THE TEN WORLDS
This is the firstable of a new session of introductical lectures. They run from six months, one a month, and this first lecture tonight will be on a principle of Buddhism called The Ten Worlds, and then, next month, we should have a lecture on Nam Myoho Rengue Kyo, which is the fundamental practice, as the most of you may know, chanting Nam Myoho Rengue Kyo. And the third lecture is on the Gojonzon, which is the scroll object of devotion. And the fourth lecture is on what we call Human Revolution, that is the change that we can achieve in our own lives through the practice, which is also fundamental to the movement for world peace, which is part of our aims. And the fourth lecture is the daily practice of Gongyo, called Gongyo – I am sorry that´s the fifth lecture – and the final lecture, is a short history of how all of this came about.
We will dive in straight away, and talk this evening about the principle known as The Ten Worlds, which is actually part of another principle which is called in japanese Ichinen Sanzen, Ichinen Sanzen means three thousand worlds, or states of life in a moment of existence. Three thousand worlds or states of life in a single moment of existence, and we will be talking about it a bit, this evening as well.
So the ten worlds, starting at the worst, are hell, hunger, animality, anger, tranquility, rapture, learning, absorption, bodhisattva, and budhahood. Now in early Buddhism, that is to say the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, or Gautama Buddha, before he taught the lotus sutra, which was eight years before he died, those early teachings taught the ten worlds, but not as an entity in themselves. That is to say, each world was taught separately, and people were in a sense categorized according to whatever world they might be in, in this particular life time, and they were encourage to improve their life condition, and the causes they were making, in order to climb out of that world into a better world. And that was reckoned to take probably eons of lifetimes in order to achieve, in some cases. So, depending on the person ´s karma, however unfortunate it was, the slower they would be from moving from one world into the next. So, in a way, in that early Buddhism, the ten worlds would rather be like a latter of progress. You progressed, in other worlds, out of hell, which was the worst, through the other worlds, and specially, into learning, absorption, bodhisattva, and ultimately after eons and eons of lifetimes, you might be fortunate enough to be able to sustain the Buddha state as the main tendency of your life. Now that was the teachings before the lotus sutra. As you may or may not know, Shakyamuni Buddha taught for more than forty years, very long time, and as a said, eight years before he died he taught the lotus sutra, or as sometimes known the Sutra of the Wonderful Law of the Lotus, which at that time he said was his supreme teaching. And furthermore, he said that all previous teachings should be discarded because the Lotus Sutra contained everything.
So, what did the lotus sutra say which the previous teachings haven´t said? They said, firstable, and to everyone´s absolute amazement of the time, that everyone had buddhahood in them, that it was potentially there all the time. Previously, people had virtually looked upon buddhahood as almost unattainable. Shakyamuni Buddha himself was extremely handsome, he was a prince, he had wonderful qualities, great eloquence, and in those very early times, three thousand years ago, in a feudal system, all the people basically being peasants or servers, no ordinary person could have possibly imagine that they could have the same qualities as the Buddha himself. Even if Shakyamuni had said that at that time, it simply wouldn´t have penetrated people´s intellect at that time. But it the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni did say that, he clearly stated that Buddha was in everybody and everybody could attain buddhahood.
So, must people, either couldn´t understand that, or if they had an inkling of understanding, they certainly couldn’t believe it at that particular time. And in fact, he said that the lotus sutra wouldn´t be understood by many people at that time. But that it would be the teaching for the age of Mappo. Mappo, he said, this age would begin two thousand years after he died, and then he said, people would have the intellectual capacity to be able to understand the Lotus Sutra and practice it. And furthermore, he said that another Buddha would appear at that time in order to teach the people. The other important point which the Lotus Sutra taught was that these ten worlds could be, or would be, expressed with absolute consistency from one´s entire life. Whatever world or state of life you were in, it would be expressed totally and consistently in every possible way from that life. And we then run in to the varing of Ichinen Sanzen, or the three thousand worlds in a moment of existence. That is to say, that since Shakyamuni said that Buddha is in everybody, and since people are in all sorts of different worlds in their daily lives, it must have meant that the ten worlds are within each of those ten worlds, this is known as the mutual possession of the ten worlds. That is to say, even the Buddha has hell, hunger, animality, anger, all the rest of them, within him, in his life, and this is an important principle, because it meant that the Buddha is, in fact, an ordinary human being, but a human being who is enlightened in life.
So, this was vitally important, especially in those early days, because many people looked upon Shakyamuni Buddha almost as a super human, almost as a God, and this is indeed why so many temples contained statues of Shakyamuni Buddha in various positions to which people devote their prayers. But actually in the Lotus Sutra, a Sutra which was so difficult to understand for people in that age, he pointed out that everyone could be Buddha, and that the Buddha had within him all those other nine worlds. So that is a clear statement that Buddha is a human being and furthermore, a human being in which all the other worlds are capable of working.
So, likewise, anybody who is in hell – I hope nobody is here tonight – also has Buddha within them. This, again, is an extremely important point because it means that no matter what your sufferings, no matter what awful things you may have done in the past you can attain buddhahood. So buddhahood is attainable to anybody, whatever their past, whatever their sufferings, and whatever miserable state they might be in at this particular moment. So that is the mutual possession of the ten worlds, ten by ten worlds equals a hundred. Going on from there, as I said a little earlier, the Buddha then expounded one of the known as the ten factors, and this concern the way in which we can express anyone of these worlds from our lives into an environment, and also, of course, within the whole of our lives itself, the ten factors of life.
The ten factors we recite every day in Gongyo. I don´t know how many of you have heard Gongyo being formed, but you may remember the end of the hoben chapter, we recite three times over Nyo ze so. Nyo ze sho. Nyo ze tai. Nyo ze riki, and so on… Each one of those is a factor of life, and these, I say, hold these worlds, or the world that you are in at any particular moment, are expressed from your life. So the the ten factors are: nyo ze so, the physical aspect of your life, you´ll express whatever world you are in anger, hell, anger, or Buddha, through the physical aspect of your life; and nyo ze sho, through the spiritual, or unseen, aspect of your life; and Nyo ze tai is the very core or entity of your life itself. So, if you in the state of anger, even the entity of your life is wholly in that state. Nyo ze riki is power, the power which expresses that state. Nyo ze sa is the influence that you create around you through being in that state. So, again, anger is an easy example, how your anger can have such an effect in any role that you walk in to. If you walk in full of smiles radiating warmth, that has a very different effect to walking into a room with a grim face, obviously seething with anger of some sort, even without opening your mouth people can feel it in the room, that is nyo ze sa the influence of the power of your life wherever you may be. And then, nyo ze in is the inherent cause, that is to say because of your anger, using that example again, you are bound to make causes, inherently in your life which will then express themselves externally, which is nyo ze en, maybe you speak angerly to someone, maybe you spit at them, maybe you hit them, that is the external cause arising from the inherent cause of your anger, and that in its turn has nyo ze ka, an external effect, you hit one, maybe they run away. But there is also an inherent effect in that person´s life, that is nyo ze ho, that is to say the person may run away, but as they are running they may be saying – “definitely next time I meet that guy walking down the street I am going to really slaughter him” – that is the inherent effect which lives in his life, that other person´s life, until they meet again. And finally, there is jon mak ku kyo to, which is how we end that recitation of nyo ze jo. Nyo ze so. Nyo ze sho. Nyo ze tai. Nyo ze riki. Jon mak ku kyo to, and that is consistency from beginning to end. That is to say, whatever world or state of life you may be in you will express it in those ten different ways, and they will be absolutely consistent. So, if you are in anger, you really can´t hide it, because it will radiate from you physically, spiritually, from the entity of your life itself, through the power of your actions and the influence they create, and through causes and effects, absolutely consistently from beginning to end.
So this was an amazing teaching, incredible enlightenment as to the mechanics of life. And when he, Shakyamuni Buddha, taught it must people couldn´t understand it at all, and he understood this, he knew they wouldn´t because actually he was teaching this for the people of Mappo two thousand years after he died. So, two thousand years after Shakyamuni died is approximately the year one thousand, approximately. No one knows exactly the date of Shakyamuni´s dead, and the scholars are still arguing about it until these days, but it is roughly around about nine hundred to one thousand. That was when Shakyamuni said this age would begin when there was a great deal of unhappiness in the world. And the great deal of chaos, and misery, and disaster, war, and so on, this was the age of Mappo in which we have all been born. And the age of Mappo, Shakyamuni said, would continue on for ten thousand years into ethernity, but I am glad to say that he didn´t say the whole of the age of Mappo would be unhappy and chaotic. The early part of Mappo, he said, would be, and at that time the teaching of the Lotus Sutra would require to be practiced so that people would attain happiness.
So, there is one more step in this amazing theory of Ichinen Sanzen, and that is called the three realms. There are three realms, and they are simple, really. They are the realm of your inner self, the realm of yourself, and the realm which we call society, and the realm which is the land itself, the actual land in which you live. So, each of those worlds, whichever one is in the ascendancy of your life, would be expressed through the ten factors and into the three realms. So, again going back to the example of anger, that would be expressed, or course, within your own life, realm number one, and will also be expelled and create influence in causes and effects in society, and also in the land itself. So, I don´t know whether we have any farmers here tonight, but I am sure a farmer would agreed that if he is in the state of anger, his wisdom is unlikely to work, and he will make a mess of his land in the process.
So, in every possible way, the state of life you are in emanates from you and from me in all those different ways. So, of course, one of the things one understands from this amazing theories is incredibly powerful life is, this is the point that most of us don`t appreciate. We have a term in Buddhism called Ichinen, and it arises from this theory. Ichinen means your determination with your whole life, your life´s determination, if you´d like. So, whatever state you are in will be stressed in those three thousand different ways, but likewise, anything, any determination that arises out of those various worlds would obviously be expressed in the same way. So if you are living in the world of hunger which is a strong desire to possess things, then that strong desire would express itself in those three thousand different ways. If you are living in the world of anger, and you wish to dominate others, then it is be expressed in the same way strongly, and of course, for this reason, the world of anger can create a state of war, for example. But also, most important of all, from the point of view of Buddhism, if Buddha is your main state, then buddhahood will be expressed from your life so powerfully in three thousand different ways. So, this is why, of course, benefit comes through the practice. The purpose of the practice of Buddhism is to elevate your life into the Buddha state. Therefore, the emanations from that Buddha state are radiating out from one in three thousand ways into the environment. Therefore, the environment´s prism points out to begin to work with you, because of the influence of the Buddha state emanating from you. And in that way, of course, benefit comes, in all sorts of different ways.
So, this is quite a difficult theory, perhaps to understand, and I am going to explain it very briefly tonight. But as you pursue the Buddhist practice and study Buddhism, so the realism of this theory becomes more and more a living thing to one; and one really begin to see it working in your life. To even now, and those who are only hearing this for the first time, if on the way home you think about the ten states of life, the ten worlds, the basis for this theory, you begin to recognize all this worlds in your life, and maybe, if you are anything like me, you´ll start to see Buddhism as really right, cannot think of any other world, I am sure there must be other worlds beyond just those ten that my life can be in. But I take a bet with you, however hard you think, you won´t be able to find one that is outside the ten named there.
A little later on in this lecture we will go through each world and explain it in detail. So that is the theory of Ichinen Sanzen, and I have gone into that in a little bit of detail because I think it is important to understand the effect of being in any one of these worlds, it is tremendous. And as we go through each world and study it, probably you can think of times in your life where you know your anger, or your yearning hunger, or even you were in hell, have, in fact, affected your life far beyond this inner self out into your environment. The title of the Lotus Sutra that Shakyamuni taught was called in Chinese characters Myoho Rengue Kyo, this was the title of the Lotus Sutra in Chinese characters. Actually, pronounced with Japanese phonetics, as you know the Japanese language uses Chinese characters. The pronaunciation of those characters in Japanese is Myoho Rengue Kyo.
So then we come to the vital part which Nichiren Daishonin played. Nichiren Daishonin, who was born in 1222 just after of the beginning of that age called Mappo, was the person who taught how to apply the Lotus Sutra in our daily lives. In other words, he fulfilled the predictions of Shakyamuni Buddha in being the person who took the Lotus Sutra dissected it and found in the heart of it the way to practice it. Shakyamuni Buddha had never taught the way to practice it because it wasn´t the age for people to do so. He was teaching two thousand years before Mappo. But Nichiren Daishonin dissected it, and took from its heart the way to practice it, and the way to practice it, he said, was to chant over and over again to one´s heart content Nam Myoho Rengue Kyo. Nam, meaning to devote your life to the Myoho Rengue Kyo, which is the Law of life itself. And furthermore, he devised in his wisdom the object of devotion to which one should concentrate one´s mind when it is chanting Nam Myoho Rengue Kyo. And this is what we call Gojonzon. So those Nam Myoho Rengue kyo and the Gojonzon, the key to our practice and to the attainment of Buddhahood, we will talk about it in separate lectures, also Nichiren Daishonin pointed out through explanations, taken from the sutra itself, that buddhahood, or the attainment of it, in the age of Mappo, is not a matter of practicing lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. On the contraire, through the Lotus Sutra it was apparent that buddhahood could be attained in one single lifetime. And that the seed to be sowed within you, in order to achieve it, was Nam Myoho Rengue Kyo.
So, this was revolutionary. When we come to do the history of Nichiren Daishonin´s Buddhism, you´ll hear of the persecutions that Nichiren Daishonin underwent as a result of his pronouncing. He was persecuted for nearly his entire lifetime. This too Shakyamuni Buddha had predicted, because it was totally revolutionary in that day, and it challenged the religious belief of everybody in Japan, at that time. So I hope that that gives you an ink link of the fairy in practice which is behind the incredible teaching called the ten worlds. So, shall we go on now, take a look at these worlds, and as we do so, maybe you can think of your life and the times when you have been in one of those worlds.
First sixth worlds, hell, hunger, animality, anger, tranquility, and rapture, are known as the six lower worlds. And the remaining four, learning, absorption, bodhisattva, and buddhahood, are called before, noble, or higher worlds. Six lower worlds, four higher worlds. Why are they called that? The answer is that you move Hickety, Pickety through the six low worlds according to influences from your environment. Almost one might say “helplessly” you can move from anger to hell, to hunger, according to what the environment is presenting your life with, what you are experiencing. So, for example, you get a fantastic letter from your girlfriend, and you are in rapture, and the next minute the telephone rings and you hear you hear you have been given the sack, you are in hell. And then, you put on the television or something to conceal yourself, or drink a double scotch, and you find yourself feeling a bit warmer, perhaps even getting into tranquility for a few moments, until someone knocks on the door and drops a bill that you can´t afford to pay through it, and you are back in hell again, and so on...
This is how one rest and revolve through this six lower worlds, through the influence of the environment. The four noble, or higher world, are called that because you have to make great effort to get into them. You have to make efforts to get into the four higher worlds, obviously, to learn something or master craft, or to be creative, or to help others, which is bodhisattva, and certainly to attain boddhahood you gotto make great effort yourself, personally, and individually, in order to do so. So I hope that is clear the reason why they are called the four higher, or noble worlds, and the sixth lower worlds. And within the six lower worlds, there lay one know as the three evil path, which are the first three: hell, anger, and animality. Sometimes they are called the fourth evil path, and include anger, but whatever happens those first four are the most difficult worlds that we have to cope with, daily in our lives. And, of course, Buddhism is teaching that every single living thing has these worlds within them, and especially evident, in the human being, of course, who is a thinking creature.
So, let´s look at hell first. Buddhism, of course, is saying that hell, and heaven, which is a world of rapture, exist nowhere else, but in this world. In many religions it was taught that hell was somewhere else, and often it was described as underground in some fearful pit. This is quite a reasonable description which was made in those days, early days, when such descriptions were given to people. Because, actually, when you are in the state of hell, if you have ever been in there, I certainly have, you feel the oppressed, you feel really weighted down, as you can´t get your head up because the problems you are surrounded with are so great, even the light seem darker, everything is heavy. And this is why they graphically, really, in the older days, hell was described as underground. It is a state where you are totally oppressed and imprisoned by the circumstances in your environment. It could be debt, it could be tooth ache, it could be the loss of someone you really love, many different reasons. But whatever happens you feel totally cast down by, so cast down that you can´t see the light, you can´t see any way out of the problem. This is the torture for being in hell. So, there are many different states of hell. I am not going to talk about them tonight, but Buddhism classifies each one, there are icy cold hells and very hot hells, there are sliny hells, smelly hells, bloody hells, every sort of hell. There are actually about fifty of them. But they are really true, I haven´t got time to give examples of each tonight, but really, one can maybe remember being in an icy hell, or a hot hell. Though, there are vivid descriptions of the various types of hell that you can find yourself in depending on the cause for your being there. Though hell, because you are batten down, and oppressed, and you can see no way out, is a world of frustrated anger, an anger which seethes and smolders inside. It´s not a demonstrative anger, there is no way you can be demonstrative, but it is seething and bubbling and smoldering inside one. So, of course, there is a separately a world of anger, but that is the world of arrogance and domination, this is a different sort of anger, a smoldering, resentment, and frustration. Fortunately, in the world of hell, there are means of getting out of it, and that Budhism in its early days, in its very colorful language, described as the hell haunts. The hell haunts, of course, are imagined creatures who snap and stall, and bite and menace you so much, that even thought you are oppressed, you in your fear and hate of the place that you are in and in your determination to somehow get out as things tend to get worse and worse and worse, and you are cornered more and more, you make an immense effort, and get yourself out of hell. So, Buddhism describes those as the hell haunts biting, I was going to say your bottom, it doesn´t say that, but that ´s what they´re doing.
So, fortunately, hell is so miserable, and so awful, that even though you feel oppressed for times in there, in the end, your human spirit in your desire to be free causes you to make some colossal efforts to get out, and the sooner de better. So, believe it or not, there is a positive side to every one of these worlds, and particularly, there is a positive side to the three evil paths. Sounds strange, doesn´t it, but it is really true. Those of you who have been in incredible suffering would remember the joy and happiness when you climbed out of it, and possibly that joy and happiness has remained a marvelous memory that you can feed on, that can feed your spirit for your life time. Without hell you couldn´t know true happiness. So, even hell has a purpose. And of course, additionally, the fear of hell, is what makes people, in the end, really try hard to live a life that will lead them into hell again, isn´t it? In other words, we make efforts to be positive and valuable in our lives because we don´t want to go back into hell, and certainly it is one of the reasons that people practice religions, and religions are very important, because they elevate one´s state of life. So, hell, in every way it´s an important thing, without hell to drive us forward we would very easily become complacent, idle, and useless.
Now is the world of Hunger, hunger, of course, meaning greed. Hunger is a state where there seems to be within one an inexhaustible desire to posses, or to achieve something to satisfy your desires, there are waves of yearning and actions to, perhaps, posses material possessions, or for money, or sex, or even for sleep, for food, for power, for honor, a yearning even to preserve yourself at all costs, against all odds. Hungry after life, in many different ways, hungry after one´s desires, this is the world of hunger. And it is a world that can very easily posses one, because the peculiar thing is that the moment that you attain your desire, through the driving force of hunger, you find that you are not satisfied, and you want something more. This is the world of hungered world, yearning always for something, and when you get it, yearning for something else. So, hunger, of course, is instinctive, it can have a very bad effect on one´s life if it takes power of one. Because one´s life is in following a narrow selfish path, only for one´s own self satisfaction. But like all below worlds, it has a purpose, it has a positive side, and that is it is a driving force, of course. So, the Buddhism that we practice is amazing in that respect because one of the main principles is to turn desire into enlightenment. That is to say, through the Buddhist practice you chant for your desires, but the process of chanting is so strong that it will then lead you to what you really need for your happiness, or what you really need to develop your life. So, Buddhism, in Nichiren Daishonin´s teachings does not, in any sense, deny one´s desires. Many religions have tried, and do try to deny desires, it ´s impossible, desires are a part of one´s life, if you repress desire (….) You can´t remove desire. But Budhism gives a practice which is so powerful and so strong that it can turn your desires into enlightenment. In other words, you can chant even for something that might appear to be shallow, but always the part of the practice will lead you another step towards enlightenment because you are actually doing the practice of chanting. So, quite easily the world of hunger can be turned over a period of time into another world or even towards the world of buddhahood. So, hunger, in its positive way, also, is a driving force for peace, or fair play, or justice, people can yearn for it, hungry for it, that is hunger working in a positive way. I have to mention that everyone has a main tendency in their lives, this is their karma. The main tendency being the state they move into more often than any other, for some it may be anger, for others maybe hunger, for others tranquility, for others even hell, some people yearn for hell, in a peculiar way. They feel sort of protected in hell, even though they don´t like it and they are always longing to get out of it.
Animality, Nichiren Daishonin described it as the world of stupidity, that is to say, it´s an instinctive world, an animal world where people act and react without thought or preparation of planning, instinctively in the moment. So, neither reason nor conscious works in the world of animality at all. Impulsive and instinctive actions, and as you know the nature of animals in the main is to threaten the weak and vow to the strong. And, this tendency to vow, before someone you feel is superior to you, perhaps to Buddha even, or dominate someone who you feel is weak to you, is a very, very, common tendency in human life, isn´t it? This is the world of animality, the instinctive world. In other words, really, is the world of the struggle to survive, the struggle for the specie, isn´t it? To save the species, instinctively animals react in a certain way, and so do human beings. Underlined form Nichiren Daishonin´s writings, which I´ll just read to you – “fish out of their instinct for survival shun upon shallow places, and dig holes to hide themselves, yet, tricked by bait they take the hook” – that´s the world of animality. Because they want to survive, their hunger makes them forget everything, having dug their holes and hidden themselves, they come out and take hook and get caught. So many things in human life arise from the world of animality. Certainly, from the world of animality and hunger together come such matters as the pollution of the environment, and the fight for survival which can sometimes lead to war. So, the world of animality is a blind world of instinct in which man can quite easily, in the end, destroy himself. But again, this world has a positive side, it is an essential part of life like the other worlds. The instinctive action to preserve oneself or those one loved, for example, the action without thought is very important. For example, if a baby falls into a fire, or a bump fire, the mother without a moment of thought would grab it and save it. This is animality´s world, that instinctive desire to save that baby´s life that arises in the mother´s heart. This is the good side of it, the instinctive action, in other words, to preserve the species. A world that is caused from that world has become and grown many discoveries for the production of food which never existed before, we are aware that food is becoming short, so man in his determination to make sure his species survives he is moving into all sorts of different fields and scenarios in order to find fresh areas, or fresh assortments of food and nutrition. This is part of the instinct of survival. Of course, also it may contain the world of hunger where man turns from that pure instinct, or animal instinct, to desiring for profit in the process.
Now, to anger, so anger as I said a little earlier is not the world of frustrated seething tormenting anger of the world of hell. Anger, or the world of anger, is the world of dominations, the world in which a person desires to dominate everyone and everything in his environment. In other words, very much the world of the selfish ego, other people´s feelings are ignored, for the sake of personal profit, or personal power, people in this world can be ruthless in their criticism, and in their actions. In the dialogue on life, which incidentally is the book in which you can read amazingly interesting descriptions of the various ten worlds, Mr Ikeda who´s dialogue is recorded there, said: “Anger is the dominance of the selfish ego, it renders people´s death to other people, and drives them to a feverish pursue for personal profit and egocentric goals, this self in the world of anger is vast intensively egoistic.” And, Tien-tai the great, who is known as the Buddha of Sojo, about one thousand years after Shakyamuni died, said this about the world of anger: “He who is in the world of anger, motivated by the world desire to win everything, despises others and tries to justify and values himself above all else, he is like a hook sweeping and suck the sky in search of prey, he may have superficial benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity, and seem to have some kind of moral sense, but his heart remain in anger.” In other words, people in the world of anger are quite often very difficult to discern, because outwardly, they seem to be moral, correct, and so on, but inwardly their desire is to dominate. So, this is also the world of the self consciousness, such people are self conscious, their own lives they see rather poorly, they may lack confidence, and therefore they build this barrier around themselves, or high walls, if you´d like, from which they take patchops when everyone else is around them, of course, this is in their minds. The wall arises from this world of anger and arrogance. The positive side of it is passion, anger when it is positive, I think one can call passion, a passion for justice, of a fair play, of a good treatment for old people, or for poor people, a passion to see the world resources fairly shared among the third world countries and so on. This is the positive side of anger, a passion for justice and happiness for others.
Tranquility, which is the next one is, as its name suggest, a very peaceful and calm world. It is actually, also called in Buddhism the world of humanity as well as tranquility. That may sound strange because so few of us as humans ever seem to be in tranquility these days. But it is called that because it is the point of balance in human life between the lower worlds which can be so negative, or can be so negative and destructive, and the higher worlds which can be so positive. It´s a world which is stagnant, basically, a neutral world in which nothing particular happens, a world, maybe, where you relax and don´t think of anything particularly, and maybe switch on the radio or tape with your favorite music, and you do nothing productive, particularly, in that time. Nevertheless, it is important to life, sometimes we must relax and be tranquil. So, of course, the problem is that it is very, very, difficult to stay in that world, you want to be tranquil, at the end of, maybe, a hard day´s work, and then blow me down, the telephone goes, our aunt is on the line, pouring all of her problems out into your ears, or whatever. So many ways tranquility can be spot, a million different ways. How often do we achieve tranquility really, in the life we have to live today, very, very, rarely, can we sustain it. So, the point of view of Buddhism, you need great wisdom to sustain tranquility for so long as it is valuable for you, you have to, in a way, fight for tranquility, with your wisdom, and when you have achieved it, only your wisdom, in handling your life and controlling your environment will enable you to stay there for so long as it is good for you. So, tranquility has its bad side, its negative side, which is that it is stagnant, the world of tranquility produces nothing of value, except rest in peace for yourself, which is certainly valuable, but so far as the world is concerned it is creating nothing. Therefore, if one is always seeking tranquility, it is probable that one is trying to escape from life. One the other hand, the positive side of the world of tranquility I have already explained, some tranquility is necessary for our well being.
And last of all, of the six lower worlds, is rapture. Rapture is a world where you achieve your desires, and as you do so you feel so thrilled, don´t you? You feel heady, and light, your steps are bouncy, you feel full of the joy of life, and because of that I am afraid you don´t know where you are going. Rapture is a very dangerous world, it is beautiful, it is wonderful, but it lasts short time, it is the world (…) It is a world in which you are so rapturecy, you don´t notice a man who covers being lift over in front of you, and so many things, of course, can put you straight from rapture into hell.
So this concludes the six lower worlds, and leads us now to go on to the four higher worlds, and you remember those are the worlds where we have to make efforts. So, the first one is very simple and straight forward, is learning, the world where you make efforts to master a particular craft, or subject to gain knowledge and to elevate your life through learning. So, in those days, early days of Buddhism that I was telling you about, when they were teaching that each world was separate, and that you were sort of categorize in that, they would try, through the teaching, to elevate someone from a lower world into, say, the world of learning, through encouragement, to improve their way of life, this was Sakyamuni Buddha´s intention in the early days of his teachings.
Yet, after learning comes absorption. Absorption is also called the world of partial enlightenment, the world of absorption is the world where the human mind totally concentrates in some particular and social aspect of life. So, certainly, artists would do this. A great painter in order to create a great painting will concentrate his whole life, his whole mind, and his whole energy into that particular area of life which he wishes to depict. The world of absorption, but in doing that, in concentrating one´s mind, definitely, enlightenment often comes to a particular aspect of life, to that aspect of life on which the mind is concentrated through this intense effort and thought. So this is why is also called the world of partial enlightenment. But also it can be a very narrow world. So, both learning and absorption have their negative side which is that they can be so narrow, so blinked. Many great artists have lived desperately unhappy lives, how much of that was due to the fact that they were absorbed with their art and their creativity and ignore and neglected everything else around them. This is the world of absorption. Also, it can be an arrogant world, it´s very easy to move from those two worlds into anger, because in a sense they can both become very egotistical, very self centered, nothing should interrupt, or argue with, or suggest other, or different to a person in the world of absorption. This is the negative side of it, absorbed in the self.
Then, there is bodhisattva, a world where you desire above everything else to help others. So, of course, this world comes naturally in the form of, for example, dedicated nurses, dedicated GP´s, doctors, other people doing great work in helping in seminaries, and so on… this world of bodhisattva, but the problem with bodhisattva is that it is extremely difficult to sustain, and when one´s strength in the state of bodhisattva is beginning to weaken, it becomes also, a world of self sacrifice, the negative side of the world of bodhisattva. In other words, a pure completely noble intention can, in the end, become an error who wants ego to get to work in the form of self sacrifice – “I am doing this great work for others.” “I am superior to those others, but I am doing it all for them, for the poor, for those who are debilitated in one way or another.” It can turn into egoism, this is the terrible danger of bodhisattva in its normal state. But, fortunately, the world of Buddha, the highest world of all, reveals itself in action in life in the world of bodhisattva, so what Buddhism would say is that you can only sustain bodhisattva actions through a lifetime or over a long period through activating your Buddha state, then the actions in the bodhisattva state will be pure and entirely noble in quality and so sacrifice will never enter into it. So, therefore, Buddhism says if you are to live in the world of bodhisattva and take actions as a bodhisattva you must attain the ascendency of the Buddha state in your life in order to do so.
So, finally Buddha, the highest state of all is, of course, extremely difficult to describe, I have already given you one aspect of its qualities which is in the world of bodhisattva. But basically, Buddhahood, I believe is the state of life where because one is enlightenment to everything about life, to the workings of the Law of cause and effect, to the mechanics of life which are not just theories, but living things which one totally understands, because there are no corners that are dark in life, therefore there is no fear. We fear always the unknown, don´t we? Therefore, if we become enlightened to life there are no areas of unknown, and fear leaves us. So, this is one of the great freedoms of the Buddha, or the Buddha state, there is no fear. And secondly, there are no limitations, because you understand how life works, you challenge things that otherwise would never be challenged, because everyone says it is impossible, but not necessarily impossible to the Buddha, because the Buddha understands the workings of life, and knows in fact there are no limitations to what man can achieve except his own imagination. You used the power of life in order to do so. Buddha is the sate of life where you use all these other worlds positively to their total value. Now, this is the important point which we have been coming to all the way through this talk, that each of the worlds have a positive side, and that positive side is essential, and so for that matter is that negative side as a driving force. But in the world of Buddha, even though the world of anger may be working in your life and you remember that each world has the other nine within it, that anger will turn a hundred and nine degrees, and appear in a positive form. So, everything in life is working positive in the Buddha state, everything other world that passes through it is turned from negative to positive. So, Buddha is a state of absolute freedom, freedom from fear, freedom from limitations of any sort, through total enlightenment as to the meaning and workings of life and the great benefits that can be attained from it.
So, I hope through this lecture you now have some idea of the purpose of the Buddhist practice, there is only one purpose, and that is to make the main tendency of life Buddha, rather than hell, anger, animality, or absorption even, this is the purpose of the practice. So, Buddha is not a superhuman or a God, but a human being revealing his or her absolute full potential, using his or her life to its absolutely fullest in every direction in order to create value and happiness in both him or herself and in the environment. I have talked a lot for a long time, but I hope I have not confused you too much.
In what part did Tien-tai play informing the theory of the ten worlds. You remember I mentioned that Tien-tai was also known as the Buddha of the Sojo, Sojo was the period was the period that begun one thousand years after Shakyamuni died. And it was he who named it Sojo. So, the first thousand years after he died, he said would be called Shojo, and he predicted that during that period his earlier teachings would still have full effect and give happiness to the people. In the second thousand years, he said, which he called Sojo, he said that people would formalize his teachings and ritualize them, and build statues to himself, although he said “worship the Law and not me.” And it was during that period of Sojo high above that some great thinkers were produced , or appeared, who in fact were the founders of Mahayana Buddhism. And one of these was Tien-tai the great, who lived in China and it was he who actually spelled out as a system this theory called Ichinen Sanzen. In other words, he took the Lotus Sutra, and found this theory clearly stated within it, and then he systematized it, or explained it in a way which was understandable to human beings in general.
So, Tien-tai was very important, sometimes it said that Shakyamuni Buddha made the blue print of enlightenment, the house of enlightenment, if you´d like, and Tien-tai then built the scaffolding which was the theory of Ichinen Sanzen, and Nichiren Daishonin then built a house in which we can live and practice and become Buddha ourselves.
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