The Three Poisons

By Barbara O'Brien

Buddhism teaches that harboring the three poisons leads to evil (akusala) and suffering (dukkha). The Three Poisons are lobha, dvesha and moha, most often translated as "greed," "hate" and "ignorance."

Lobha, greed or desire, is attraction to something we think will gratify us.

Dvesha (Sanskrit) or dosa (Pali) is anger, hatred, animosity, ill-will, aversion.

Moha is ignorance or delusion. The first two poisons have ignorance as their root. Because we see ourselves as small, limited and needy, we pursue things we think will make us happy and hate things that cause us discomfort.

At the center of the Wheel of Life are a rooster, representing greed; a snake, representing hate; and a pig, representing ignorance. They are at the center of the wheel because they keep the wheel turning and bind us to the cycle of samsara. Sometimes they are shown intertwined, because the three poisons feed into and support each other.

Also Known As: Three Unwholesome Roots, akusala-mula, mula priyaya

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Buddha Mind

By Bankei

When we look back on this life, we see that when people are born, no one has thoughts of joy, sadness, hatred, or bitterness. Are we not in the state of the buddha mind bequeathed by our parents? It is after birth that intelligence develops, and people learn bad habits from others in the course of seeing and hearing them. As they grow up, their personal mental habits emerge, and they turn the buddha mind into a monster because of biased self-importance.

People are born with nothing but the unconceived buddha mind, but because of self-importance they want to get their own way, arguing and losing their temper yet claiming it is the stubbornness of others that makes them mad. Getting fixated on what others say, they turn the all-important unique buddha mind into a monster, mulling over useless things, repeating the same thoughts over and over again. They are so foolish they will not give up on things even if getting their own way would in any case prove to be futile. Folly is the cause of animality, so they are inwardly changing the all-important unique buddha mind into a paragon of animality.

Everyone is intelligent, but through lack of under- standing they turn the buddha mind into all sorts of things hungry ghost, monster, animal. Once you've become an animal, even if you hear truth you don't listen, or even if you do listen, being animal-like, you can't retain what you've heard.

Going from one hellish state to another, from one animalistic state to another, from one ghostly state to another, from darkness to darkness in an endless vicious cycle, you go on experiencing infinite misery for the bad things you have done, with never a break.

This can happen to anyone, once you've gone astray. Just understand the point of not turning the buddha mind into something else.

As soon as a single thought gets fixated on some- thing, you become ordinary mortals. All delusion is like this. You pick up on something confronting you, turn the buddha mind into a monster because of your own self-importance, and go astray on account of your own ego.

Whatever it is confronting you, let it be. As long as you do not pick up on it and react with bias, just remaining in the buddha mind and not transforming it into something else, then delusion cannot occur. This is constant abiding in the unconceived buddha mind.

Everyone makes the mistake of supposing that acquired delusions produced by selfish desire and mental habits are inborn, and so they are unable to avoid confusion....

As I listen to the people who come to me, all of them make the mistake of turning the buddha mind into thoughts, unable to stop, piling thoughts upon thoughts, resulting in the development of ingrained mental habits, which they then believe are inborn and unalterable.

Please understand; this is very important. Once you have unconsciously drifted into delusion, if your state of mind degenerates and you flow downward like a valley stream in a waterfall, there is no way back after you have fallen into vicious cycles.

Again, suppose that you have developed mental habits based on selfish desires. When people criticize things that suit your selfish mentality, you become angry and defensive since they are, after all, bad things and you rationalize them as good. When people praise things that do not suit your selfish mentality, you reject them being, of course, good things and you retort that they are bad.

Everything is like this. Delusion can make a defect seem like a virtue. Having fallen into ignorance, you go through all sorts of changes, degenerating further and further until you fall into hell, with precious little chance of regaining your humanity.

The most important thing is not to be self-centered; then you cannot fail to remain in the buddha mind spontaneously.

To want to be at least as good as others in everything is the worst thing there is. Wanting to be at least as good as others is called egotistic pride. As long as you don't wish to be superior to others, then you won't be inferior either.

Also, when people mistreat us, it is because we have pride. When we consider mistreatment from others to be due to our own defects and so we examine ourselves, then no one in the world is bad.

When angry thoughts arise, they turn the buddha mind into a monster. But anger and delight both, being self-centered, obscure and confuse the luminous buddha mind, so that it goes around in vicious circles. Without subjective bias the buddha mind remains unconceived, so it does not revolve in circles. Let everyone understand this.

From: "Teachings of Zen" Ed. Thomas Cleary

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The Great Way

“Not to borrow the strength of another, nor to rely on one’s own strength; to cut off past and future thoughts, and not to live within the everyday mind…then the Great Way is right before one’s eyes”.”

― Bankei   *  +

Empty Forms

“in the universal womb that is boundless space
all forms of matter and energy occur
as flux of the four elements,
but all are empty forms, absent in reality:
all phenomena, arising in pure mind, are like that.

just as dream is a part of sleep,
unreal in its arising,
so all and everything is pure mind,
never separated from it,
and without substance or attribute.

experience is neither mind nor anything but mind;
it is a vivid display of emptiness, like magical illusion,
in the very moment inconceivable and unutterable.
all experience arising in the mind,
at its inception, know it as emptiness!”

--Longchenpa

Freedom

“freedom attends reality:
free at the core, any effort is wasted;
timelessly free, no release is needed;
free in itself, no corrective is possible;
directly free, released in seeing;
completely free, pure in nature;
constantly free, familiarization is redundant;
and naturally free, freedom cannot be contrived.

yet 'freedom' is just a verbal convention,
and who is 'realized' and who is not?
how could anyone be 'liberated'?
how could anyone be lost in samsara?
reality is free of all delimitation!

freedom is timeless, so constantly present;
freedom is natural, so unconditional;
freedom is direct, so pure vision obtains;
freedom is unbounded, so no identity possible;
freedom is unitary, so multiplicity is consumed.

conduct changes nothing - our lives are already free!
meditation achieves nothing - our minds are already free!
the view realizes nothing - all dogma is freedom!
fruition demands nothing - we are free as we are!”

― Longchenpa

Pure Mind

“pure mind is like the empty sky,
without memory, supreme meditation;
it is our own nature, unstirring, uncontrived,
and wherever that abides is the superior mind,
one in buddhahood without any sign,
one in view free of limiting elaboration,
one in meditation free of limiting ideation,
one in conduct free of limiting endeavor,
and one in fruition free of limiting attainment.

vast! spacious!
released as it stands!
with neither realization nor non-realization;
experience consummate! no mind!
it is open to infinity.”

--Longchenpa

Living Buddha

According to the lower schools of Buddhist thought, when a being, like Sakyamuni Buddha, attains mahaparinirvana and passes away, he ceases to exist, there is no further continuity of consciousness. Therefore, according to the Vaibhasika school, for example, after this point there is no more being, no more consciousness. Only the name remains. And yet, they believe that this being who has now disappeared can influence the course of those who follow him due to the virtues that he created in the past.

This is not accepted by the higher schools of thought, however, that instead believe that there are two kinds of bodies, those that are pure in nature and those that are impure. The latter is more gross, whereas a body that has been purified is more subtle. Now, for example, when Sakyamuni Buddha gave up his body, there still remained the more subtle one. So, according to these schools of thought, at the stage of Buddhahood, there are two bodies: a mental body and a physical one.

I don't know whether the English word "body" is the most appropriate one. In Sanskrit, the words used to signify these two bodies of the Buddha are dharmakaya and rupakaya. The first is of the nature of mind, whereas the latter is material. So when the Buddha passes away, there is still this more subtle body, which is of the nature of mind, and since the mental continuum is also present, we can say that the personality is still there. Even today, the Buddha remains as a living being. I think this is better, don't you?(p.91)

--from Answers: Discussions with Western Buddhists by the Dalai Lama, edited by Jose Ignacio Cabezon, published by Snow Lion Publications