Five Things that Trapped Us in Cycles of Suffering
There is a reason the teachings of Buddhism begin with suffering. The teachings taught us to let go of afflictions and to cultivate a pure mind, body, and soul. Yet, cultivation requires persistence and sustainable efforts in our daily lives. Buddha knows this is a challenge to us humans, he thus offered an inconceivable solution.
At the time when Buddha Sakyamuni attained enlightenment some 2,500 years ago, he realized that all of us sentient beings possess Buddha Nature (True Nature), but we are trapped in endless cycles of births and deaths as a result of our karmic actions and self-afflicted sufferings from our own greed, anger, arrogance and ignorance.
As Buddha realized the severe difficulties and struggles we are subject to in this world (known as the Saha World, or the World of Endurance), Sakyamuni, in the Amitabha Sutra, spoke of the Five Corruptions that caused sufferings which rightly described the dire situation we are currently living in.
What are the Five Corruptions?
Corruption here means pollution, the contaminants that are polluting our state of mind, body, and spirit.
- The Corruption of the Age relates that this is a time when war and natural disasters are rifle, that we are living in troubled times. We currently live at a time when the environments of the sky, land, and water — everything — is polluted. Our mind, body, and spirit likewise are also contaminated.
- The Corruption of Views relates that misguided, perverse views that proliferate in this world. For instance, the view that our bodies are entities we possess, the view that we are annihilated after death or else live on forever, the view that there is no natural law of causality, the view that what we cling to with our arbitrary opinions is best, and the view that we will find salvation by our own subjectively chosen methods. Since we are deluded by such views and utterly submerged in them, we are helplessly bound to commit untold negative karma. Also, everything we thought of tend to be in dualistic terms, like “you” vs “I”, “big” vs “small”, “rich” vs poor”, that likely give rise to disagreements, jealousy, conflicts, and in time, wars.
- The Corruption of Afflictions relates that compulsions and confusions caused by greed, anger, arrogance, ignorance, and doubt are increasingly more and more, causing more troubles and chaos.
- The Corruption of Sentient Beings relates that under the corruption of views and the corruption of afflictions, the Five Skandhas (Aggregates) of craving and clinging, give rise to the whole of an individual’s physical and mental existence as what is provisionally called a sentient being. Sentient beings are debased both at the level of physical form and at the level of mind, hence, the corruption of sentient beings.
- The Corruption of Life means that due to our negative karmas accumulated from our causality and consequences we realized are both degenerated, our lifespans are shortened. We are facing increasing toxic environmental and chemical pollution, together with the escalation in natural and human-made disasters, conflicts, and wars, causing many people to die young. Our children would struggle to survive in the future, our current average lifespan will very likely be longer than that of our children.
Antidotes
To alleviate sufferings from these corruptions, we need to be discerning about whom we interact with, and be careful about the situations we get ourselves into. On the mindful note, in order to maintain a pure, unpolluted mind, we strive to attain the six principles of harmony from Buddhist teachings.
As we are caught up in personal attachments, always craving to have everything around us conform to our desires and expectations, we lost ourselves to the reality that everything — things, people, ideas, events — in our world is impermanent. Nothing can be possessed because nothing can be held on to. We seriously need to wake up from this.
Often when things did not occur as we desired, we easily give in to anger, and smolder with resentment. What we fail to do is to exercise patience. Failing to react wisely and keep our anger at bay, we let our anger destroys our peace of mind and that of others close to us.
When functioning from personal viewpoints and self-interests, we gradually increase our ignorance — unable to tell true from false, virtuous from evil, right from wrong, or beneficial from harmful. On the opposite note, selflessness is the antidote to greed, patience is the antidote to anger, innate prajna wisdom is the antidote to ignorance. Once this innate wisdom is uncovered, we will naturally and intuitively know what is moral and correct.
All too often we work things out in dualistic terms. Dualism not only occurs in thinking of ourselves and others, it also runs deep in our opinions. We tend to convince ourselves that our views are right and those of others are wrong. As we firmly entrenched in our own views, we descend into arrogance. The antidote for arrogance is humility, a sincere and honest virtue realizing that no being is superior to another. Fundamentally all beings possess Buddha Nature, so we are all equal.
The Buddha often used the word “beings”. This way of addressing us is to remind everybody the truth that this body of ours is not real. This body is not permanent: when various conditions combine, the phenomenon, a body comes about; when these conditions separate, the phenomenon ceases to exist.
A Way Out Once And For All?
So… is there a way to end the suffering once and for all?
Fortunately, the answer comes from the Amitabha Sutra, one of the Five Pure Land Sutras in the Mahayana canon. This sutra is a rarity because it is a “self-spoken” teaching — a teaching delivered by the Buddha without anyone asking.
In this sutra, Buddha taught us that through faith, vow, and chanting practice, we can transform evil into perfect goodness. We will make a direct ascent toward enlightenment without falling back (no retrogression) to lower realms.
Seeing the suffering that all of us in endless cycles of births and deaths are subject to, Sakyamuni Buddha went to great lengths to explain to us we are living in an evil world of five corruptions and teach us how to end our suffering. He introduce us to Amitabha Buddha and Buddha-name chanting as the most expedient method of achieving the mind of Supreme, Perfect Enlightenment.
Cultivate a pure mind by letting go our craving and clinging is to liberate from self-afflicted suffering. Firmly believe in the Pure Land practice as your salvation. As Grand Master Oui said, “When one accords with Amitabha Buddha in a single thought, one is born in that thought. And when one accords with Amitabha Buddha in every thought, one is born in every thought.” Therefore, our mind is the mind of Amitabha Buddha.
Mindfully chant Amitabha Buddha’s name and wholeheartedly study the Five Pure Land Sutras as your daily practice will ensure progression toward enlightenment. Perfect enlightenment will be attained in Amitabha’s Pure Land.
Resources:
Amitabha Sutra and the Five Pure Land Sutras
Pure Land Principles
Amitabha Mindful Chanting Collection
Biography of Grand Master Oui
