Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Since our rebirth most of the other limbs have already happened and all that remains is aging
and death. Normally the world defines aging by wrinkled skin and other visible signs of
getting old, but aging actually starts from birth. In reality, death is the only one of those
seven resultant limbs we have yet to experience.
With every action, we start another set of twelve limbs. For example, with one action we
might create the potential to be born as a human being and with another the potential to be
reborn in hell. Which seed will ripen when craving and grasping lead us into the becoming of
our next rebirth?
It could easily be that of the hell rebirth. There are eight major hot hells, eight major cold
hells, six neighboring hells and some occasional hells, ones that are anywhere rather than in a
specific location. In each hell there is so much unbelievable suffering. We have experienced
such rebirths countless times but cannot remember them. If we could it would be utterly
terrifying.
Hungry ghosts have to suffer for tens of thousands of their years—which are much longer
than human years—from not finding a drop of water or a scrap of food. They have the most
unbelievable suffering but are unable to die. For tens of thousands of years they have to
experience the three types of obscurations: outer obscurations, inner obscurations and
obscurations of food and drink. 108 And they have to experience exhaustion, hopelessness and
disappointment. Their suffering is unbelievable, horrible.
Then there are the animals, who are so foolish and ignorant. They suffer from being eaten
by other animals, heat and cold, and hunger and thirst. Those that are kept by humans have
to endure much torture, being used for work and food, killed for their meat, bones and other
parts of their body. They have so much suffering.
For example, African elephants are killed for their tusks, which fetch a lot of money. One of
our students in Singapore has a project to protect the elephants, but one of the ways they are
protected is by killing the poachers. So that’s thinking of the elephants but not thinking of
the human beings, which seems very silly. I asked her if humans might have to die to protect
elephants and she said that perhaps that was the case. Maybe later on she realized this.
I once saw a documentary on TV about a fish that hunts insects on the overhanging
branches of a tree that grows by the river. The fish sees an insect from below in the water
and squirts water at it to knock it off the branch. Usually it takes a few squirts to dislodge the
insect, but as soon as it falls the fish shoots up and grabs it. There’s also an insect that kills
its prey by spitting some kind of sticky stuff at it from a distance and immobilizing it in that
way.
I once saw a fight between a snake and a mongoose. Mongooses are very smart creatures—
the arhat Bakula holds a wealth-producing mongoose—but this time the snake won. While
in front of the mongoose the snake kept its distance, fearing the mongoose’s sharp teeth, but
when the mongoose got distracted by something, the snake came up from behind, grabbed it
by the neck and finished it off.
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