Chapter 5The Benefits of Liberation

There is a moment in every practitioner's life when a quiet but unmistakable shift occurs. You have looked honestly at the nature of samsara -- its relentless impermanence, its suffering woven through even the most pleasant experiences, its endless cycling from one life to the next -- and something inside you changes. The old attractions begin to loosen their grip. The promises of worldly happiness, which once seemed so convincing, start to ring hollow. And in that growing disenchantment, a new question begins to form: if not this, then what?

This is the turning point that Patrul Rinpoche addresses here. The four preceding contemplations -- on the precious human birth, on impermanence and death, on the workings of karma, and on the defects of samsara -- have done their work. They have turned the mind. They have shown us, with unflinching clarity, that nowhere within the six realms of cyclic existence can lasting peace be found. Now, having understood what we are turning away from, we must understand what we are turning toward. We must contemplate the benefits of liberation.

What Is Liberation?

Liberation, in its simplest meaning, is freedom. It is freedom from the ocean of suffering that is samsara -- not a temporary respite, not a brief holiday in some pleasant realm of existence, but a definitive crossing to the far shore. It means arriving at a state from which there is no falling back, no return to confusion, no further entanglement in the web of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

But we should be careful not to think of liberation as merely an escape. It is not the spiritual equivalent of fleeing a burning building and collapsing in the yard, grateful but exhausted. Liberation is something far more positive and luminous than that. The Tibetan word tharpa carries the sense of being untied, released, set free -- like a bird that has been kept in a cage finally spreading its wings in open sky. It is the natural condition of mind when all that obscures it has been cleared away.

According to the Buddhist teachings, this freedom can be realized at three distinct levels: as a Shravaka, as a Pratyekabuddha, or as a fully awakened Buddha. Each represents a genuine and profound attainment. Each is infinitely superior to even the most exalted state within samsara. And yet, as Patrul Rinpoche makes clear, if we have the choice -- and we do -- it is the complete and perfect enlightenment of a Buddha that we should set our hearts upon.

The Causes Leading to Liberation

Liberation does not happen by accident. It does not descend upon us as an unearned gift, nor does it arrive simply because we wish for it. Like everything else in the universe, it arises from causes and conditions. Patrul Rinpoche identifies two essential movements of mind that together create the momentum toward freedom.

The first is making the mind workable through the four contemplations that turn the mind. These are the reflections we have already explored: on the difficulty of obtaining a precious human life, on impermanence and death, on karma and its consequences, and on the suffering inherent in samsara. These four thoughts are not merely intellectual exercises to be understood once and filed away. They are living contemplations that must be returned to again and again, until they saturate the mind so thoroughly that our entire orientation shifts from grasping at worldly concerns to longing for genuine freedom.

Think of it this way: you cannot set out on a journey unless you first realize you need to leave where you are. A prisoner who does not know he is in prison will never try to escape. The four contemplations are what reveal the prison walls. They are what transform a vague spiritual curiosity into the burning determination that the great masters call nge jung -- genuine renunciation, the heartfelt resolve to find a way out.

The second movement is the actual engagement with the path itself, beginning with taking refuge, which is the foundation of all paths, and continuing through every stage of practice up through the main practice of the tradition. Each of these stages carries its own particular blessings and benefits, which are explained in the chapters devoted to them. But the essential point here is that contemplation alone is not enough. Understanding must flower into practice. Insight must be embodied in the way we live, the way we train, the way we open ourselves to the guidance of authentic teachers.

These two movements -- turning the mind and engaging the path -- work together like the two wings of a bird. Without both, flight is impossible. Without genuine renunciation, our practice remains superficial, a hobby rather than a path. Without actual practice, our renunciation remains a mood, an attitude that never transforms into realization.

The Three Levels of Enlightenment

The Buddhist teachings describe three broad approaches to the path, sometimes called the stages for beings of lesser, middling, and greater capacity. These are not rigid categories that divide people into types. Rather, they describe progressively vaster motivations and the levels of freedom to which those motivations lead.

The Path of Lesser Capacity: Seeking Higher Rebirth

The path of lesser capacity is concerned with securing a fortunate rebirth within samsara. A practitioner at this level has understood that actions have consequences -- that harmful deeds lead to suffering in the lower realms and that virtuous deeds lead to the happier states of human beings and gods. Motivated by this understanding, such a person accumulates merit through wholesome actions, generosity, ethical conduct, and other practices.

This is a genuine and valuable beginning. It is far better to live virtuously with an eye toward a good rebirth than to stumble through life heedlessly, sowing seeds of future suffering. And yet, this approach has a fundamental limitation: it does not aim beyond samsara itself. No matter how lofty the rebirth, no matter how many eons of bliss in a heavenly realm, the result is still temporary. When the merit that produced it is exhausted, the practitioner will once again fall into the lower realms. The wheel keeps turning.

There is a traditional saying that captures this perfectly: to know what you did in the past, look at your present body. Because you accomplished great stores of merit in previous lives, you have obtained this precious human existence right now. But the saying continues: where you will be reborn next depends entirely on what you do now. And so the question becomes -- will you aim merely for another temporary stay in the upper realms of samsara, or will you aim for something that cannot be lost?

The Path of Middling Capacity: The Way of the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas

The path of middling capacity marks a decisive leap. Here, the practitioner is no longer content with a favorable rebirth. Having recognized that all of samsara, from its highest heavens to its lowest hells, is pervaded by suffering, they generate the sincere determination to escape cyclic existence altogether. This motivation -- the heartfelt aspiration for personal liberation -- is what distinguishes the practitioner of middling capacity from one who merely seeks a better life within the cycle.

The Shravakas, or "hearers," are those who follow the teachings of the Buddha primarily as they were given in the sutras. They train in the three disciplines that form the backbone of the Buddhist path: ethical conduct, as set forth in the Vinaya; meditative concentration, as taught in the Sutras; and wisdom, as elaborated in the Abhidharma. Through deep investigation, they examine the nature of the self -- this "I" that seems so solid and real -- searching for it among the five aggregates, the six elements, the stream of mental and physical events that make up our experience. And they discover, through direct and penetrating insight, that no such self can be found. What they took to be a fixed, independent entity is revealed to be a mere imputation, a label applied to a flowing process.

This realization of selflessness is not a philosophical conclusion. It is a direct seeing that uproots the very basis of samsaric existence. By training in this wisdom over a long period -- the texts speak of three lifetimes, or even longer -- the Shravaka eventually achieves the state of an Arhat, one who has exhausted the afflictive emotions and will not be reborn in samsara.

The Pratyekabuddhas, or "solitary realizers," follow a similar path, with some subtle differences in their approach. They tend to practice in solitude and are said to attain realization, particularly in their final life, without relying directly on a teacher in that lifetime. Their understanding of emptiness may be slightly more refined than that of some Shravakas, encompassing a deeper insight into the dependent arising of phenomena.

Both of these paths lead to a peace that is genuinely beyond samsara. The suffering of cyclic existence is ended. The practitioner abides in a state of profound tranquility. And yet, from the perspective of the Mahayana, this peace, while authentic, is not complete. It is sometimes compared to the deep rest of someone who has traveled a great distance and fallen asleep, exhausted, by the side of the road. The journey is not finished. There is a vaster awakening still to come.

The reason for this is that the Shravaka and Pratyekabuddha paths are motivated primarily by the wish to free oneself from suffering. This is entirely understandable and utterly valid -- but it does not encompass the full scope of what is possible. The realization of selflessness attained on these paths, while liberating, does not penetrate to the subtlest level of obscuration. There remain what are called the cognitive obscurations -- habitual patterns so fine that they do not cause suffering but still veil the mind's complete omniscience. To remove these requires a different motivation altogether.

The Path of Greater Capacity: Complete and Perfect Buddhahood

This is the path of the Bodhisattva -- the being who aspires not merely to personal liberation but to the awakening of all sentient beings without exception. The motivation here is bodhichitta, the mind of enlightenment, which is nothing less than the resolve to attain perfect Buddhahood for the sake of every living creature throughout the vast reaches of space.

It is this motivation that makes all the difference. Any act of virtue, no matter how small, when infused with bodhichitta, becomes a cause of complete Buddhahood. And any practice undertaken with the determination to be free from samsara, with the wisdom that sees the emptiness of both self and phenomena, and with this boundless compassionate intention -- these become the seeds of a fully awakened Buddha.

The path of greater capacity can itself be traversed in different ways, at different speeds. There is the long path of the Sutra tradition, the path of the Bodhisattva who gathers the two accumulations of merit and wisdom over three immeasurable eons, maturing infinite beings, purifying infinite buddhafields, and making offerings to infinite Buddhas. This path is vast and magnificent, but it is also extraordinarily long. As the Prayer of Good Actions describes, the scope of what must be accomplished is truly infinite -- infinite beings to benefit, infinite realms to purify, infinite awakened ones to honor.

Then there is the shorter path of the Vajrayana, the tantric path, where the practitioner is ripened through empowerment and, by keeping the sacred commitments with utmost purity and practicing the yogas of the generation and completion phases, can accomplish the level of Vajradhara -- complete Buddhahood in its tantric expression -- within a single human lifetime. In the outer tantras of Kriya, Upa, and Yoga, the journey might take three, five, or seven lifetimes. In the inner tantras of Mahayoga and Anuyoga, it can be accomplished within one life.

And then there is the swiftest path of all: the luminous Great Perfection, Dzogpachenpo. In this tradition, the practitioner receives the empowerments -- elaborate and unelaborate -- maintains the purity of the sacred commitments, and practices trekcho, the direct cutting through to primordial purity, and thogal, the spontaneous leap into the display of reality. Through these practices, it is said, the Body of the Great Transference can be accomplished in a matter of years and months.

Choosing the Highest Path

Of all these approaches, which should we choose? Patrul Rinpoche's answer is unequivocal. If you have the fortune to encounter the teachings and the capacity to practice them, aim for the highest. Do not settle for mere higher rebirth when liberation is possible. Do not settle for personal liberation when the complete awakening of Buddhahood lies within reach. And among the paths to Buddhahood, if you have the extraordinary good fortune to meet with the teachings of the Great Perfection, practice them.

This is not spiritual ambition in the ordinary sense. It is not about achieving the "best" result for oneself. The reason to aim for complete Buddhahood is that only a fully awakened Buddha possesses the limitless capacity to benefit all beings. A Shravaka or Pratyekabuddha, having attained personal peace, can inspire others and serve as an example, but their ability to help is circumscribed. A Buddha's activity, on the other hand, is as boundless as space itself, reaching every being in every realm according to their needs and capacities.

The contemplation of liberation's benefits, then, is not a detached intellectual exercise. It is meant to kindle something in the heart. Having seen the defects of samsara through the preceding contemplations, we are now invited to see, with equal vividness, what lies on the other side. The peace, the coolness, the excellence, the inconceivable qualities of realization -- these are not distant abstractions. They are our own deepest nature, temporarily hidden by the clouds of confusion and afflictive emotion. The path is the process of clearing those clouds away.

And so Patrul Rinpoche urges us: do not waste this precious opportunity. The human body you have now, with its freedoms and advantages, is the result of immense stores of merit gathered over countless lifetimes. It is the perfect vessel for the journey to awakening. Where you go from here -- whether you drift back into the lower realms, maintain your footing in the human world, or soar into the boundless freedom of Buddhahood -- depends entirely on what you do with the time you have been given.

The choice, as always, is yours.