The Suffering of Samsara

The contemplation of impermanence may have loosened your grip on this life's activities. But a subtler attachment often takes its place. You might think: "Fine, I will die. But I will be reborn — and next time, perhaps as a wealthy human or a blissful god. That sounds rather pleasant, actually. Why not enjoy the ride?"

This is the second obstacle: attachment to samsara's pleasures. It is more dangerous than the first because it wears the mask of acceptance. You have accepted death, yes — but you are still hoping that the cycle itself will deliver happiness. Gampopa's antidote is a clear-eyed examination of what samsara actually offers, realm by realm, suffering by suffering.

The Three Types of Suffering

Gampopa presents the traditional threefold classification:

I. All-Pervasive Suffering (khyab pa'i sdug bsngal)

This is the most subtle and fundamental form of suffering. It is like unripe fruit—not yet painful, but containing the seed of pain. Its definition is "neutral feeling"—neither pleasant nor unpleasant—yet it pervades the moment the afflicted aggregates (skandhas) exist.

Ordinary people do not recognize all-pervasive suffering. Gampopa offers an analogy: when stricken with a serious plague, a small earache goes unnoticed. Similarly, amid the gross sufferings of samsara, this subtle underlying dissatisfaction escapes our awareness.

But noble beings—stream-enterers and beyond—perceive it clearly. Like someone nearly recovered from plague who suddenly notices a minor infection, those with purified perception see that the very condition of having afflicted aggregates is itself suffering.

Another analogy: a hair in the palm of your hand causes no discomfort. But the same hair in your eye brings pain. As the Commentary on the Treasury of Abhidharma states:

The childish, like the palm of the hand, Are not aware of the hair of all-pervasive suffering. The saintly are like the eye, And will feel the all-pervasive suffering.

II. Suffering of Change ('gyur ba'i sdug bsngal)

This is the suffering inherent in what appears to be pleasure. It is like eating poisonous rice—satisfying at first, deadly in the end. Its definition is "a feeling of pleasure"—but pleasure that inevitably transforms into suffering.

All happiness within samsara is temporary. The White Lotus of Great Compassion Sutra declares:

The kingdom of gods is a cause of suffering. All the human kingdoms are also a cause of suffering.

Even becoming a universal monarch leads eventually to suffering:

Even if one became a universal monarch, One would fall into slavery in samsara.

Even attaining Indra's divine status ends in falling:

Even though one becomes Indra, who is praiseworthy, One will fall down to the earth by the power of karma.

Even achieving the sublime states of Brahma, free from desire-realm attachments, leads to eventual descent:

One who achieves the pleasure and happiness of Brahmahood, Free from the desire world, Will again become the fuel of Avici And suffer continuously.

No pleasure in samsara is reliable. Every high state ends in a fall.

III. Suffering of Suffering (sdug bsngal gyi sdug bsngal)

This is obvious suffering—pain piled upon the underlying pain of conditioned existence. It is like mold growing on already imperfect fruit. Its definition is "a feeling of suffering"—direct, unmistakable anguish.

Gampopa divides this into the sufferings of the six realms: three lower (hell, hungry ghost, animal) and three higher (human, demi-god, god).

The Lower Realms

A. The Hell Realms

The hells are classified into: eight hot hells, eight cold hells, neighboring hells, and occasional hells—eighteen types in total.

The Eight Hot Hells

Located below Jambudvipa, from highest to lowest:

1. Reviving Hell (yang sos): Beings cut and kill each other. A cool breeze revives them, and the cycle repeats endlessly.

2. Black Thread Hell (thig nag): Bodies are marked with black threads, then cut along those lines by flaming swords and axes.

3. Crushing Hell (bsdus 'joms): Bodies are crushed between mountains shaped like rams' heads, or pressed between iron plates until blood flows "like four rivers."

4. Howling Hell (ngu 'bod): Beings burn and make terrified cries.

5. Greater Howling Hell (ngu 'bod chen po): Even more intense burning and more desperate cries.

6. Heating Hell (tsha ba): Molten bronze is poured into bodies, burning internal organs. Beings are pierced from anus to crown with thorny weapons.

7. Intense Heating Hell (rab tu tsha ba): Worse still—bodies are burned throughout, flames emerge from all nine orifices, and beings are pierced with three-pointed weapons through anus, feet, and crown.

8. Constant Suffering Hell (mnar med, Skt. Avīci): A blazing metal house containing a bronze kettle where beings are cooked continuously in molten metal. Fire surrounds them from all directions. There is no break from suffering.

The life spans are almost incomprehensible: the Reviving Hell lasts 1,620,000,000,000 human years. The Constant Suffering Hell lasts one-quarter of a cosmic age (kalpa).

The Neighboring Hells

Surrounding each hot hell in four directions:

1. Burning Ashes — Beings sink knee-deep; skin, flesh, and blood burn away
2. Rotten Corpse Swamp — Beings are pierced to the bone by sharp-beaked insects
3. Road of Razors — Forests with razor leaves; fierce dogs; ravens with iron beaks
4. Boiling River — Beings are cooked while Yama's messengers prevent escape

The Eight Cold Hells

1-2. Blister and Bursting Blister: Cold so intense blisters cover the body; in the second, they burst.

3-5. Named for sounds: Teeth-chattering, "A-chu," and Strong Lamentation—named for the cries beings make in unbearable cold.

6-8. Named for appearance: Cracked-Like-Utpala, Cracked-Like-Lotus, Cracked-Like-Great-Lotus—bodies crack into progressively more pieces, like flower petals.

The life spans are measured by analogy: imagine a storehouse holding eighty bushels of mustard seeds. Remove one seed every hundred years. The time to empty the storehouse equals one life span in the Blister Hell. Each subsequent hell multiplies by twenty.

Occasional Hells

Created by individual karma, these can appear anywhere—in rivers, mountains, deserts, even in the human realm. Their forms and durations are indefinite.

The Nature of Hell Guardians

Are the hell guardians—Yama's messengers, ravens with iron beaks—actual beings? Different schools disagree. The Yogacara school and the lineage of Marpa and Mila say they manifest in beings' minds through the power of their own evil deeds:

Who intentionally created all the weapons for those in hell? Who created the burning iron ground? The Sage has said that all such things are the workings of an evil mind.

B. The Hungry Ghost Realm (yi dvags)

Located 500 yojanas beneath Jambudvipa, with scattered hungry ghosts in dry places throughout the world.

Three types based on their obscurations to eating and drinking:

Outer obscurations: They see food and drink as pus and blood, or perceive guards preventing them from eating.

Inner obscurations: They can approach food but cannot consume it:

Their bellies are like mountains And their mouths are as small as eyes in needles. They have no ability to search For even a small amount of unclean food.

General obscurations: Food harms them—some have their stomachs burned by eating; others can only consume excrement, urine, or their own flesh.

Life span: 500 of their years, where one of their days equals one human month.

C. The Animal Realm

Classified by legs (many, four, two, none) and located primarily in the ocean.

Three types of suffering:

Being used: Domestic animals under human power—"tortured, whipped, enslaved by hands, feet, and iron hooks."

Being slaughtered: "Some die for pearls, wool, bone, blood, meat, and skin."

Being eaten by one another: "They eat whatever falls into their mouths."

Maximum life span: one-quarter kalpa.

The Higher Realms

D. The Human Realm

Eight sufferings define human existence:

1. Birth: The root of all other sufferings.

Gampopa provides an extraordinarily detailed account of the journey from bardo to womb to birth:

In the intermediate state, beings with miraculous powers perceive their future birthplace. Four confusions arise (storm, rain, darkness, frightening sounds) and ten erroneous perceptions depending on karma—seeing palaces, houses, grass huts, or holes in walls.

Upon seeing future parents copulating, attachment and aversion arise based on the gender of the future body. Consciousness mixes with parental secretions, and conception occurs.

For thirty-eight weeks, the embryo develops through contact with various winds, experiencing "the inconceivable suffering of being cooked and fried in a hot vessel." Each stage brings specific torments:

• At week seven, arms and legs form—suffering "as if a powerful person were pulling the limbs"
• At week eleven, nine openings appear—suffering "as if a finger were probing a new, open wound"
• The mother's eating, movement, and activities cause corresponding agonies to the baby
• At week thirty-seven, consciousness of the womb's "filth, stench, darkness, and imprisonment" arises
• At birth, the body is drawn out "as if being drawn into a net of iron wires"

The Letter of Training summarizes:

Inconceivable stench and filth, Constriction, and darkness— To enter the mother's womb is like a hell.

2. Aging: Ten changes—body, hair, skin, complexion, abilities, dignity, merit, disease resistance, mind, and proximity to death.

Once straight, the body becomes dependent on a walking stick. Once black and shiny, hair turns gray. Once smooth like fine silk, skin becomes thick and wrinkled. Once praised, one becomes disrespected even by inferiors. Once sharp, the mind grows confused. Breath becomes labored as death approaches.

3. Sickness: Seven sufferings—great pain, harsh treatments, bitter medicines, dietary restrictions, pleasing doctors, decreasing wealth, fear of death.

Tortured by the suffering of a hundred diseases Is like being a hungry ghost during a human life.

4. Death: Described vividly in the King's Instructions Sutra—no refuge, no protector, breath stopping, mouth and nose falling open, leaving this world for unknown destinations, crying for help while "there is no refuge, no protector, no other support except the great king, Dharma."

5. Separating from loved ones: Lamentation, mourning, crying when parents, children, and dear ones die.

6. Meeting enemies: Fighting, quarreling, beating—the suffering of encountering those we hate.

7. Not finding what we desire

8. The pain of protecting what we have

E. The Demi-God Realm (lha ma yin)

Similar to gods but with additional mental suffering from jealousy of the gods' glory, leading to constant warfare they inevitably lose.

F. The God Realm

Even gods suffer:

Desire realm gods: Fighting with demi-gods; dissatisfaction despite pleasures; humiliation; death and falling to lower realms.

Five signs appear as death approaches: clothes become stained, flower garlands fade, sweat appears under the arms, foul odor arises, and they become uncomfortable in their own seats.

Form and formless realm gods: Though they lack the gross sufferings, they have no control over death. When their meditative karma exhausts, they fall to lower realms—often to the hells, having accumulated no merit during their long absorptions.

Conclusion: The Ocean of Samsara Ablaze

The Entering the Womb Sutra declares:

Alas, the ocean of samsara is ablaze—blazing, extreme blazing, supremely blazing, and supremely extreme blazing. Therefore, there is not one sentient being who is not tortured by it. What kind of fire is it that blazes so greatly? It is the fire of desire, aversion, and ignorance. The fire of birth, old age, and death. These blaze and burn constantly by the fire of suffering, lamentation, distress, and conflict. Therefore, no one is free from them.

When one truly sees the faults of samsara, attachment to its pleasures naturally dissolves:

When one sees the faults of samsara, One will develop a great sense of sadness. When one fears the prison of the three realms, One will make an effort to avoid them.

As Nagarjuna summarized:

Samsara is like this: There are no good rebirths among the gods, Humans, hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals. Understand that birth is the vessel of many sufferings.

There is nowhere in samsara to find lasting happiness. This recognition is not despair—it is the beginning of genuine motivation to seek liberation and to help all beings escape this burning house.