4.The Danger of a Lower Rebirth
Contemplation: When the oil of a lamp is exhausted the flame goes out because the flame is produced from the oil, but when our body dies our consciousness is not extinguished because consciousness is not produced from the body. When we dies our mind has to leave this present body, which is just a temporary abode, and fins another body, rather like a bird leaving one nest to fly to another. Our mind has no freedom to remain and no choice about where to go. We are blown to the place of our next rebirth by the winds of our karma. If the karma that ripens at our death time is negative, we shall definitely take a lower rebirth. Heavy negative karma causes rebirth in hell, less negative karma causes rebirth as a hungry ghost, and the least negative karma causes rebirth as an animal.
It is very easy to commit heavy negative karma. For example, simply by swatting a mosquito out of anger we create the cause to be reborn in hell. Throughout this and all our countless previous lives we have committed many heavy negative actions by practicing sincere confession, their potentialities remain in our mental continuum, and any one of these negative potentialities could ripen when we die. Bearing in mind, we should ask ourself: 'If I die today, where shall I be tomorrow? It is quite possible that I shall find myself in the animal realm, among the hungry ghosts, or in hell. If someone were to call me a stupid cow today I would find it difficult to bear, but what shall I do if I actually become a cow, a pig or a fish?
Meditation: We contemplate the sufferings of the three lower realms, and danger of being reborn there, until we generate a strong fear of taking rebirth in the lower realms. We then meditate on this feeling of fear for as long as possible.
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All meditations and contemplations presented here are extracted from 'The Meditation Handbook' by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso (Tharpa Publications)
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