One challenge when studying Buddhism is to not go down the normal human path of analyzing every thing as independent theories. While for the sake of explaining the various theories we find in Buddhism does require us to break things down it does have the potential of misleading us into thinking of everything as being separated. We can study Ten World and do so without examining any other related theory, yet this only provides a limited and misleading understanding. Granted it is simpler to do things in small chunks yet by doing so we can miss the larger truth revealed by the chunks in whole.
The Ten Aspects is one part of the theory of Ichinen Sanzen, or what is commonly called Three Thousand Conditions of Mind in a Single Moment. That’s quite a lot of theory contained in the Japanese terms. To get to this number we combine the Ten Worlds, Ten Aspects, and Three Factors. This book is my attempt to explain the Ten Aspects, a subset of the 3000 that often gets less publicity than the Ten Worlds.
The Ten Worlds are easily broken down into ten individual categories or realms or conditions of life/mind. The Ten Worlds as we are taught each contain the Ten Worlds within each world. So we could theoretically say there is a Hell/Hell world, a Hell/Hunger world, Hell/Animality world, Hell/Anger world, Hell/Human world, Hell/Heaven world, Hell/Self-taught world, Hell/Learning world, Hell/Bodhisattva world, Hell/Buddha world. And then we can do it all over again with Hunger/Hell, Hunger/Hunger and so on until we have done this one hundred times going through each of the possible combinations of ten within ten.
At the end of this process I personally have to wonder what have we accomplished other that will enable us to end our suffering and enable us to attain enlightenment? Not everyone is like me so there may indeed be some who find this sort of abstraction beneficial. I find it more of a distraction and since I’m writing the book and I really can only write from my point of view that’s what I’m going to do.
When I teach Ten Worlds theory I prefer teaching it not as theory of trying to figure out which box we are currently in at the moment. Rather it think it more valuable to think of the Ten Worlds as a map to hep us navigate from wherever we are in this moment to where we would like to go.
One advantage to approaching the Ten Worlds from this perspective is we don’t need to really know where we are. It helps of course to know in what realm or state of mind you are in, but it really isn’t as fundamentally important as knowing where you want to be.
Let’s say you are really in deep suffering, so deep that it certainly feels like hell, yet it could be hunger or anger, and they can be confused easily enough. That is perhaps the single most valuable part of realizing that each of the Ten Worlds contain all the other Ten Worlds. Well that and knowing that even in your deepest darkest state of suffering there is always Buddha. And too, even in your best most angelic self there is also hell.
Thinking of the Ten Worlds as a map allows us to look at the kind of life or the conditions of mind that are manifest in the realm we aspire to. For example we say we want to become Buddhas and be enlightened, yet how well do we know what that sort of life looks like.
Now I’ve been with people in the hospital who are in such a state of suffering that is so low they can’t even imagine looking as high as enlightenment. In a way the crowd seated on the ground when the Buddha went up into the treasure tower and sat beside Many Treasures Buddha were like that. They entreated the Buddha to raise them up so they could at least see the Buddha.
While this in’t a perfect example, sometimes we need to first be raised up a little just so we can see a little light reflecting off Enlightenment. One of the easiest first destinations on the Ten Worlds road map to Enlightenment is Humanity. That is a realm that is the first stop out of the lower realms of suffering. It is the first realm populated by humans, which is what we are. In a way our dwelling in the lower realms is living with denizens, animals, and fearsome non-human entities. We as humans really don’t belong there but we can get trapped or seduced into them and then we suffer.
Another reason why striving for the realm of Humanity if we are in the deepest of the suffering realms is illustrated best if we understand the Ten Aspects.
As I’ve mentioned previously the Ten Aspects are not so easily nor effectively understood as separate things. They are not intended to be considered separately independent from each other. The Ten Aspects all look different depending upon the World we are inhabiting at any moment.
In any of the lower realms all of the physical parts of the Ten Aspects, Appearance, Entity, Nature, Power and so forth are weak, and greatly diminished and this is also a contributing factor to remaining in a cycle of suffering in the Four Lower Worlds.
Because a person in Hell lacks the nature of understanding the reality of suffering and how suffering begets suffering, they repeat the causes of their suffering. While there may be and often is a lot of energy which we may consider power we find people in Hell lashing out as it were to their environment. Anger often arises easily and Anger has its own Power, it’s destructive. The Primary Cause of Anger is Power if you will. Think of Asura the speck of a demon who when enraged blows itself up into their fearsome demon. The Angry person is not meek before the subject of its anger. When was the last time you saw an Angry person shrink before the person they are angry with?
Anger’s Primary Cause, its Power, it Nature and so forth all contribute to the conditions which will ensure its continued suffering. Anger is frequently borne of arrogance and we see that in Asura. An arrogant person is either fearful of someone better or always discontent with the inferiority of others. Anger shows on a persons face, it reveals itself in every muscle of a person body.
The lower realms are like this which is why they become a cycle of suffering. The things that cause anger are repeated. A person suffers, they lash out at their environment and the weakest things they can find frequently are other people or animals. They are powerless, or think they are to change their environment and so they act in unskillful ways. They do not see that the path to ending suffering is through Humanity and the shared human experience of feelings, compassion, connection. The human Activities and Primary Causes are the first and easiest steps to alleviating suffering available.
They say that, and I do believe it to be so, petting a dog can lower one’s blood pressure and heart rate, can reduce stress, and bring a sense of calmness to one’s being. Petting a dog is the action of connection, of realizing that we are not alone in the world, we are not alone in experiencing pain, we are not alone in frustrations and so forth.
Hunger, is greed, it is self directed and all the Aspects of self will reinforce this and increase the suffering. What is needed is to begin to exert our power, however limited we may think it is by making causes to become human.
Understanding the map of the Ten Worlds and realizing that the Ten Aspects are how we live or manifest the Ten Worlds gives us the tools or key to ending our suffering.
