Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Alex Berzin examines karma not as cosmic punishment or predetermination but as a natural system of cause and effect rooted in impulse and mental habit. In this 45-minute teaching, he unpacks karma across three levels—physical actions like killing or stealing, verbal conduct such as lying and divisive speech, and mental patterns including covetous, malicious, and antagonistic thinking. He explains how each impulse leaves a tendency that ripens into future impulses, habits, and comprehensive life conditions, using concrete examples: how harming animal life creates accident-proneness; how plotted malice ripens into paranoia. Berzin stresses that karma requires premeditation, correct identification, and actual completion to produce certain results. He then addresses purification through Vajrasattva practice, clarifying that a hundred thousand repetitions can eliminate negative potential and tendency, but only by coupling the practice with understanding voidness—the absence of fixed identity—can one truly dissolve deep habit. He concludes with how pure action without ego-grasping creates enlightening influence on others, distinguishing this from impulsive or compulsive helping. Pitched at practitioners seeking a non-dogmatic, psychologically informed view of karma and transformation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 1987 05 12 Karma.mp3
UUID: 73600a79-4335-4c23-9ba1-4eb19bc3a203
Teacher: Alex Berzin
Collection: Karma – What is it really (Alex Berzin)
Date: 1987-05-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~6,837
Right. Well, that’s what I’m leading up to. That’s what I’m leading up to. So we have that on the physical level. We have so here we have a whole system of ethics which is not based on moral judgments, just based on matter of fact.
There are certain things that are likely to be more destructive and build up more problems and involve more problems. Fine. You want to do that, well, that’s your business. But this is, you know, what you’re gonna have to deal with. Other things which are less likely to produce so many problems.
That’s all I was talking about. Then on the, verbal level, there’s lying. There’s using divisive language that’s causing people to part who are friendly or those who are not friendly to be even more apart, it’s sort of causing trouble with what you say. And then there’s using harsh language. It’s yelling at somebody, abusing you know these sort of verbal type of things and then idle gossip, idle chatter, just meaningless talk, just you know blah blah blah blah blah blah, wasting your time, everybody else’s time.
On the mental level, the train of thought is what we’re dealing with here. So the train of thought is first of all you know there’s the urge to think that way — that’s the karma, that’s the impulse — but then the actual train of thought, well the first one is covetous thinking. Covetous thinking is to not only desire what somebody else has what your neighbor has to covet what thy neighbor what your neighbor has but it’s to go further than that it’s actually plan how am I going to get it and making decision to do it. Know it’s a much stronger type of, action you know. My neighbor has a new model car.
I have to have a new model car because everybody’s gonna think that I’m you know not up to the par of my neighbor and how am I gonna go out to do that and you know this sort of thing. So, it’s not just wanting it, it’s planning. Then, there’s thinking with malice, which is not only wishing that somebody break their neck, but plotting how to do it, planning how to do it, deciding how to do it, you’re gonna go out and do it. Alright? So it’s a much stronger type of thing.
The same thing with distorted antagonistic thinking. You know, to just translate it wrong views, that’s much too weak. It’s not just having a distorted idea of what’s going on, but it’s being highly antagonistic to anybody else who disagrees with you or anybody who has a correct view. It’s sort of like you accuse a fellow practitioner of doing something that they shouldn’t have done and this fellow practitioner not only denies it but gets very, very threatened by it, violent about it, becomes really antagonistic in terms of that. Or somebody who feels that who has an incorrect view.
And you try to correct them. And instead of accepting that they were wrong, they just attack you. We’ve all had familiarity with that. That’s antagonistic thinking, distorted thinking. That’s what makes it so heavy.
It’s not just that you have a wrong view, but you’re extremely hostile and antagonistic to being corrected. Burn everybody at the stake who disagrees with me. This type of attitude and deciding that you’re gonna do that. You’re gonna act out this hostility, this antagonism. That’s what’s involved with distorted antagonistic thinking.
Important to know what they are. So we have the train of thought that follows from the urge to do that. The karma’s the actual urge. And then we have the train of thought, which is the action. Both of those together are going to act as a positive or a negative potential.
Because you have this urge and then you think in that way, that acts as a potential to think like that again. But here, the potential isn’t a wave of energy because it’s just something which is mental. But like the revealing could act as a potential without necessarily being carried on. These also act as potentials without it necessarily being carried on in some type of mechanism. But, once we stop thinking in that way, you know, of plotting how am I get even with this one or that one, then that leaves a tendency and a habit the same way as we had before.
These get carried on and will give rise to some sort of impulse. An impulse to either think in that way again or to have things appear in a discordant way. Like if you’re always having really thinking with malice, antagonism, how am I gonna get even with people, then that’s gonna ripen in paranoia. These habits are gonna make everybody as though they’re plotting against you as well because you’re plotting against them and you know you have our whole game being, continued, perpetuated. Now, there are many different ways in which these things ripen.
We don’t have so much time, but as you know, you have a whole sort of physical situation that can ripen from that in terms of a rebirth, a situation that you’re born into with your body and so on being in a certain type of way are the things that you experience that, you’re going to be involved within that, physical level, how that’s going to be. But, also they ripen in things that correspond to their cause. Things in our experience and our habits. And so you know like from killing then from taking the life of others you’re shortening the life of others and so that course that will ripen in we ourselves you know because you experience what you’ve created if the life if you’ve damaged life energy then your own life energy is going to be weak so it’s in terms of what we experience we get sick we get into accidents we ourselves get hurt these sort of things that’s why people are accident prone. The impulse comes up to you know bang into the wall or something like that.
Where is that coming from? That’s coming from damaging life force. Damaged life force of others, your own life force gets damaged in terms of the impulses that come to your head to do things like that. And it’ll also ripen in impulses to repeat similar type of actions. So it would be like the impulse to be sadistic, right, to, hurt others even when you’re very small.
There are some kids who like to dorje animals. You know, let’s go kick the dog or cat. These sort of things, where’s that impulse coming? That’s coming from these prior actions of know hurting the life force of others. So you have these type of ways that things ripen and it also ripens in a comprehensive result.
The comprehensive result is going to be in a certain situation let’s say in the whole environment in which we’re reborn. Because this is going to, you know, there’s a lot of discussion of how, you know, based on these impulses in our mind, what we clutch at when we die. You know, it’s like you’re thrown into the water and you just grab for anything. What do you grab for? You grab for whatever the impulse comes to your head to grab for.
What’s dominant in your thinking? What’s dominant in your head? And so you grab for something, so that would lead to a rebirth situation. You grab for a sperm and egg or whatever it is, a certain situation that then leads to a rebirth. Now in that rebirth where you’re reborn, the type of body you have, what you experience, you know the accidents you’re gonna have, the impulses that come to your head to repeat certain actions.
All that’s explained by these potentials, tendencies, and habits. And the comprehensive result is the environment that you’re born into. So for instance from damaging the life force of others it would be in an environment in which the medicine is very weak, the food is very weak, there’s nothing, know the doctors are poor, there’s no facilities for supporting the life forces of your self. These sort of things so everything corresponds. Now we don’t have time to go into all the discussion of that you can find it in books but the interesting point of it is it where do we place the responsibility for what happens to us?
It’s not predetermination. It’s just an explanation. You can have the impulse to be a sadist. You can have an impulse to you know, go down a dark alley at night where you’re gonna get mugged. But, you know, we always have the choice to act out that impulse or not.
Yeah? Right. Right. Right. Mhmm.
You’ve got it. That’s what saṃsāra is talking about uncontrollably recurring problems. Exactly. That’s why you want to break it. Well, to a child, you know, who’s kicking the dog or the cat or fishing or something like that, you know, you have to appeal to a child’s mentality.
So, you know, like things like, do you think that fish has a mommy and a daddy? You know, what do you think that fish’s mommy thinks when that fish doesn’t come home now? Yeah. You have to be skillful. Yeah.
Pardon? Cats are very difficult. That’s a very unfortunate that’s a very unfortunate mentality, cat mentality. No, I mean all you can try to do with a cat is you know not provide the circumstances for it to do that. Well, that as well is, coming up from these impulses.
Well, you know, the question that he’s asking is, you know, what about people who aren’t receptive to, hearing about things like this? And, again, you have to turn to what the Buddha himself said, that, a Buddha can’t, eliminate people’s problems just like taking a thorn out of somebody’s foot. You know, all that a Buddha can do is try to explain to, try to, show an example, act as an enlightening influence. You hear this term Buddha activity or virtuous conduct. What it’s talking about is an enlightening influence, an influence that somebody can exert the way that they are.
But there’s just a certain amount of energy that’s available in the universe. The energy of what’s said is the energy of karma and the energy of Buddha activity is the same. What does that mean? The energy of these impulses that come to people’s heads, these impulses with which they act out things and so on, that energy and the energy that an enlightened being can exert on them in terms of an enlightening influence, well, this is just the same amount of energy. So depending on how compelling these impulses are, somebody’s gonna be receptive or not receptive, all you can do is try.
But you have to be skillful. You know, you don’t go around and, you know, goody goody, you know, you should all stop this. They’ll kill you. Make you into a hamburger. Right.
Well what it’s what they say is that a bodhisattva you know somebody’s trying to help others you try your best to help others if it works great if it doesn’t work well you know that’s all you can do you see it comes from a misconception that you know this model of being an omnipotent God you know that I am an omnipotent God you don’t think that consciously. We have that model. Therefore, I should have been able to have helped this person. They didn’t take my my advice. They killed themselves or whatever.
Therefore, I’m guilty. Right? You go on a big guilt trip, which is based on this misconception that I’m a god and I could have stopped it. Well, nobody has that power. And so if we realize that, then what we do is you just try your best to exert some positive influence on others.
If it works, great. Now, don’t put a big black line around you how wonderful I am. You know, I’ve saved you. But if it works, great. If it doesn’t work, well, you tried your best.
No. Not all Buddhists are vegetarians. Well, you know, there are a lot of, issues involved with vegetarianism and non vegetarianism. First of all, one shouldn’t become self righteous over being vegetarian because, just being a human being with the type of body that we have, we are going to inevitably kill. Alright?
There’s no way that you can eat without killing. Things cannot be grown without lots of insects dying, without even walking on the ground to pick it. Even if you don’t spray the food, you’re going to step on something. Somebody’s going to step on something. And in plowing the ground and planting it, things are going to die.
There’s no way that we can survive, that we can live without killing. You can’t walk on the ground without stepping on something normally. All right, you can’t drink a glass of water. You can’t boil anything without killing things. So let’s not get self righteous over vegetarian and non vegetarian.
That’s the first point. The second point is that yes, it’s best to be vegetarian. Nobody will deny that. What it says in Buddhism is that there’s no dogmatic, you know, black and white thing. You’re gonna have different situations in which different individuals for you know, are going to be in varying states of health.
Certain people are going to need a certain diet because of some sickness that they might have. And in that situation, you eat what is appropriate. There are also certain practices that we could be involved in. Some practices, and this could be for the same person at different stages of their practice. At a certain level, it’s very important to, let’s say, the Hīnayāna person, is to eat whatever is given to you.
Right? So, I mean, the example that’s used is, you know, I mean, it’s drastic. If a leper’s thumb falls into your bowl, you know, you accept that. So, yet alone a t bone steak. The point of it being now, obviously, that doesn’t mean that you eat a leprous thumb, but what it’s talking about is using the example to say that when you are practicing humility, you accept whatever is given to you.
You don’t make a big deal. Know, you go to your parents’ house and they serve you meat and you lay this big trip on them oh you’re gonna go to hell this is terrible and you cause a big family problem that’s not you know there’s no point to that you don’t have to eat a lot of it you know to the point is you know when one’s practicing on that level of humility you eat what’s given to you. Then there can be another level of practice in which you’re involved very much with developing compassion, love, things like that or certain practices involving purification, these sort of things in which it’s very important to eat vegetarian. And so, when you’re doing that kind of practice, then that’s really important. Then there are other types of practice in which one is working with the subtle energies in the body in which in order to keep those energies, what should we say, balanced and not have them go haywire, then certain heavy fatty diets are required for that, in which, again, meat would be necessary.
And so it’s a matter of not being righteous about one thing or another. It’s saying, see what the situation is, try to cause as least amount of harm as possible. If you can be vegetarian, great. But still things are gonna be killed. And if your, you know, your body or your health or whatever requires non vegetarian, well, do it in a way which is causing the least amount of suffering with a great appreciation for the animal’s life, respect for the animal, saying various prayers or whatever.
But it’s done within that context. It’s a complicated issue. Now, I mean, it brings us to a point about karma. Was gonna mention this, but there’s things about certainty of karma, certainty of what ripens, which is that if we act in a destructive way, it is going to produce negative results, problems. And if we act in a constructive way, it’s going to bring about constructive results.
So you look at an example like, for instance, a Buddha. The Buddha in a previous lifetime was, in a situation in which he was on a boat. He was a captain of a boat. There were, there was an oarsman and there were five hundred merchants on the boat and that oarsman was going to kill everybody on the boat. The Buddha saw that, he was going to do this and he saw there was no way to stop this guy unless he himself killed the oarsmen.
So he killed the oarsmen. He did this in order to both save the five hundred people from being killed and also to prevent that oarsman from building up a tremendous negative potential. Now, what ripens from that? What ripens from that is there’s two things involved there. There’s the motivation and there’s the action.
From the motivation, it resulted in the Buddha building up a tremendous amount of positive potential. He had to build up positive potential or merit over three countless eons or three zillion eons. Let’s finish the first of those zillion. So it was a big act. You know what he did to save these five hundred people.
However, his act of killing that person was something which was negative. It was destructive and that resulted in later on the Buddha getting a splinter. Now getting a splinter is something which is very minor but the Buddha explained it to show that well there was something negative involved Because the motivation was so good and so pure, the results of that negative thing were very minor, but still it’s going to result in something negative. So the point is that when you’re involved in doing something negative, that you know, even if it’s for the best of motivations, it should be with the idea that I am totally willing to accept on myself the negative consequences of this in order to be able to help others. Fully aware that it’s going to cause some negative consequences.
Right? And it’s with that selflessness that then you do something positive to help somebody else. So, like with, eating meat or, you know, somebody else killing killing the meat, things like that, it says that there are two actions here. There’s one killing the meat and one eating the meat. Killing or having somebody else kill it for you is the same thing.
That builds up the negative potential to be killed yourself. Eating meat, that’s not the same as killing it. It’s a negative thing, and that will build up the potential for you to be eaten. So it’s not dismissing it. If somebody eats meat, of course that’s going to be negative.
The question is, what is the situation in which you’re in? If you’re in a situation in which you’re going to get very, very ill, your isn’t going have any strength, which for certain diseases is the case, then, well, I will accept the negative consequences, not just because I like meat, but because I need the strength to be able to continue my work helping others, for instance. And you accept the negative consequences of it consciously, that’s the situation in which it’s done. It’s a complex issue. The relationship between karma and the work that you might get into in a community, the work being what occupation you have, again, there’s going to be these impulse because of various habits and tendencies and connections that we’ve had in past lives, then impulses come to your head to take certain occupation, to meet certain people.
So it’s going to be something which is related in the to something we’ve had in the past. Like, for instance, why does the impulse come to a certain group of people in a city to go to a Buddhist center or to hear about Buddhism, whereas, everybody else in your family, it would never enter their head to do that. Why does it enter your head through this type of mechanism? There must have been some prior connection that accounts for that. Mhmm.
Right. Right. If it’s a continuing line of energy, you can’t change anything that’s past, that’s that’s, you know, in the past tense as it were because that’s finished. But whatever positive energy that, you’ve, built up, that’s something which can increase. You know, when you have built up this nonrevealing form, right, let’s build up with vows as well.
I mean, that’s why it says when you’ve taken the bodhisattva vows, whether you are awake or asleep, it still builds up more and more positive potential. Why? Because of this non revealing form on your mind stream. The energy there is something which is growing. So that is something which builds up.
Negative potential, likewise, is something which can grow. Also, it’s like you call somebody a bad name, and then they resent it. The longer that it goes without apologizing, that resentment, that potential, that negative potential gets stronger and stronger. It’s bigger. That’s another point about karma, how it increases.
Well how long it takes to get off the treadmill. That’s exactly the Sure. That’s exactly the issue that I wanted to discuss how Vajrasattva purification works. What the whole purification process is. We have Vajrasattva.
Alright? Vajrasattva is a type of practice to purify. Now, saying a hundred syllable mantra. Now, obviously if you just go blah blah blah, hundred syllables and imagine some joker on your head spraying you with a hose and you know shining a torch on you that’s not going to have any effect. You know so it has to be combined with something.
Has to be a whole attitude of minds. The attitude of mind is one of openly admitting that you know whatever negative things we’ve done in the past these were wrong. Being honest with ourselves. Feeling regret over it which is different from guilt. Guilt is identifying with being the naughty child.
Regret is like I regret eating this food that made me sick. I don’t feel guilty about it. And promise not, you know, to try our best not to continue doing this. Reaffirm the direction that we’re going in life, the safe direction, these sort of things. Rededicate our hearts to others, open them up to others more, and then do this purification practice.
Okay, now, it says that if you do Vajrasattva twenty one times, that is going to stop that potential from growing, the negative potential from growing. Alright? So it just stymies it. It makes it, not get stronger and stronger. If you do it a hundred thousand times, which you know any neurotic person can repeat something a hundred thousand times, it’s no big deal, has to be done with all the proper attitudes, and concentration.
If you do that a hundred thousand times, then it can stop that potential from ripening. It gets rid of the potential. Okay, so now what does that mean? There’s several things going on there. First of all, it gets rid of the potential.
It doesn’t get rid of the tendency in the habit. Tendency and habit are still there. It’s like if you stop smoking, right? Or you stop drinking and you do it through Alcoholics Anonymous or something like that, what’s gonna happen? The potential to drink again is not going to arise.
The potential to smoke again is not going to arise, give rise to anything because you’re not gonna get into the circumstance or the situation which would allow something to happen. You’re not gonna go to the pub. You’re not going to buy the cigarettes. You’re always going to go to the AA meetings. Nevertheless, there’s still the tendency and habit there.
So anybody who goes to these AA meetings will say that. I’m still an alcoholic. Big black line around who they are, their identity. I’m still the alcoholic and all I would have to do is have one drink again and again I’ll immediately get into drinking. Why?
Because the habit and tendency is there. And we can see that with when you give up smoking, the habit and tendency to be addicted to something is still there and then it gets transferred to eating candy or sweets or whatever you call it here. Or if you’ve given up drinking coffee then you get addicted to tea. These sort of things you know because the tendency and habit are still there. So what you want to do is you know work further and further to try to get rid of these things and how do we try to get rid of these things further is you see before it was with the Vajrasattva done without an understanding of reality the absence of fantasized ways of existing.
Right? So it was still well but I’m still the alcoholic type of way of doing it but if we can do this with the understanding of voidness Right? The absence of fantasized ways of existing. That doesn’t mean, know, well, my problem doesn’t exist. Therefore, I don’t have a problem.
But what it means is that, you know, without these big black lines around things, you know, making myself I am the alcoholic, I am the drug addict, I am the cigarette addict type of identity. Then the disturbing attitude which is going to come up in terms of fighting against that because I really am the alcoholic so I’m going to always have to have my guard up or I, you know, have this constant desire for the cigarettes. These sort of things are not going to come up. Well, what level is not going to come up? There’s two levels of disturbing attitudes.
One is based on ideology and the other is automatically arising. So for instance from ideology, I explained this on Sunday but for those who aren’t here, from ideology we’ve seen all the cigarette ads and they’ve always said you know you smoke Winston’s or you smoke Marlboro and you’re gonna be cool. Alright? Or if you smoke you know a certain lady’s cigarette that’s also going to make you into a cool chick. This type of propaganda.
Based on that then you know when we were a young child then in order to be cool to be accepted by our peer group all these sort of things we had to smoke. Right? So we had this disturbing attitude, this desire for the cigarette based on ideology, based on propaganda. When we see the absence of fantasized ways of existing, no black lines, nobody’s made cool by smoking, that’s bullshit. Then, we are you know, when you can see that straightforwardly, then you get out of this disturbing attitude that would arise from ideology.
It’s not gonna come up. You’re not going to have this desire for the cigarette in order make you be cool. Alright? But, so that’s the first seeing of voidness, of this absence. But, we’re going to have to deal with it much more because even though we realize it’s not going to make us cool, just still automatically that desire is going to be there.
Now, we’ve gotten rid of acting out the desire. It was with the Vajrasattva, but it could always come back. Now, we’re trying to get rid of the desire. So this desire for it to smoke because it’s going to make us cool, that’s not going to come up but just automatically that desire for the cigarette’s going to come up. Not only the desire but the impulse.
The impulse to want to smoke it. Now it’s by becoming more and more familiar with this absence of fantasized ways of existing, with this absence, that even the automatically arising desire is not going to come up. Because we see, I mean, you know, nothing is going to, know, the whole urge behind it, the whole search behind it, you know, to get secure by, you know, having, something that you’re taking into you. You know, people who are nervous or whatever and therefore they have to smoke in order to calm their nerves or whatever. That you know that whole process of what you’re worrying about underneath it is not going to be satisfied by this.
You’re on the wrong track. When we see all that, then we’ll get rid of the disturbing attitudes altogether. So what happens? We’ve gotten rid of the potential. By the process of seeing voidness, we got rid of the tendencies as well.
What are we left with? Now we’re left with the habit. That’s still very deep. The habit is no longer going to give rise to the impulse to smoke or the desire to smoke. We’ve gotten rid of that when we’ve gotten rid of the potential tendency.
The habit, though, is causing our mind to make that cigarette appear attractive. Something that really should be set on fire and stuck in your mouth. You don’t have the desire for it or anything like that but still it appears to you in this crazy way. Appears attractive. And it’s only with further and further familiarity with absence of fantasized ways of existing that this doesn’t exist with a big black line around it.
It’s something so inherently attractive. What is it? It’s some plant, chopped plant in a piece of paper. I mean, that’s all that it is. What is it?
That is what it is. And so it’s taking away, seeing the absence of black lines around that, when we can actually see its reality that we’ll be able to get rid of the habit. So it’s this long process of initial purification with Vajrasattva. You know the strong regret and promise not to do it again which is the important aspect of it but then you know more than that we have to see the absence of fantasized ways of existing and see it sustainedly to cut through the many many levels of That’s how it works. karma as action or?
What was the first word? karmaless action or motiveless action. Yes, well that’s another whole feature about karma is how do we determine the strength of these impulses? And this is determined by a lot of different factors. So for instance, you have to have a basis involved in any action.
Know, if you scream and yell and there’s nobody there then obviously it’s not so heavy as if there’s somebody there. Right? So there has to be some basis. There also has to be some sort of intention. It’s different if you do it know something by accident or you do it on purpose.
There also has to be a know correct identification of what you’re doing. You know if you do it by mistake, you know I didn’t mean to shoot you I did it by mistake. Didn’t know it was loaded type of thing that is less heavy than you know going out and premeditatedly shooting somebody knowing what you’re doing. This sort of thing, so the motivation is important there. Also, there has to be some disturbing attitude present.
That’s going to make it heavier as well. If you scold your child simply because, it’s necessary to be heavy so the child will listen, well it’s different if you do that without being angry or if you completely lose your temper and lose your cool and scream and yell. You know, it’s a very different action. Also there has to be an actual action involved. You have to actually do it whatever it is that you’re doing and it has to reach a completion like if you yell at somebody they have to understand what you said and think that you meant it.
If you yell at them and they didn’t hear you well then it’s not completed or if they were deaf and they didn’t understand you or they didn’t speak your language, it’s different. So there are all these different factors which are involved. And, you know there are many divisions in karma. We don’t really have time to go into it but there are certain actions that there’s certainty that consequences will be experienced and others which there’s no certainty. And the thing has to be both built up to and actually committed for it to be for there to be certainty that results will follow.
In other words, if you plan to do something but you don’t actually do it, you know, it doesn’t the consequences don’t follow. If you do it by accident, the consequences don’t follow. You know, if you do it by mistake or these sort of things it doesn’t follow. It’s only if it’s sort of premeditated and you actually do it that Pure motiveless action like scratching your head? I mean, you’re talking about neutral type of actions.
Right? Yeah, but you have to understand, to repeat that. The example she’s asking, a situation in which there isn’t a conscious motive for doing something good like somebody drops an umbrella and you just automatically pick it up and give it to to the person. There are a motive Right. Right.
Right. Isn’t there something — a pure motiveless action? What we’re getting confused with is the word motiveless. There are pure actions. I’ll explain.
There are pure actions which don’t You see, what do we want to avoid here? What we want to avoid is acting impulsively or compulsively, compulsive existence. Alright? Now, any type of action that we do out the understanding of the absence of fantasized ways of existing, in other words that, we commit still with our mind putting big black lines around things, is going to lead to karma built up of future impulsive actions. So it will be either if you act destructively, in the future impulses to act destructively will come to your head.
Or if you act constructively, then, likewise, impulses will come to your head to act in a constructive way. But that could be in an impulsive way as well. Like, for instance, if you still put the big black line around it, like you know, oh, I’m so wonderful, I’m helping you. Or, I’m helping you and, so you should love me in return, or you should thank me in return, or I’m doing this because I want to be liked, or I’m doing this because you are my child and I love you so much, you’re so sweet. This type of thing with the big black line around it, grasps, grasps, mine mine.
Those are things which, yes, they’re positive. Know, you’re actually helping the person And it is going to ripen in impulses coming to our head to act in constructive ways in the future. But it could be in a very compulsive type of way. How somebody compulsively corrects you whether you want to be corrected or not. You know, or compulsively helps you when you’d rather do it yourself.
These sort of compulsive ways of acting, you know, the impulses come up. You say it’s motiveless. This person picks up the umbrella. Well, they’re not even thinking. You see, is, your word motiveless is a little bit awkward here because things could be done consciously, unconsciously, impulsively, or non impulsively.
You know, that’s not really the issue. The issue that you’re asking is how do we get over acting impulsively, whether it’s positive or negative? And the only way to do that is to have this understanding of the absence of fantasized ways of existing. However you act, see it without a big black line around me. I’m so wonderful doing this.
You, you poor slob, I’ll help you. And the action itself, I’m gonna get goody goody points up on the scoreboard in the sky. If we see it without these big black lines around things, you know, you’re just doing it to help the other person and not being hung up in who’s doing it, who’s being done, and this sort of thing, then that’s not going to build up any of these impulses. That’s pure karma, as it were. So what that builds up is being able to have an enlightening influence on others like a Buddha has, to be able to act like a Buddha has, which spontaneously accomplishes everything it says.
Now, to act spontaneously, that’s also a difficult word in English because, you know, we use the word spontaneous to mean to do anything that comes to your head, which, could mean acting compulsively. You know, you slap the baby whenever the baby cries. Well, that’s spontaneous. That’s natural. That’s what comes to my head is to smack the baby.
We wouldn’t say that that’s, you know, being spontaneous in a positive way. Yes. Well, in the the Buddhist training, we should be aware of everything that’s going on all the time. So, awareness of what’s going on. Right?
And, when we talk about a Buddha spontaneously accomplishing everything, it means that, you know, because what we don’t want is to become a slave to whatever impulses come to our head, but to be able to be mindful, see what’s going on, and so on. A Buddha spontaneously accomplishes all in the sense that Buddha exerts this fantastic positive influence on everybody around them and without having to consciously do anything, people are inspired by the example of someone like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, to be very kind, to, you know, to think more clearly, to, you know, do whatever. That’s what it means to be to spontaneously accomplish everything. So, pure karma, karma done, you know, actions done without making the big black lines around things, those will result in being able to act in that way of having this, enlightening influence on everyone. Well, takes two to tango, doesn’t it?
We might think that we’re not, but there are many subtle ways. I’m using this word absence of fantasized ways of existing. I use that quite deliberately because there are many different tenets that the Buddha taught of what are fantasized ways of existing. You know, it could become more and more and more subtle. And I use the example of putting big black lines around things that’s the grossest and it’s the easiest for us as Westerners to relate to.
But it’s more and more subtle. We might not be putting the black line around things, but we might be doing it on a much more subtle level. Now, the question that what you were saying implies is, you know, being mindful of things, we might get the misconception that that means being deliberate. It doesn’t necessarily mean that, we want to always be deliberate because, again the word spontaneous in English has not only the concept, the idea of doing whatever comes to your head, but it also has the concept of not deliberating, just acting. Right?
Now, just acting, not deliberating, that also is something which eventually we want to be able to do. You know, you don’t just, but it’s something which naturally we’re able to do with familiarity. It’s like when you drive a car, you don’t have in the beginning, you have to deliberate about each thing that you do. But once you get used to it, then you’re able to do it without what we would say in our Western way of speaking without thinking. Tibetan would object to that because obviously you’re using your mind and for them the word thinking implies that you’re using your mental faculties.
So obviously you are using your mental faculties but you’re not deliberating. Deliberating is sort of going blah blah blah in our head. Well what should I do now? Now, I’ll move this stick up to the right. I’ll move my left foot on this pedal.
Now, obviously, we want to get into nonverbal ways of thinking, nonverbal ways of using our mind. Definitely. Definitely. But even when it’s nonverbal, there is a discrimination going on. You know, when you walk through the door, you discriminate between, I’m not gonna walk into the wall, I’m gonna walk into the space in between the walls.
You don’t have to say that in your head. Hey, dummy. Don’t walk into the wall. Move over and walk into the space in between.