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Crossing the Ocean of Life and Death
- Book 163: Crossing the Ocean of Life and Death
- Chapter 10:
Just Passing Through
- Written by Sheng-yen Lu
- Translated and edited by True Buddha Foundation
- Translation Team (Cheng Yew Chung, Satch)
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When I first studied Buddhism, I learned to do chanting. The monks who taught me how to chant were Venerable Shan Ci of Chi Yin Temple, and Venerable Shang Lin of Chi Ming Temple.
After I learned the art of chanting sutras and the repentance ritual, I would occasionally put it to good use. I once followed the chanting groups to chant at the offering ritual to the heavenly god, and also went to the funeral homes to perform deliverance by chanting sutras. Sometimes I would recite the Jiao Wei Jing (a form of spirit guiding sutra). How many dead bodies have I seen? The answer is countless.
Just as pressing against the eyes may produce flower-like images in space
We assume the three realms to be our home
The universal realm of constant quiescence radiates its light
Exposed to defilement, we would remain in hindrance
We are tied down by craving and led to the suffering of Samsara
Our tears never cease, but increase as death approaches
Who says that parting would bring deep lasting remorse?
When the presence of the age old Amitabha is all around
Surviving in the wilderness on cold food, we cry to heaven
Few if any would think of the ancient golden immortal
When the time comes just bury me in the lotus land
For I need no offering of paper money
During my early days of chanting the Jiao Wei Jing, a commonly held belief would require the statues of the Buddha and gods in the living room to be covered up with a cloth, so as to avoid disrupting the dead. Yet unlike others, I decided that the cloth should be removed, and allowed the statues of the Buddha to be placed above the head of the deceased, so as to facilitate deliverance of the deceased by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and allow the spirit of the dead to think of them.
I chanted the Jiao Wei Jing, lit the candles and incense, and placed a bowl of white rice as offerings. I felt that life was of such pain and sorrow, so sad and so dreary. As a person comes to the end of his life, his legs straighten, his head turns to one side, and then he is gone. When anyone looks at a dead person today, he would likely twitch his nose and frown, finding that the presence of a dead person stinks and is filthy. Yet in the past, the dead was once a beautiful woman who could make any admirer smile, for they were all charmed by her looks, and then their desire for her grew.
This is the case when someone is alive, and this is the reality when someone is dead. Among people, there are the best and the worst, the poorest and the richest, the most lowly and the most notable, the most stupid, and the most clever, who have gone through many incarnations. They number like the drops of water needed to form the ocean. Yet, regardless of whether a person is an ordinary citizen or a noble official, no one is exempt from the suffering of the Saha world.
I have seen too many of life`s suffering, and I cannot help but sigh over such events. In life, we are only travelers passing through, and the Saha world is only a hotel.
Later on I studied Tantric Buddhism, and I learned that upon death, the faculties of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, thought, mana consciousness... may all appear to have weakened in awareness, but the sense of self consciousness would continue on. It would be similar to the dream state or the unconscious state, but likely it is between the state of dreams and the state of unconsciousness.
Most people assume that when a person dies, it means the end of all consciousness, or perhaps it is a state of vacuum where nothing exists; death then marks the end of everything. There are indeed people who advocate these views, and they feel that there is only one life. To them, there exists nothing outside of this life, and all will disappear with death. But the bardo state, which I observe after a person`s death, appears to be a new dream which one enters, and this dream is neither a state of vacuum nor a state of nothingness. It is not even space itself. This state is the state of the spirit.
The bardo is the spirit in the astral state. The Taoist teachings call it the `yuan sheng` or the Primal Spirit. Bardo is also known as the Intermediate State (Antarabhava). This means that after death, prior to reincarnating in the six realms, the spirit is sustained by a manifested body formed of fine particles, which is known as the bardo spirit. According to Tantric Buddhism, in its first forty-nine days in the bardo, the bardo spirit would have to go through a cycle of life and death every seven days. After seven cycles of life and death, the bardo spirit awaits the arrangement of karmic conditions, and proceeds to the six realms of reincarnation, and continues its wandering in a new incarnation.
To my knowledge, a person who cultivates would know of his next rebirth prior to his death, or during the bardo before his next incarnation in the six realms (this is understanding birth in the bardo). A person who did not cultivate will become an ignorant illusory body (bardo spirit) wandering in Samsara. The bardo spirit would at times look for his loved ones, and at times roam about in the graveyard. He would return to his home, touch his favorite things, and think about his past. The most common activity is a swift movement by the bardo spirit, traveling suddenly from one place to another place, in which his consciousness is totally unhindered. Seen from the standpoint of emotions, it is a rather complicated matter. The bardo spirit`s will to travel freely is accompanied by a sense of helplessness. This feeling of helplessness arises from the reality that no one in the physical realm is aware of the bardo spirit`s activity. Except for those people who are psychics or are clairvoyant, hardly anyone else is able to sense their presence.
Take me for example: my splitting headache is an experience of death courtesy of Guan Yin Bodhisattva. Feeling dejected and despair, I can tell you that my suffering was only lifted after death. The disintegration of the four elements was quite an experience, so was experiencing the eight hot and cold hells. When my head was split open, the eight-petalled lotus opened to reveal the being (a bardo spirit) who was the very essence of my long cultivation, that which is known as the Primal Spirit, the True Self, the True Buddha, Suchness, the Original Nature, the Buddha Nature, the True Light, etc.
Strictly speaking, to a cultivator, death is much like entering Nirvana. For anyone who cultivates deeply with true enlightenment, and is released from the bondage of the six realms of cyclical existence and the suffering of the physical body, Nirvana itself is the completion of experience. He will have no afflictions within his awareness, and in his transcendental travel, he is free and filled with power. He will gain the ten powers of the Tathagata:
1. The power of wisdom
2. The power to access the records of past lives
3. Knowledge of all stages of Samadhi
4. Knowledge of the karma of every being
5. Knowledge of the actual condition of every being
6. Knowledge of all dharma realms in space
7. Knowledge of the Law of Karma
8. The power of limitless divine sight
9. The power to enter into final Nirvana
10. The power to end all illusion of every kind
When the cultivator has attained the supreme perfect enlightenment, he may appear simultaneously to all sentient beings of the Ten Directions in accordance to their respective mental karmic state.
I feel most sympathetic towards the ignorant bardo spirits who wander in the suffering sea of Samsara. They are bewildered by illusions and are ignorant of life while they are alive, and ignorant of death when they die. They are arrogant, envious, lazy, angry, greedy, lustful, and foolish. Such ignorance has blinded many from the path of cultivation, and hindered them from good causes and conditions, leaving them enslaved in the six realms of reincarnation as human and beast, or as travelers in the other four realms.
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