(3000 WORLDS OF MIND AT A GIVEN MOMENT OR ICHINEN SANZEN)
The analysis of the mind and the illustrations noted in the Lotus Sutra analyzed by T’ien-t’ai are known as ICHINEN SANZEN.
According to ICHINEN SANZEN our mind revolves among 3000 worlds or 3000 thought waves. The world that comes to the surface of the mind is the world that we live in at that moment. This world changes every fraction of a second. These thoughts or the worlds are based on 10 major worlds, which arbitrate to form 3000 worlds or thought waves.
Out of these, the first six worlds are categorized as lower worlds, and the other four worlds are considered, higher worlds.
The lower worlds have a direct connection with the hell world. And the higher worlds keep away from the hell world.
Lower worlds
The first world is the hell world
Hell world is the lowest world where your mind is under incessant suffering.
Example1
Consider that you are in a situation where your four limbs have been tied down and you are being tortured.
As you are conscious and rational, you know that you are being tortured. Your nerves are intact.
You feel the pain. You are sensible and know how to get over this suffering.
How? You could run away or you could fight back.
You have the strength to fight back and legs to run away but as your limbs have been tied down you cannot do either.
Example 2
You are in need of money and you have a lot of plans as to how you could earn money but you cannot make it happen, and so your mind is in hell
The second world is the hunger world
The hunger world is quite different from the hunger of unlimited desires. We practice the “Lotus Sutra” to achieve our goals or desires.
In the hunger world you wish to reach the highest possible state, but you do not make any attempt to achieve this, and you are also unhappy with your present state of life, and you suffer because of your unfulfilled desires, without attempting to work towards fulfilling them.
For example: you wish to be a Doctor. But you don’t want to do your studies properly. You will always live in sorrow thinking that you could have been a Doctor. You cannot lead a happy life, even though you could be happy with your present employment. This means the Hunger world will lead you to suffer and is directly connected to the hell world and that is why this is categorized as a lower world.
The third world is animality
You live in the animality world when you live in society without respecting social norms.
For example: you have uncontrollable anger and disturb society. Then you may end up in jail and suffer. In other words, you behave in society like an animal and you cannot survive or maintain your happiness. You will end up suffering or in the hell world.
The fourth world is the anger world
Sensation of anger is one of the features of animality world as illustrated above, but the anger world means that you possess an egoistic mind where you think that you are superior and you could do what you like in society and you continue doing so and create problems for yourself and end up in the hell world.
The fifth world is the humanity world
You may wonder why the humanity world is categorized as a lower world.
Practically, when you live in society abiding by the social commitments and norms you live in the humanity world. Owing to your social commitments you will not be able to express your normal feelings, and so you have to suppress yourself with a lot of effort to remain in the society as a good human.
For example: you may not like your superiors but you cannot cross them, because doing so will have repercussions. So you have to tolerate them whether you like it or not and be in the hell world.
Supposing you are a preacher and you are slapped by someone while you are preaching, as you are a common mortal you want to slap him back, but just to impress the audience you control your feelings and smile. However, your mind is in the hell world until you take revenge on that person. This means that while leading a normal human life and abiding by the social norms, you have to control yourself with a lot of effort. This leads you to hell world.
Man created cultural and social customs, rules and regulations etc, all this creates hell in our minds in certain instances.
The sixth world is the rapture world
When you are temporally in a state of lust, you act without thinking. This could lead to a situation where you end up in real sorrow.
For example: if you belong to a rich family, you will not attempt to study and ultimately you will not be able to manage your money and this will lead you to misery and hell.
Another example is the way some politicians act when they are in power, but later they suffer due to their irrational actions.
All the above worlds are lower worlds. Almost all of us in our day-to-day life live in these worlds, and then almost always, we live in the hell world, as all the other lower worlds lead to the hell world.
Higher Worlds
The seventh world is the world of learning
Every day we gain new experiences in life. This is learning. For instance if you have never seen fire, you will put your hand into the burning flame and burn yourself and suffer and will be in the hell world. From this act you will learn the nature of fire. Thus when you see fire again you will not put your hand in, this means that learning helps you to avoid hell. Therefore it is a higher world.
The eighth world is the world of realization
The world of realization is where you implement what you learn in order to get rid of suffering or the hell world.
If you are suffering due to the cold in winter, you may light a fire and make yourself warm, and escape that suffering. You learn that fire is hot and therefore would not put your hand in, because you could get yourself burnt; instead, you make use of the fire to make your life comfortable when you are in hell. This is to say, realization will help you to get out of the hell world. Therefore it is a higher world.
The ninth world is the world of Bodhisattva
Kindness, compassion, love, mettha, muditha, are the characteristics of the Bodhisattva world that makes your mind peaceful and tranquil. If you live in the Bodhisattva world as a human being, you do not have to control yourself and suffer in society.
The example given for the world of humanity is where a person slaps you while you are preaching.
If you were in the real Bodhisattva world you would not get angry with the person, instead you would think of saving him from the people who had been listening to you as they could harm him.
The tenth world is the Buddha world
All the qualities we admire in the Buddha’s character, such as Karuna, Muditha etc. are categories of the “Bodhisattva world”.
Then, what is the Buddha world?
This is the power you have within you to overcome the planetary barrier or the effect of nature, and then you could control nature in such a way to overcome all your bad karma brought forward by the planetary barrier. The Buddha showed the power of this world by performing “Yamamaha Pelahera” where he showed us how he could control nature and also Buddha showed this by illuminating the world’s in the ten directions of the universe by the light emitted from his forehead.
All these worlds are common to ordinary mortals like us and also to the Buddha.
The Buddha also inherits all these worlds.
• What is the hell world of the Buddha? It is seeing our suffering.
• What is his hunger world? The desire the Buddha has to enlighten all of us.
• What is the animality world of the Buddha? He took his seven year old son to his order without the mothers consent and faced criticism due to his act.
• What is the Buddha’s anger world? To know that his enlightenment is supreme.
• The Buddha’s humanity world was that his behavior as a human being in order to enlighten people. He faced a lot of problems in doing so. (Story of Chinchi Manavika)
• His learning world was preaching to suit a particular group of people and through this he gained the experience he needed.
• Buddha’s realization world is preaching the Lotus Sutra for the salvation of all living beings, in the latter day of the law by using the Theravada and Prathyeka Buddhayanas as preparatory teachings.
• The Buddha’s Bodhisattva world is his compassion, because of which, he preached the Lotus Sutra in order for every living being to attain enlightenment, immaterial of cast, creed, nationality or the mental state of the person. Even a person like Devadatha, in the lowest mental frame, could attain enlightenment through the Lotus Sutra.
• The Buddha’s “Buddha world” is the one where he has the power to control nature as he wishes to (the way he did in Yama Maha Pelahara).
How the ten worlds arbitrate to form 3000 worlds?
In day-to-day life we might be able to tap the Buddha world for an instant but we are unable to sustain it.
For example:
In the television program “That is incredible” a lady said that while she was driving her car on a mountain, something happened and she lost control, the car fell into a precipice and she got thrown off unharmed. She ran to the car and could see her son jammed between a rock and the car. She had lifted the car with one hand and pulled the child out. After that she could not believe that she had done it and she was asking for an explanation.
Here the mother had been mainly in the Bodhisattva world where kindness, compassion and all the Bodhisattva qualities were stimulated by seeing her son’s suffering. She would have been living in the Bodhisattva world continuously and she could have tapped the Buddha world for an instant. The power and energy of the Buddha world enabled her to lift the car, but she could not sustain it for long. The moment the child was saved she would have been in the rapture world and instantaneously the Buddha world would have been submerged.
The three thousand worlds
When we have ten different items we could make 100 patterns using them.
Likewise with the 10 worlds we are able to make 100 patterns.
Now let us see what happened to the lady? The first pattern in her mind would have been the pattern shown bellow, let us call it number 1 and then it changes to the other patterns.
1.Hell – Hunger – Animality – Anger – Humanity – Rapture – Learning – Realization – Bodhisattva – Buddha hood
The Bodhisattva world could come after the hell world and now the pattern is as follows.
2.Hell – Bodhisattva – Hunger Etc.
3.Bodhisattva – Buddha world – Rapture etc.
4.Buddha world – Bodhisattva world Etc.
5.Rapture – Buddha world Etc.
She reacted according to the world, which came to the surface of her mind.
10 x 10 = 100 worlds or different patterns as illustrated above.
These 100 are multiplied by 10 factors = 1000
10 factors
The 10 factors will be discussed in detail in the chapter “Inter-Relation of Karma and the ninth Consciousness & 10 factors)
