Craving and Attachment Is the Primary Cause of Rebirth in the Woeful Realms.

Buddhist practitioners who truly wish for liberation should, in their daily lives, carefully examine the various feelings and experiences within their own minds—examining what they are craving and attached to, what matters they care about, and what things they spend their thoughts and energy on. Once these are identified, they should analyze what kind of mental state this is, what significance it has, and what the outcome will be. Then they should find ways to counteract their own cravings and feelings; in this way, their practice will sweep away obstructions, and progress on the path will be swift.

Our craving habits accumulated over countless eons are very heavy, and we ourselves find them very hard to detect, because we have grown accustomed to them and take them for granted. Only those who have walked the path and have removed and subdued their craving habits can detect their own and others' greedy minds. It is like someone who has long dwelt in a fragrant hall and no longer notices the fragrance, or one who has long stayed in a dung pit and no longer notices the stench—only people outside the fragrant hall can smell the pure fragrance, and only people outside the dung pit can detect the foul odor.

The scope of craving is very broad: any dharma within the desire realm, so long as one is fond of it, is craving. Those literary masters skilled in poetry and verse, and painters who wield their brushes with effortless flair, almost all go off to the ghost realm to enjoy themselves, because those things all belong to craving—let alone other aspects; romantic love and passion are even more certainly craving, making it impossible to escape rebirth in the ghost realm. Those who often paint horses, painting them with striking lifelikeness, are reborn into a horse's womb after death; those who often write ghost stories, writing them with great vividness, are reborn as ghosts after death. Whatever the mind frequently dwells upon, after death one goes to keep company with that very thing. A painter who paints horses with great concentration has a mind that resonates with horses, and in the next life he will be reborn as a horse; those who often write novels about ghosts and spirits pour their minds into ghosts and spirits, resonating with them, and after death they will become ghosts. Now, when we recollect the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti), our minds resonate with the Buddha, and we will be born beside the Buddha. When the mind resonates with the wholesome, one will be reborn in wholesome destinies; when the mind resonates with the unwholesome, one will be reborn in unwholesome destinies.

When the karmic retribution of the ghost realm ends, if one still has some merit, one goes to take rebirth in the animal realm; when the karmic retribution of the animal realm ends, only those who still have some merit remaining will return to the human world to take rebirth. Therefore, the time one obtains a human body is very brief, while the time spent in the three evil destinies is very long; every sentient being undergoes much suffering and very little happiness. So we should still think of our future lives, enjoy less blessing now, and leave more merit for later lives; only with great merit can one be reborn as a human as quickly as possible.

People with deep roots of goodness and abundant merit stay beside the Buddha, receiving His guidance and edification, and their practice advances very quickly. Without the Buddha, being beside bodhisattvas who have severed afflictions, or beside arhats, one's practice also advances very quickly—as the saying goes, one who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black. Coarse greed of a great greedy mind can still be observed with some care, but subtle cravings are extremely numerous, and almost no one can observe them—unless one has severed afflictions. How rare is the opportunity to obtain a human body, how brief the time one has a human body, and how scarce and difficult it is to attain realization of the fruits and liberation with a human body. Having already obtained human bodies, how should we seize this rare and precious opportunity and diligently cultivate realization to attain even a small measure of liberation? This is a question we should often ponder deeply.