equal to one day in this hell On that scale, beings there live for a thousand years 1.1.3 The Rounding-Up and Crushing Hell In this hell, beings by the million are thrown into vast mortars of iron the size of whole valleys The henchmen ofYama, the Lord of Death, whirling huge hammers of red-hot metal as big as Mount Meru around their heads, pound their victims with them These beings are crushed to death, screaming and weeping in unimaginable agony and terror As the hammers are lifted, they come back to life, only to suffer the same torments over and over again Sometimes, the mountains on both sides of the valley turn into the heads of stags, deer, goats, rams and other animals that the hell-beings have killed in their past lives The beasts butt against each other with their horn-tips spewing fire, and innumerable hell beings, drawn there by the power of their actions, are all crushed to death Then, once more, as the mountains separate, they revive only to be crushed again Two hundred human years are equivalent to one day for the gods of the Heaven Without Fighting Two thousand years in that realm correspond to one day in the Rounding-Up and Crushing Hell, and the beings in that hell live two thousand years 64 THE DEFECTS OF SA~1SARA 1.1.4 The Howling Hell Here, beings suffer by being roasted in buildings of red hot metal with no exit They scream and cry, feeling that they will never escape Four hundred human years equal one day in the Joyous Realm Four thousand years in that heaven are equivalent to one day in the Howling Hell, where life continues for four thousand years 1.1.5 The Great Howling Hell A vast host ofYama's henchmen, armed and terrifying, shove victims by the million into metal sheds with double walls blazing with fire, and beat them with hammers and other weapons Both the inner and outer doors are sealed with molten metal and the hell-beings howl in torment to think that, even if they could get past the first door, they would never be able to get through the second Eight hundred human years correspond to one day in the Paradise of Joyful Magic Eight thousand years there equal one day in the Great Howling Hell Its beings have a lifespan of eight thousand years 1.1.6 The Heating Hell Here, countless beings suffer by being cooked in huge iron cauldrons the size of the whole cosmos of a billion worlds, where they boil in molten bronze Whenever they surface, they are grabbed by the workers with metal hooks and beaten about the head with hammers, sometimes losing consciousness; their idea of happiness is these rare moments when they no longer feel pain Otherwise, they continually experience immense suffering Sixteen hundred human years equal one day among the gods Enjoying the Emanations of Others Sixteen thousand years of these gods correspond to one day in the Heating Hell, and beings stay there sixteen thousand of those years 1.1.7 The Intense Heating Hell The beings in this hell are trapped inside blazing metal houses, and Yama's henchmen impale them through the heels and the anus with tridents of red-hot iron, until the prongs push out through the shoulders and the crown of the head At the same time their bodies are wrapped in sheets of blazing metal What pain they suffer! This continues for half an intermediate kalpa, a period of time immeasurable in terms of human years 65 THE ORDINARY OR OUTER PRELIMINARIES 1.1.8 The Hell of Ultimate Torment This is an immense edifice of blazing hot metal, surrounded by the sixteen Neighbouring Hells In it Yama's henchmen toss incalculable numbers of beings into the centre of a mountain of pieces of red-hot iron, glowing like live coals They whip up the flames with bellows of tiger and leopard-skin until the bodies of their victims and the fire become indistinguishable Their suffering is tremendous Apart from the cries of distress, there is no longer any indication of the presence of actual bodies They constantly long to escape, but it never happens Sometimes there is a small gap in the fire and they think they can get out, but the workers hit them with spears, clubs, hammers and other weapons and they are subjected to all the agonies of the seven previous hells, such as having molten bronze poured into their mouths Lifespan here is a whole intermediate kalpa It is called the Hell of Ultimate Torment because there could be no worse torment elsewhere It is the hell where those who have committed the five crimes with immediate retribution, and practitioners of the Mantrayana who develop adverse views regarding the Vajra Master, are reborn No other actions have the power to cause rebirth here 1.1.9 The Neighbouring Hells Around the Hell of Ultimate Torment, in each of the four cardinal directions, there is a ditch of flaming embers, a marsh of rotting corpses, a plain of bristling weapons and a forest of trees with razor-edged leaves There is one of each in the north, south, east and west, making sixteen in all In each of the intermediate directions-the southeast, southwest, northwest and northeast-stands a hill of iron salmali trees The pit of hot embers When beings have purged most of the effect of actions connected with the Hell of Ultimate Torment and emerge from it, they see, far away in the distance, what looks like a shady trench They leap into it with delight, only to find themselves sinking down into a pit of blazing embers which burn their flesh and bones The swamp of putrescent corpses Then they see a river Having been roasted in a brazier for a whole kalpa, they are so thirsty that seeing water fills them with joy and they rush towards it to quench their thirst But of course there is no water There is nothing but corpses-corpses of men, corpses of horses, corpses of dogs-all decomposing and crawling with insects as they decompose, giving off the foulest of stenches They sink into this mire until their heads go under, while worms with iron beaks 66 ... henchmen impale them through the heels and the anus with tridents of red-hot iron, until the prongs push out through the shoulders and the crown of the head At the same time their bodies are wrapped... tremendous Apart from the cries of distress, there is no longer any indication of the presence of actual bodies They constantly long to escape, but it never happens Sometimes there is a small gap in the. .. course there is no water There is nothing but corpses-corpses of men, corpses of horses, corpses of dogs-all decomposing and crawling with insects as they decompose, giving off the foulest of stenches