There is no denying my fascination with Dante's works. The mixture of imagery, humor and theology is the perfect blend for my palate. Much to my delight, I found many of the same elements of Dante in the descriptions of the Tibetan Buddhist hells. However, instead of Dante's 9 hells, Tibetan Buddhists have 8 hot hells, 8 cold hells, and two ephemeral hells. Additionally, they have the realm of hungry ghosts, the animal realm, the human realm, the demigod realm and the god realm. Each realm brings its own kind of suffering. The hells bring extreme physical suffering, the hungry ghost (preta) realms bring unquenchable thirst and hunger, the animal realm brings savage brutality, the human realm brings death, old age and sickness, the demigod realm brings constant conflict, and the god realm is excruciatingly painful to leave, which is inevitable. Generally speaking, hells are the result of hateful actions, preta realms the result of desire, animal realms the result of ignorance, and the upper three realms the result of good actions done with attachment to samsara. However, all existence within samsara is suffering, even the outwardly blissful realms of the gods. The only way to escape all this suffering is to escape samsara. I bring all this up because it is really fascinating, but also to frame the next three practices of the bodhisattvas.
Practice #8 The Path of Lesser Beings
All the sufferings of the lower realms, so extremely difficult to bear,
Are taught by the Sage to be the fruit of one's evil actions.
Therefore, it is the practice of the bodhisattvas
To constantly refrain from evil actions, even at the cost of one's own life.
Practice #9 The Path of Mediocre Beings
The happiness of the three realms is like a dewdrop on the tip of a blade of grass;
It perishes by itself from one instant to the next.
Hence, it is the practice of the bodhisattva
To strive for the supreme level of liberation, always unchanging.
Practice #10 The Path of Great Beings
When all our mothers, who have cherished us since beginningless time, are suffering,
Of what use then is our own happiness?
Therefore, it is the practice of bodhisattvas to engender the mind of enlightenment
For the sake of liberating sentient beings beyond limit.
Karma is perfectly just. Good actions return good results and bad actions bring about bad results. However, karma is not bound by one lifetime. A bad human action may not bring about a bad result in the human life. Instead, the unvirtuous action might not ripen until a few rebirths later. What is sure though, is that enough bad actions lead to a rebirth in one of the lower realms (hells, pretas and animals). So the path of the lesser beings is basically to take up Buddhism as a means of escaping a rebirth in the lower realms. The motivating factor is fear and selfishness. Good actions are done simply with the hope of avoiding bad results.
The path of the mediocre beings is slightly more complex, but essentially the same. A clever individual realizes that all levels of existence in samsara are about suffering. Humans suffer (this is evident to all of us), demigods might have physical pleasure, but are tormented by infighting, and gods might have a blissful existence for 500 years, but upon exercising the positive results of positive actions the god will fall back into one of the lower realms, possibly even a hell realm. All the wise are frightened just as much of the higher realms as they are of the lower realms. These mediocre beings take up Buddhism as a means to escape suffering all together - to liberate themselves from samsara completely. In the end though, it is still fear and selfishness that motivate this pursuit of enlightenment.
Accepting that karma is beginningless, and given a finite number of beings (although innumerable), one can reason that over an infinite timeline every being has been our mother or father at some point in time. So Tibetan Buddhism teaches its practitioners to treat all sentient beings as they were one's mother. What good is one's own liberation if all of one's mothers are left behind in all the suffering realms? There are beings that were their mothers who are suffering in the lowest hell as we speak. So how can one seek his/her own enlightenment and abandon one's mother to hell. The path of the greater beings is about seeking liberation not for one's own sake, but seeking liberation so that one may help liberate others. These greater beings take up Buddhism as a means to relieve the suffering of all beings. It is love and compassion that motivates this pursuit of enlightenment.
I am a big fan of Dante's Inferno/Purgatory/Paradiso because it is multifaceted and capable of dealing with varying situations. Accordingly, I am a big fan of CS Lewis' "Great Divorce" because it not only gives multiple ends, but also movement between ends. And I dig S Mark Heim's, "The Depth of Riches" because his eschatology considers positive ends for other life-promoting traditions. All of these great thinkers propose a myriad of ends depending on how an individual lives one's life. In short, I believe that if free-will exists in any form (conventionally, corrupted, impaired, etc) than there are a lot more endings than just lakes of fire and cities of gold. It is with this mind set that I turn to the 8th, 9th and 10th practices of the bodhisattvas from this Christian's view.
Faith from fear results in partial salvation. Fire and brimstone keeps one out of the depths of hell, but as a primary form of motivation it also keeps one out of the heights of heaven. It is almost directly analogous to the path of lesser beings.
Faith from the love of Christ for one's own benefit also results in partial salvation. One may maximize one's own capability to commune with the Trinity, but is still not experiencing the fullest sense of salvation. Unless your Chritianity is heavily based on Origen, the path of the mediocre beings is not directly analogous here. However, the point remains that good done for one's own sake does not result in the fullest sense of salvation.
Faith from the love of Christ for Christ's own sake results in full salvation. However, to love Christ for Christ's sake means one must love like Christ. Only through complete abandonment of the self can one reach this kind of love. All is done freely, and with the express benefit of other beings. The highest endeavour one can take on is the salvation of every other being, that is the mind of Christ.
If each being communes with Trinity in its own unique way, than no one being can fully experience the Trinity on its own. However, if each being is in communion with the Trinity and every other being, than each individual being is able to experience a more intimate relation to the Trinity through other beings. Salvation is synergistic, and complete salvation is not reached until every being is in communion with the Trinity and every other being. Full salvation is corporate, not individual. In terms of intention, the Way of the Cross is indeed the Path of Great Beings.
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