When people hear the expression “the four apāyas,” and when they hear of the suffering experienced by the beings there, fear and alarm arise within them. Because of this very fear and alarm, some people remove the expression “the four apāyas” from their storehouse of memory, treating it as though it were a forbidden expression.
Even while seeing with their own eyes the suffering of animals in the animal realm, human beings think:
“We will not be reborn in the animal realm.”
When a person becomes accustomed to thinking in this way, it becomes very easy for the evil companion called the mind—the treacherous friend—to establish within that person the causes required for rebirth in the animal realm. It can give you, in this very world, a life fertile in unwholesome deeds and well suited to producing a barren rebirth in the animal realm.
Of the four apāyas, the realm visible to our physical eyes is the animal realm. Although you cannot see the peta realm, the asura realm, or the hell realms belonging to the four apāyas, you have some awareness of hell and of the peta realm.
However, what is going to be explained here is the asura realm, which belongs to the four apāyas but is not spoken about as frequently.
We pay little attention to the asura realm. Yet, in comparison with the peta realm, the asura realm must be greater in extent.
The asura realm is situated in association with the great ocean, which covers three quarters of the earth’s surface. This great ocean is the native domain of the asuras.
Why is a being reborn in this asura realm?
Because of liking, chanda-rāga, and upādāna towards the great ocean, after death one obtains rebirth in the asura realm and descends into the great ocean.
You know that the regions surrounding Sri Lanka are referred to as the coastal belt. Relate this also to coastal regions in other countries of the world.
The people living near the sea throughout the world make the sea their very life. When they step outside their houses or look out of their windows, what they see is the sea.
The roar of the sea, the wind, the waves....
They even go to the sea to relieve themselves. They play and enjoy themselves on the beach or in the great ocean. Their entire life is the ocean.
These coastal people support themselves through the fishing industry. This is not limited to our own country.
Throughout the whole world, some people spend the time from morning until night catching fish with fishing rods. Others, without even considering the danger to their lives, make the sea “mine” and make it their self, spreading fishing nets in the great ocean from a small raft.
Some go out to sea in their boats in the evening and return to land only at dawn the following day. Others go to sea in multi-day fishing vessels and return only after several weeks or months.
Still others travel in ships, catch fish, pack them into tins, and continue travelling for several more months. That is the most extensive or advanced technology.
Every one of these people engaged in the fishing industry has taken up the great ocean through upādāna.
Their life is the great ocean. Their wife and children are the great ocean. Their happiness and hopes are the great ocean. The ocean is their self.
They expect to obtain pleasure through this self.
Having taken up the great ocean in this manner, what they bring back to land is the harvest of taking life.
The harvest of taking life consists of the tonnes of dead fish they bring ashore. It is not limited to small fish. Turtles, large sharks, whales, sea cucumbers, lobsters....
These are the harvest of killing gathered by people who have taken the sea up through upādāna.
There is another group in the world. They take the great ocean up through a different perception.
They take the great ocean as an object of upādāna for amusement, happiness, relaxation, sport, and education.
We call these people domestic and foreign tourists.
In countries with beautiful beaches, this has developed into a highly advanced and widespread business.
Tourists travel tens of thousands of miles through distant lands to visit different countries. Hundreds of thousands of tourists travel to the Maldives each year.
For what purpose?
To take the great ocean as an object of upādāna.
It is the same in our own country.
Wherever in the world a tourist hotel is located, rooms facing the great ocean are more expensive than rooms facing the land. This has come about because tourists have taken the sea up through upādāna.
They search for happiness within the great ocean by bathing, diving, rowing boats, traveling in motorboats, and participating in various water sports.
They expose themselves to the blazing sunlight on the beach. The sea becomes like a part of their lives.
They touch the salt water and its saline quality with intense liking and taṇhā.
You can observe this condition along the beautiful tourist beaches of our country.
Their entire life is the great ocean. Their food is the great ocean.
Their eyes demand the beauty of the sea.
Their ears demand the roar of the breaking waves.
Their noses demand the fishy smell.
Their tongues demand the taste of seafood.
Their bodies demand the saline quality of seawater.
Their minds demand that all the above are still not enough. The mind continues to say, “Not enough; give me more.”
Your evil companion called the mind, hidden within the cave called the body, deceives you by telling you:
“The sea is my self. It is pleasure. It is the world.”
There is another group in the world. They are the employees and passengers of great passenger and cargo ships travelling across the ocean. There are also lighthouse workers who send signals to ships.
There are also people in Western countries who, upon retiring from employment, gather all the benefits they have received, buy a small sailing boat, and spend the remainder of their lives travelling from country to country and from port to port.
People in all these categories live by travelling continuously for many months without setting foot on land.
They enjoy themselves and experience pleasure. They eat well and drink well. They do not understand that they are in a prison cell in the middle of the great ocean.
Because of their taṇhā for the ocean, they see this prison cell as a palace of dreams.
Although we do not know this with certainty, it is said that even when their ship is sinking, they continue playing music with the band, saying:
“Pleasure! Pleasure!”
They possess the perception that even dying in the great ocean is pleasurable.
Their lives consist only of intoxication and the gratification of the senses. They make the sea “mine,” make the sea their self, and search for pleasure within that self.
There is another group in the world. They are divers and explorers.
They too search for pleasure in the ocean. They search for resources.
Carrying the weight of an oxygen cylinder on their backs, they dive into the deep and terrifying sea. They regard this as pleasure and search for the wonders, wealth, and unseen world hidden within the ocean.
To them, the saline quality of the sea and the terrifying nature of the ocean depths are insignificant. This is because their upādāna towards the great ocean is stronger than those dangers.
These people too make the sea their self and search for pleasure within it.
Billions upon billions of fish, turtles, and birds such as seagulls live in association with the great ocean.
These beings too have taken the sea up through upādāna. They gratify their five senses through food obtained from the great ocean.
Their life is the great ocean.
Every one of these animals searches for pleasure in the great ocean. They perceive the great ocean as “mine.” They perceive the great ocean as their self.
As described above, there is an enormously large number of both human beings and animals who take the sea up through upādāna for the fishing industry, education, exploration, and the maintenance of life.
When any of these beings who have taken the sea up through upādāna, made the sea “mine,” and searched for pleasure within it eventually reaches the moment of death, if liking, upādāna, or chanda-rāga arises towards the great ocean to which that being was bound by taṇhā during life, there is a very great possibility that the being will be reborn in the asura realm.
After living by taking the ocean up through upādāna and then descending into the asura realm, those asuras can continue to make the great ocean “mine.”
They can stir up the ocean, swim, and dive.
Because the asura has obtained the object of liking for which he longed, he does not regard the asura life as suffering.
Even during his previous human life, he did not regard the seawater, its saline quality, the heat of the sun, the sea breeze, or the terrifying nature of the ocean as suffering.
When a person who regarded all these things as pleasure even while possessing an excellent human life falls into the asura realm belonging to the four apāyas, will he regard that condition as suffering?
No.
He regards it as an immense pleasure he has obtained.
Just as a small child plays with his own urine and excrement, the asuras take every form of dukkha and domanassa in the great ocean to be immense pleasure, and they delight in it.
They exercise authority over the great ocean.
They quarrel and fight over ownership and territories within the ocean.
Human beings are already immersed in asura-like perceptions such as:
“This area of the sea belongs to us. Others may not fish here.”
“This beach belongs to our hotel. Others may not come here.”
Therefore, these same things occur on a much broader scale in the asura realm.
Consider how a diver acts within the great ocean.
He swims on the surface of the water. He dives beneath the water. He dives into deep waters.
In the same way as this diver, asuras dive in the great ocean and experience the five kinds of sensual pleasure.
They fight with members of their own kind over the sea. They search for pleasure in the sea.
That is the nature of the asura realm.
A fish lives in the seawater, perceiving it as pleasurable. It swims and dives, creates beautiful movements and forms, and experiences happiness....
Although the fish regards it as pleasure, it is the animal realm.
The fish consumes hundreds of thousands of smaller fish and continues accumulating further kamma. In the end, it becomes caught in someone’s net and sacrifices its life.
Asuras grasp the great ocean through taṇhā. Wanting to divide and possess the ocean, they develop hatred, anger, and craving. In the end, they are destroyed and fall from one state of suffering into another.
While a bhikkhu was dwelling in samādhi, he saw several beings diving and enjoying themselves upon and within the waters of the great ocean.
The bhikkhu identified them as asuras.
However, these few asuras were extremely majestic and powerful, possessing full, human-like bodies. They were entirely milk-white in colour.
They had heads larger than a human head.
These asuras joyfully dived into the water, came back to the surface, and enjoyed themselves.
All this appeared to indicate that the few asuras seen by the bhikkhu were leaders among the asuras.
Although they lived in the asura realm, they did not appear to be experiencing suffering. Their subtle bodies appeared full and did not display a deformed nature.
The bhikkhu supposes that this may happen in the following manner. However, he does not know with certainty and therefore cannot state that it is definitely so.
There are millionaire businesspeople and tourists who are deeply fond of the sea.
These people engage in much social service, dāna, and similar activities. Through these actions, kusala develops within them.
However, at the moment of death, what arises within these millionaires may not be a memory of the social services they performed or the help they gave to others.
Instead, upādāna towards the ocean may arise.
A fear may arise:
“Oh, I am going to lose the pleasures of the sea.”
A longing for that pleasure may arise.
Furthermore, because some of these millionaires and tourists hold micchā-diṭṭhi and do not believe in merit and demerit, they may not believe that the beneficial results of dāna will be received in a future existence.
Consequently, such wholesome actions do not come to their minds at the time of death.
What comes to mind is their grasping towards the things they did and the things they liked.
For this reason, after death, there is a strong possibility that they will be reborn as asuras in the very ocean they loved.
It is also possible that, in the asura realm, such people may be reborn as majestic asura leaders or regional rulers, possessing the powerful personalities seen by the bhikkhu.
Consider the following example.
There is a fishing-business owner who follows Christianity or Islam. There is no problem with that. It is the freedom of those gentlemen.
A bhikkhu thinks that, for a follower of such a religion, the fishing industry may not be regarded as an occupation that should be rejected. Forgiveness is requested if this is incorrect.
From the perspective of Buddhism, however, the fishing industry is an occupation that should be rejected.
Suppose this fishing-business owner possesses ten trawlers.
Whenever the weather is good, these vessels travel into the deep sea and bring large harvests of fish back to land.
It is this harvest that Buddhist people also consume as food. If it is offered to members of the Saṅgha, they too may consume it.
A single one of the above vessels kills and brings ashore thousands of fish.
How enormous, then, is the mass of fish killed each day by ten vessels?
Throughout their lifetimes, how many fish do such business owners participate in killing?
The business owner comes to the seashore in the morning and becomes happy when he sees and examines the harvest of fish.
As the harvest increases, the happiness, smiles, and expectations of the business owner and the workers also increase.
On some occasions, there may be millions of living young inside the bodies of the dead fish—young that have not yet been born into the world.
These young fish also die.
The amount of akusala accumulated by people engaged in such activities throughout an entire lifetime cannot be expressed in numbers.
Because of such unwholesome kamma, there is a very great tendency for them to be reborn as extremely weak and deformed asuras, or as “rock petas” at the bottom of the ocean.
These rock petas at the bottom of the sea remain associated with a rock, a coral reef, or a marine plant.
These petas arise within rocks, coral reefs, and large beds of marine vegetation.
They make these places their homes and dwellings and live there.
From within these dwellings, they guard and watch over the ocean that they grasped through taṇhā, retaining it under the perception:
“Mine.”
Two or three times a day, these rock petas raise their heads out of the rocks and carefully inspect the surrounding ocean with taṇhā.
They look to see whether anyone has arrived and whether someone else has taken possession of it.
They examine the treasures on the ocean floor, sunken ships, and the resources of fish. Then they become like rocks again.
When human beings descend to the bottom of the sea to obtain or inspect these treasures, these beings torment and frighten them.
These are the beings that people call ghosts.
Because of these circumstances, their hatred, anger, and craving increase further and further.
These beings continue moving from one form of suffering into another.
They fall from the asura realm into the peta realm, and from the peta realm into hell, where they suffer for many aeons.
Now consider yourself.
Should you be a person who has grasped the great ocean for a livelihood or for entertainment, taking it up through taṇhā, or should you be someone who brings the harvest of killing from the great ocean back to land, pay attention to the nature of the asura realm belonging to the four apāyas and to the causes required for paṭisandhi in the asura realm.
Understand that, should you obtain paṭisandhi in the asura realm, you may not be able to rise out of it for many aeons.
Free yourself from unnecessary liking for salty tastes.
Free yourself from taṇhā towards the terrifying great ocean.
Otherwise, just as you wished, you may be able to spend many aeons making the salty taste, the saline water, the fishy smell, the deep and shallow sea, and the treasures found within it your own.
Because of avijjā, you will take as “mine” something that does not belong to you and cannot be maintained under your control.
You will turn into pleasure something that can only become a cause of suffering for you, and you will be compelled to suffer through it.
Every moment in which you delight in the great ocean inevitably clears and prepares the road leading towards the asura realm.
Become free from liking and taṇhā towards the great ocean, and close the road leading to the asura realm.
Free the human life you have obtained from the four apāyas and experience lokuttara happiness.
See the terrifying nature of the great ocean precisely as terrifying.
See the loneliness of the great ocean, the unshaded heat of the sun, its saline quality, and its fishy smell as repulsive.
Do not make these things your own.
Become skilful in seeing the great ocean as an “ocean of Māra,” which gives beings only a harvest of unwholesome kamma and, through that unwholesome kamma, causes them to inherit the suffering of the asura realm.
Free yourself from liking for the great ocean and become free from the asura realm.
Source: https://dahampoth.com/pdfj/view/a2.html
