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THE DEFECTS OF SAMSARA devour them The plain of razors When they emerge from this swamp, they are thrilled to see a pleasant green plain But when they get there they find that it is bristling with weapons The whole ground is covered with slender blades of burning hot metal growing like grass, which pierce their feet with each step Each foot heals as they lift it-only to be excruciatingly stabbed again as soon as they put it down The forest of swords Once again free, they rejoice to see a beautiful forest and rush towards it But when they get there, there is no beautiful forest It turns out to be a thicket whose trees have swords growing on their metal branches instead of leaves As they stir in the wind, the swords cut those beings' bodies into little pieces Their bodies reconstitute themselves and are chopped up over and over again The hill of iron salmali trees It is here that loose monks and nuns who have broken their vows of chastity and people who give themselves over to sexual misconduct are reborn The effect of such actions brings them to the foot of the terrifying hill of iron sa/mali trees At the top they can see their former lovers calling them As they climb eagerly up to join them, all the leaves of the iron trees point downwards and pierce their flesh When they reach the top, they find ravens, vultures, and the like that dig out their eyes to suck up the fat Again they see their friends calling them, now from the foot of the hill Down they go, and the leaves turn upward, stabbing them through the chest again and again Once they get down to the ground, hideous metallic men and women embrace them, biting off their heads and chewing them until the brains trickle out of the corners of their mouths Such are the torments experienced here Absorb all the details of the pains of the eight hot hells, the sixteen neighbouring and supplementary hells and the hills of iron sa/mali trees Withdrawing to a quiet place, close your eyes and imagine that you are really living in the infernal realms When you feel as much terror and pain as you would if you were really there, arouse the following thought in your mind: "I feel such intense terror and suffering when I just imagine all that pain, even though I am not actually there There are countless beings living in those realms right now, and all of them have been my parents in past lives There is no knowing whether my parents, loved ones and friends of this life will not be reborn there once they die Rebirth in those realms is caused primarily by actions arising from hatred, and I myself have accumulated an incalculable number of such actions in this present 67 THE ORDINARY OR OUTER PRELIMINARIES life as well as in all my past lives I can be certain that I myself will be reborn in those hells sooner or later "At present, I have a human life complete with all the freedoms and advantages I have met an authentic spiritual teacher and received the profound instructions which offer the possibility of attaining the level of the Buddha So I must my best to practise the methods that will save me from ever having to be born in those lower realms again." Over and over again, reflect like this on the suffering of the hells Confess your past misdeeds with intense remorse and make the unshakeable resolve that, even at the risk of your life, you will never again commit acts which lead to birth in the hell realms With immense compassion for the beings who are there now, pray that they may all be freed from the lower realms this very instant Put the teaching into practice, complete with the methods for the beginning, the main part and the conclusion 1.2 THE EIGHT COLD HELLS In all these hells, the environment is entirely composed of snow mountains and glaciers, perpetually enveloped in snowy blizzards The beings there, all completely naked, are tormented by the cold In the Hell of Blisters, the cold makes blisters erupt on their bodies In the Hell of Burst Blisters, the blisters burst open In the Hell of Clenched Teeth, the biting cold is intolerable and the teeth of the beings there are tightly clenched In the Hell of Lamentations, their lamenting never ends In the Hell of Groans their voices are cracked and long groans escape from their lips In the Hell ofUtpala-like Cracks, their skin turns blue and splits into four petal-like pieces In the Hell of Lotus-like Cracks, their red raw flesh becomes visible, and the cold makes it split into eight pieces Lastly, in the Hell of Great Lotus-like Cracks, their flesh turns dark red and splits into sixteen, thirty-two and then into innumerable pieces Worms penetrate the cracked flesh and devour it with their metal beaks The names of these eight hells derive from the different sufferings that beings endure in them As for the lifespan in these cold hells, imagine a container that could hold two hundred Ko~ala measures, • filled with sesame seeds Life in the Blistering Hell lasts as long as it would take to empty that container by removing a single grain every hundred years For the other cold hells, lifespan and sufferings increase by multiples • An ancient measure named after the Indian city of Ko~a (near modem Ayodhyi) 68 THE DEFECTS OF SA~tsARA of twenty for each one Life thus lasts twenty times longer in the Hell of Burst Blisters than in the Blistering Hell; twenty times longer than that in the Hell of Clenched Teeth; and so on Take these sufferings upon yourself mentally, and meditate on them in the same way as for the hot hells Think how unbearably cold it feels to stand naked in the winter wind even for an instant in this present human world How could you stand it if you were reborn in those realms? Confess your faults and promise never to commit them again Then develop compassion for the beings actually living in those worlds Practise as before, employing each of the methods for the beginning, main practice and conclusion 1.3 THE EPHEMERAL HELLS The ephemeral hells exist in all sorts of different locations and the sufferings experienced in them also vary considerably Beings may be crushed between rocks, or trapped inside a stone, frozen in ice, cooked in boiling water or burnt in fires Some feel that, when someone is cutting a tree, they are the tree having their limbs chopped off Some suffer through identifying their bodies with objects that are constantly put to use, such as mortars, brooms, pans, doors, pillars, bobs and ropes Examples of stories about these hells are the accounts of the fish seen by Lingje Repa in Yamdrok Lake and the frog that the siddha Tangtong Gyalpo found inside a stone Yutso Ngonmo, the Blue Turquoise Lake, appeared while the c;lakini Yeshe Tsogyal was meditating in Yamdrok, when a piece of pure gold thrown by a B