Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
6 desire realms and antidotes?
Jeffrey
Veteran
in Philosophy
Are there specific antidotes to the six desire realms: anger-hell, craving-hungry ghost, ignorance-animal, pride-god, jealousy-asura, and human-attachment?
I often feel a hungry ghost getting mentally disturbed and turning to sense pleasures.
An antidote is a skillful method to change the content of the mind. It is not the same thing as insight.
0
Comments
I am not familiar with all the teachings but from I learned by my experience...
It is dependent on if the desire of your craving is webbed to other desires or if it is but a standalone craving.
Like greed for money, the desire could be connected to all the desires it can fulfill. This makes it stronger and harder to conquer so you have to remove the connected desires first so that greed loses its luster. People value money because of all the stuff they can buy.
Other desires are stem from a source. The constant need for affection and affirmation is stemmed from the attachment to self image. By eradicating the source you can destroy the craving. You could even say that greed has a source and those things you can buy with the greed for money are the sources, but self image can also be a source for greed.
Sensual and physical pleasures are more difficult as they exist natural in the body. You do have to make sure there are no other pleasures wrapped up in them like above. The difference with them is when the source is natural like sexual. Sometimes sexual could also be wrapped up in self image and that makes it a lot tougher. But if it is sensual alone then I don't see how equanimity will work...
To combat this you just have to be aware of it and redirect your thoughts to something more positive and 'important'. I guess from what everyone has been telling me, the meditations should also help you not follow the thoughts since that is what you are practicing in the meditations. I don't know though. I usually just ignore the urge to follow the craving in mind and replace the thought with something more relevant or worst case something repulsive about the craving. In the past it was more difficult when other attachments webbed into and gave it strength but I have refined many of them so that my efforts are more effective in dealing with what are now smaller urges.
If you look at the picture of the Wheel of Life in Tibetan thangkas, you will find that in the rendition of each realm, there is the representation of a tiny Buddha.
Which means that even if you find yourself in the lowest realms, there is always the possibility of awakening to your Buddha nature, no matter how daunting or hellish the enslavement to your cravings and negative feelings can seem.
It is with the regular practice of meditation that we eventually develop right view and right thought (not strictly in that order). After all, it was the rigorous observation and presence in his feelings and thoughts that led the Buddha to his enlightenment.
My personal experience with hungry ghosts tells me that treating them with patience and compassion sheds more positive results in making them less clingy. Our metta practice also applies to our own person and to these feelings that, whether we like them or not, are an unavoidable part of our reality.
If I had to choose, I'd say that meditation, Metta practice and Lamrim contemplation usually work well, not so much to change the content of the mind, but rather to train you to view those contents with a different eye.
Now I could say there is no antidote; but perhaps it is wiser to say that you should just be mindful of you being a hungry ghost, and let it play itself out... Trying to take control of it might cause you to get frustrated with yourself.
Excellent question.
Let me suggest initially we increase those very poisons. Did all the Tantrikas just cheer? This has its own methodology. Let us take craving hungry ghost desires. How do we develop and increase our desire for sensual wisdom, gluttonous compassion and irresistible dharma babes such as Tara?
It is partly why Tantrikas put objects that symbolise the worst excesses and make them reminders of more refined potentials. I would suggest your lama can advise about practices but I would offer these intense desire realm arisings to the Lama or a Yidam.
http://www.buddhaweekly.com/the-lightning-path-of-buddhism-the-power-of-yidams/
Cue music:
http://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/geshe-langri-thangpa/eight-verses-training-mind
As we may know, sensation/mind/experience/vedana is quite a big topic in Buddhism
From the incredible 'all is mind' philosophizing of yogacara and its ilk, to more gentle realities where Mr Cushion feels his head will not explode (not a pretty sight)
At its simplest level we may ask
what is this in the mind?
what is this in the body?
By swapping between these poles of experience we gain insight into the nature of arisings. With further attention and focus we may query like so:
Is this a pleasant feeling, painful feeling or neither painful nor pleasant?
as far as i know:
ignorance with craving is the path to hungry ghost world, proud with craving is the path to animal world, ignorance with wrong view is the path to hell world, and proud with wrong view is the path to jealousy-asura world
one 'needs the Insight' to change:
ignorance into wisdom,
craving into loving-kindness and compassion
proud into humbleness
wrong-view into Right-view
Buddha says if one could get the Right-view one never fall down to hungry-ghost-world, animal-world, hell-world, or asura-world
In her book "Feeding your demons," Tsultrim Allione adapts an ancient Chöd practice created by Machig Labdrön to get rid of negative emotions.
You acknowledge the negative feeling, hang-up or addiction that happens to be haunting you, give it form and visualize yourself feeding it.
This demon is the equivalent of what Jung calls your shadow.
The idea is that once this negative feeling is brought into consciousness, you are better able to acknowledge its needs and reduce its power over you.
The classical antidote to anger is metta (loving kindness) and to craving is the practice of sense restraint (5, 8, 10 or 227 precepts). The most useful trait would be patience (khanti) with oneself and others. We make mistakes and slip but learn to get up and try over and over again.
The ultimate solution is wisdom.
"For an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person there arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. For a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones there also arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person?"
The Blessed One said, "Gain arises for an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person. He does not reflect, 'Gain has arisen for me. It is inconstant, stressful, & subject to change.' He does not discern it as it actually is.
"Loss arises... Status arises... Disgrace arises... Censure arises... Praise arises... Pleasure arises...
"Pain arises. He does not reflect, 'Pain has arisen for me. It is inconstant, stressful, & subject to change.' He does not discern it as it actually is.
"His mind remains consumed with the gain. His mind remains consumed with the loss... with the status... the disgrace... the censure... the praise... the pleasure. His mind remains consumed with the pain.
"He welcomes the arisen gain and rebels against the arisen loss. He welcomes the arisen status and rebels against the arisen disgrace. He welcomes the arisen praise and rebels against the arisen censure. He welcomes the arisen pleasure and rebels against the arisen pain. As he is thus engaged in welcoming & rebelling, he is not released from birth, aging, or death; from sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, or despairs. He is not released, I tell you, from suffering & stress.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.006.than.html
The sutta on the practise of the Four Contemplations might also be of help:
"To overcome confusion and distraction, practise the contemplation of breathing: it will clear your mind and increase the power of your concentration.
To overcome anger and hate, practise the contemplation of compassion: it will throw light on the causes of the anger and hate present in your mind and in the minds of those who have aroused them in you.
To overcome desire, practise the contemplation of impermanence: it will throw light on the beginning and end of all things.
To overcome lust, practise the contemplation of death: it will throw light on the decay of all things."
(Vinayapitaka, Vibhanga Sutta)
As I told you above, I am more prone to accept and embrace my feelings with compassion as they rise and don't view them as something to be repressed nor controlled. I have rather a curious and inquiring attitude towards arising feelings, more like "What are you trying to tell me? What do I have to learn now?"
What helps me a bit is just thinking more about doing something than not putting in enough thought before doing it. When thinking about chocolate cake, also think about eating it, the satisfaction along with the dissatisfaction, and the effects. After thinking, I sometimes can say no. When I don't think at all, rarely would I stop myself.
Something as simple as thinking about it first isn't that complicated to understand, but we live in a society where we are spoon fed ideas that does not encourage people to think. When things are added to our thought processes, we become less heedful and more vulnerable.
By cultivating wisdom and discernment we can face any challenge. Meditation and precepts and can help bring about wisdom because the three are intertwined in the Eightfold path.
Time for chocolate cake! maybe...