Dependent Origination — 2015-04-04

# 01-150404_1333 3.mp3

> **Collection:** Audio Recordings — Twelve Links-Dependent Origination
> **Duration:** 48.4 minutes
> **Words:** 6,195
> **Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
> **Corrections:** 6 Buddhist terminology fixes
> **Transcribed:** 2026-03-02 22:30

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I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. Then since Geshela is taking questions, and I gather we’ll be questioning you as well, I thought I would use this period to cover the difficult points of the 12 links briefly with some audiovisual material to make it a little bit easier for you. I’ve drawn on one of my former presentations, but I’ve really summarized. And as Susan asked yesterday, I have given you an example drawn from one of Stevenson’s cases. It’s a theoretical example, but it should make things easier.

And we’ll try to finish maybe by 02:10 so you can ask one or two questions. So as was mentioned, there’s two types of dependent arising, exterior and interior dependent arising. When we’re talking of the 12 links, we’re talking of interior dependent arising. In other words, the dependent arising of the aggregates. And this, you all know, these are the 12 limbs in sequence.

Right? And I won’t cover them one by one. Most of them are easy. I’ll cover some of the difficult points with you, then it should make the rest of the material easier. So the first three limbs have already been covered.

Right? Ignorance, compositional factors, and consciousness. There is nothing terribly difficult there. Where things become difficult is where you have to identify the following four limbs, starting with name and form. And these are the traditional symbols of these limbs in the case of name and form, a boat or a vessel.

Name and form is actually the first instant of the aggregates followed by a series of instance that we’ll see how long this lasts this lasts. It covers both the form aggregate, in other words, matter, and the name aggregate, in other words, the consciousness of the new being. So you have all five aggregates, form, sensation, discrimination, composition factors, and consciousness. And we now have some very solid data from embryology which enables us to pin down a little bit these links. So the name and form limb stretches basically from the instant of conception when the spermatozoa of the male impregnates the egg of the female to approximately the first month of the fetus before the appearance of the sense organs.

That’s the key. You can see here the sense organs have not appeared. Now this name and form link is a link all beings, we call them born from wombs. In other words, mammalian beings have. So it’s not just human beings.

I’ve taken the example of human beings, but animals, etcetera, have the link of name and form as well. That’s pretty straightforward. Where it gets more awkward is how to distinguish the following links. So the next links, the six loci, is basically the link when the where the senses appear traditionally represented by a castle because the openings in the castle symbolize the sense gates. And you can clearly see in this picture the fetus at four months of age, the appearance of the sense organs, but what is the key here with the limb of the six loci is that the sense organs do not function.

They have appeared unlike the stage of name and form where you can see there are no sense organs at all. Actually, the fetus at this point looks a little bit like a fish in its development. Biologists view this as, you know, if you would wish a manifestation of the embryological past of the fetus. But when the six we enter the limb of the six loci, you can see the ears, you can see the beginning of the eye, sense organ, the nose, the mouth, they do not function. There is no sensory experience, but the sense organs have appeared.

This is around four months. And it is quite striking that Je Tsongkhapa in his Lamrim Chenmo makes this quite explicit. When the name of name and form has appeared, one has a physical nature. In other words, from conception to the fourth month. Whereas when the six loci is established, the enjoyer is established.

The potential for enjoying sense experience is there. The capacity is not. And you can see the difference very clearly here. This is a limb of name and form. This is a limb of the six loci. Distinguishing these four limbs is perhaps one of the more difficult points in understanding the 12 links.

Name and form, the sixth loci, loci, contact and sensation. Name and form physicality is established at conception. The sixth loci, the features of the body are established. Contact, we will be talking about right now, occurs when there is contact of a consciousness, a sense organ and an object. So as you remember, at this point, the nascent sense organs are present but they do not function.

There is no contact between a consciousness, a sense organ and an object during the limb of the six loci. When we pass to the limb of contact, that contact is present. And you can see this in this beautiful iconographic picture of the fetus. This is probably one of the first experiences a fetus has. Physical contact with the thumb.

Right? The sucking mechanism. So this limb of contact, if it is during the limb of contact, is not accompanied by sensation. Contact has occurred. In other words, the object, the sense organ, and consciousness are together.

There is yet to be sensation. Sensation occurs during the seventh limb and I feel very fortunate I was able to find pictures. Some of the research in the field have done marvelous work which clearly demonstrate that the fetus in utero has sensations. And this is clear. These are clear manifestations of happiness on the face of a fetus between basically the eighth, what is this?

The seventh and the eighth month of gestation and clear expressions of suffering. So at this point, there is not only the six loci and contact, there is sensation. This is all in utero. So at this point, craving can begin to arise. Alright?

And I like this picture very much. Not that I identify with a person at all, but, you know, it is an experience we all have had. Now one important point here is to understand that the limbs from the fourth to the seventh limb can occur in an ārya being. They are not associated with afflictions. When a bodhisattva, let us say, let’s say an eighth bhūmi Bodhisattva is reborn according to Prāsaṇgika, he will experience the four limbs of name and form, the six loci contact and sensation in utero in the gestation process.

He will not experience the eighth limb of craving which is an affliction. So the key here is that once the afflictions are abandoned, one still has sensations, one still has pleasant and unpleasant sensations, but one has no attachment or aversion to them. Does that make sense? So the limb of craving is self evident. It’s basically desire.

This is followed by the limb of appropriation. And if you could take your handouts, there’s a section of the Salistamba Sūtra I translated, which I think is the best presentation of the 12 limbs I note, I know of. It’s also attributed to Buddha Śākyamūni. It is no. Yes.

It is in your notes on the 12 links, I think. Yes. Page three, the middle, the Aryasalistamba Sūtra on the sixth to twelfth limbs. Then I didn’t translate the whole sūtra I was going to, but there just wasn’t time. But it’s very, very interesting.

And the words which I have put in orange, the orange obviously is my choice of choice of color. But they summarize the meaning of the limb. It’s very, very clear. So contact, the sixth limb, is a conflation of three phenomena. The conflation of sense consciousness, sense object, and sense organ.

In other words, contact is a conflation. Sensation is the actual experience of contact. During the limb of contact, there’s no experience. The three objects are put together, but the child, the infant in utero still cannot experience them. The sense organs do not work if you prefer.

They’re fully created unlike in the limb of the six large eye, but they still do not experience the object. Then craving is predilection. In Tibetan is often translated as conception which is really a very poor translation. Is a conceptual attachment. What seems to be implied here is a strong association between concept reality and attachment.

This is a debated point in Tibetan Buddhism. And the only difference between craving and appropriation is the increase in the attachment. And the other limbs are straightforward. The tenth limb, as we said yesterday, is just karma, but it’s the karma which generates birth. The eleventh limb is the arising of the aggregates, that’s birth.

Their maturation and disintegration disintegration are aging and death subsumed in one limb, the twelfth limb. Does this make sense so far? Now I’ll cover quickly the number of lives in which one cycle of 12 limbs can completed, and then give you an example. They can be completed in only two or three lives. If they are completed in two lives, you have this in your charts already.

The six causal limbs are completed in one life. These are the six causal limbs. The six effect limbs are completed in another life which may be the next life or may be separated by thousands of lives. The key is all the causes are completed in one life and all the effects in another. We call these limbs causal limbs and effect limbs.

That doesn’t mean that each cause is not the effect of something else. Obviously, is. Now in three lives, the only difference is that the six causal limbs are completed in two lives. Three in one, three in the other and the six effect limbs as previously are completed in the last life of this cycle of 12 limbs. So far, so good.

Now the general causal sequence is the last point I’d like to cover and then we will take an example. The general causal link sequence is that you move from the limb of the afflictions and because she was very impressed that Molly knew that there were three afflictions by the way. So it made a good impression. There are three afflictions, ignorance, craving, appropriation. The limbs of the afflictions give rise to the limb of karma and the limb of karma gives rise to the limb of suffering.

So we have a three, two, seven sequence. This is a general causal sequence in the unfolding of the 12 limbs. Now let us take one of Stevenson’s cases, one of the most interesting cases. I’ve already presented it here, but it’s striking because there seem to be memories of past lives. And try to understand it in the light of the 12 links.

It’s the case of Vijayaratne, who was a young Sri Lankan who had clear memories of a past life, past lives actually, and had physical traces of deeds he had performed in his previous life. He had a very marked deformity, actually atrophy of both the right breast and the right arm, strong facial resemblance to his father’s deceased brother, And he remembered that he was born with a withered arm because he had murdered his wife in a previous life. There was a well kept secret in his family that his father’s brother had been executed for murder. The child did not know this. Now what happened in the father’s brother’s life which led to the murder?

And then we will see the relation with the present life of Vijayaratne. So the father’s brother’s name was Rattran Hami who was rejected by his betrothed which amounted in Sri Lanka to a de facto wife. Then he premeditated her murder, returned to his home village, found a kris, which as you know is a wavy dagger, particularly savage way to kill somebody. He paid off all his debts and then returned to see her and stabbed her repeatedly with the kris. He stabbed her in the back and in the armpit as she was raising her arm to protect herself.

There was no remorse of any type. He pleaded not guilty during the murder trial. And he actually rejoiced in the death of his betrothed to be. At the execution, he told his brother that he would return as his son. This amounts to a vow.

The child remembered clearly being executed by hanging at the date of the execution, 07/14/1928. He remembered the testing of the gallows. He remembered having a Buddhist monk make offerings. He remembered a black hood being placed on his head. And the very last memory before death by hanging, literally when the trap was sprung, was a memory of his brother.

He remembers his neck tightening and this is quite striking. He remembers falling into a pit of fire. It’s the very last memory he has of that life. As a young Sri Lankan in 1961 after rebirth, he expressed no regrets whatsoever and he said he would murder the betrothed he had again if the circumstances were the same. His outlook changes in his twenties which is quite common with these cases.

It’s as if it takes young adulthood for the person to move beyond these experiences. Now what is striking is he seems to have memories of previous non human lives and Stevenson is loath to quote these cases but he does. So he has this memory of dropping into a pit of fire which might be a memory of a hell realm rebirth and he has memories of flitting through the air and being perched on treetops. During his life as Vijayaratne, he experienced a series of mental breakdowns. He was interned several times and during these mental breakdowns, he mimicked the behavior of a bird gathering twigs, clucking and sitting on the twigs.

Obviously if you’re a psychiatrist you draw only one conclusion. He needs to be locked up. Now if we look at the unfolding of the recollected lives before analyzing them in the light of the twelve links, we have three recollected lives before the present one. In the first life he recollects being Ratran Hami between 1904 and ’28, rejected by his second wife whom he murdered his betrothed in 1927 and executed in 1928. He was the older brother of his father in life four.

There seems to be a recollected hell rebirth and there seems to be a recollected animal rebirth as a bird. In the fourth life, the present life, a very striking pattern which links this life with life one. He is systematically rejected by women. He found it very difficult to get married. Perhaps sensitive women could feel the vibes, I don’t know.

He had repeated psychotic episodes. The right arm and digit were atrophied and the chest muscle and rib atrophied. Let me show you pictures of these to give you a sense of the scale of the problem. This was his right arm. As you can see there were no digits.

And I don’t have in this presentation do I yes, this was his pectoral muscle which as you can see is absent. It’s quite striking. He struck his fiancee’s left side with his right hand. Now it is his right hand which was and the right pectoral muscle with my little knowledge of anatomy seems to activate the movement of the right hand. It is the right pectoral muscle which is atrophied, not the corresponding area of Podi Menike’s body.

It’s very interesting this case. Very interesting. Now let us analyze it a little bit further. We have one short human life, twenty four years and it seems eighteen point five years spent in the lower realms. Well, if the hell rebirth is a rebirth if the eighteen five point five years rebirth in the hell realms is a rebirth in Avicii, which is what it sounds like to me because the only experience is fire, then then that is not easy.

That is not easy. You know? So let us look at the cycles of 12 limbs and this is my theoretical reconstruction. We don’t know how Kama matured for Ratran Hami. We do not know what went on in his mind but we can try to apply it to see the principles.

We have one first cycle of 12 limbs over two lives, which stretch from the human rebirth, the first rebirth as Ratran Hami to the immediately subsequent rebirth in what I will call the Avicii Hell. Now it seems to me there was no intermediate state which is a clear indication of Avicii Hell rebirth. In other words, at the instant of execution without actually getting aggregates technically speaking, certainly not a form aggregate, he was reborn in Avicii. You have during the first rebirth, six causal aggregates, six causal links and during the second rebirth, the six resulting links. The first causal link is ignorance.

The second is the karma of killing, which was implanted into consciousness. Then this was amplified by craving, the craving probably during the trial. The wish for Podi Menike to suffer, the rejoicing in her suffering, an intensification of this which is appropriation, which is the delight in the idea that he murdered honorably. Happiness probably at the thought of having murdered. And this, which is an evil view and is one of the forms of appropriation, caused the maturation of the tenth link, the link of existence, which is a karmic seed in his consciousness at the time of death, which precipitates the next rebirth.

This is what Geshela described this morning as an impelling karma. It impels a hell rebirth. If you look at the hell rebirth, what are the links? We have the link of name and form. In other words, conception and hell, there is no body, just fire.

And as you can see basically, it seems that all the links, the six loci, contact, sensation, birth and aging and death are just fire, which corresponds to the Buddhist description of the lowest hell of Ichi. There is no other experience but one of burning. Then we cannot say for sure that this is what happened, but from a Buddhist standpoint, it’s very possible. The second cycle of 12 links occurs between the first and the fourth life. In other words, between the two human lives.

Because the question which arises is why did this murderer after eighteen point five years get a human rebirth? Now clearly, to have gotten a human rebirth, he must have accumulated virtuous karma. It is not incompatible to murder someone and on the side, if you wish, to accumulate virtuous karma. We accumulate all sorts of karmas all the time. So if we look at the second cycle, again, these are two groups of six links.

The first link is ignorance. I think the second link was the promise to his brother to return as his son, which was a link of karma, a pledge. A pledge at the time of death is particularly powerful as we have seen in Stevenson’s cases which was implanted into his consciousness. The craving was probably the craving to comfort his brother during his execution. The worry for his brother.

And the appropriation was probably the desire to see again his brother which intensified that wish to to him. Then as a result, we have the limb of existence, a powerful impending karma to be reborn as a human being because this is a form of compassion and to be reborn as his brother’s son. Now if we look at the next life, four lives or three lives down the line, the link of name and form and I skipped this, is the embryo of Vijayaratne from the instant of conception up to the first month. There were no sense organs. The link of the sixth loci is from the first month through to the fourth month as these sense organs develop but are not operative.

The link of contact occurs when the sense organs are operative but there is still no experience. This could be due to lack of neurological development. This is something I am not aware of. I have not investigated. And the link of sensation occurs when the first sensations, pleasant and unpleasant, are experienced.

With birth as a human being and aging and death, aging has started. His death has not yet started. Now Vijayaratne was fully aware of the karmic causes of his malformation. And later on in life, he seems to have repented from this deed. And to say that he moved on is a bit of an overstatement.

He suffered from mental disturbances all his life, was not able to settle down, suffered of low self esteem, but he did try to overcome the anger which was within him, which caused him to murder his betrothed. So this is the understanding of the 12 links in all of the Buddhist schools of tenets. And this is why as I mentioned to Natalie yesterday, Nāgārjuna in verse 59 of Bodhichitta Vivarana says, I do not accept sentient beings other than this wheel of the 12 limbs revolving on the path of existence. In other words, I do not accept the existence of an Ātman or a soul within sentient beings, which is the experiencer of karma and the accumulator of karma. It is only this cycle of the 12 limbs.

And that’s what I wanted to cover with you during the question and answer session. So we have twenty minutes then I’d be delighted to take your questions. Please. Mhmm. Is the skin not a sense organ?

I I understand theoretically in that. So why would a I can’t answer your question at that level of development of the fetus. You’d have to speak to an embryologist. I mean, the question is not the skin but the nerve endings. Are the nerve endings complete?

Are they incomplete? Like the same thing with the distinction between the six loci, contact, and sensation. You have the completion of the sense organs, then you have the completion of the nerve endings, then you actually need for sensory experience, let’s say in the case of sight, that the primary visual cortex be completed which is something else again. What we do get a sense of from these pictures, I think it’s only a beginning, is just how accurate the depiction of the twelve links is and how helpful it might be for us. Well, should be Richard was asking actually before.

Yes. Stevenson’s case, I have basically analyzed it. He’s analyzed it. And you analyzed it from the point of view of impelling non virtuous karma, the act of killing. In a in a in rebirth as a human Precisely.

In in the way you described. So does Stevenson give any other kinds of examples where there is impelling non virtuous karma in and virtuous karma in the same life resulting in a next life or a future life where there is the negative consequences and then the rebirth as a human in a similar way. Are there other examples of that? Well, the thing to keep in mind is all of the karmic analysis is mine. Yeah.

So Stevenson does not mention this at all. Stevenson gives these events then he sees a clear connection. In my case, I have asked myself, how do we analyze this comically? Does this bolster or does this weaken the Buddhist case? I think a couple of these cases bolster the Buddhist position very strongly.

There’s another Sri Lankan case I have not presented here, which is very similar to this one. It’s a case of a young Sri Lankan boy who remembered at least four previous lives, of which two were nonhuman as animals. The first previous life he remembered was as a dental technician, and there was enough data to identify the area he lived in, This was almost a century ago. This dental technician had a fondness for hunting. And the young boy remembers another life.

What is striking is not so much what he remembers as as what he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything almost. He remembers being small, furry, running, a big sound, and collapsing dead. In other words, he remembers being a rabbit. But he has no self identification as a rabbit.

Then he remembers being big, dark, hairy, tormented by flies and insects, and unable to see sideways. And Stevenson himself suggests this might be a putative memory as a horse drawing a carriage of which there were many in Sri Lanka. Again, there’s no self identification. And in the last recollected life, he remembers being or he is a human being. And what is striking is because of the clarity of the memories.

This young child was 11 years old when Stevenson meets him, has chosen to become ordained. And by the time Stevenson met him the next time at 19, was abbot of the monastery. So he had had progressed very, very far. Then Stevenson asked him why he had become ordained and he said, was just self evident to him that he wanted out. This is the wish for liberation.

That is another very strong case. Then there is a clear karmic connection between the predilection for hunting in the first life and rebirth as a rabbit in the second life. The karma of killing rabbits is the impending karma which causes rebirth as an animal in the next life. Then the comma for reborn being reborn as a horse, we don’t know. What caused what is the impelling karma for the fourth rebirth as a human being, we don’t know.

We do not know enough in many of these cases to analyze. But in Vijayaratne’s case, we have a lot of that. Yes. It’s quite common. It seems that basically one’s habituations have a very big impact on where one is born.

And for instance, it is striking that if you take gender, change of gender from life to life is relatively rare. And when it happens, there are gender related problems in the next life. You know? Change of culture is relatively rare. Change of religion is relatively rare.

It happens. But Stevenson made a particular study of children being reborn as Muslims in India with clear previous memories of, lives as Hindus. They’re rare cases, and there are big problems with the family. First, the family obviously does not accept, you know, the rebirth. Then the child resists circumcision because the Hindus are not circumcised.

You know? You get a lot of problems like that. Please. How many did you have you come across cases in Stevenson’s work where the previous personality was demonstrably virtuous. The impression that I got from from the summaries that I’ve read, I haven’t read the his detailed magnum opus, is that a lot There are cases.

I mean, obviously, there ‘s a problem with Stevenson’s research which is that for the child to recollect a previous life clearly, Stevenson’s data shows that violent death is almost necessary. In seventy percent of the cases, if the child recollects a previous life, the death in the previous life was violent. Not necessarily by crime, but a car accident or something like that. So it’s almost as if they were moving forward. Something stopped.

They sort of discovered. Exactly. So there is from a Buddhist standpoint, the disintegration of the various levels of consciousnesses has been short circuited. The dissolution as we call them. And then the memories pass into the next life.

Then there are many virtuous people. Obviously, we don’t know what everyone has done. Right? But in the European cases of reincarnation which Stevenson covers, there’s a German case, a very fine person, mean, far as I can judge, right, from his memoirs who had clear recollections of a castle in the North Of Germany. This gentleman lived around 1927.

And the recollections came as a result of a fever, A very strong fever, which lasted a week at the end of which he had a compulsion to find this castle. He had clear memories of the castle then of the area around it didn’t help a lot. It was on a hill in a forest. So obviously Germany in the middle ages, I’m looking for a castle on a hill in a forest. If you’ve been to Germany, you understand the problem.

They’re all on hills and there’s forests everywhere. But after a lot of work, he traced the castle and what is striking is that his memories were at odds with the present appearance of the castle. There were buildings which weren’t in his memories. There were walls where they weren’t supposed to be walls And he was able to find the plans of the castle as it existed in the thirteenth century. And these plans corresponded to his memories.

Well, cases is the case of Georg Neidhart. I presented at the end of this year. These cases are very strong, very strong. All the more so because often the person really does not want to find all this. Then really for a deeper analysis of the 12 links I think we have to rely no longer on Stevenson’s cases, but on cases of hypnotic regression.

There are there’s much more data. The data is more tentative. Sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes it’s fantasy. You have to discriminate. One very strong case reported by Wambach, which I I hope to analyze, is that of the someone who remembered being the assistant of an executioner in the middle ages.

I did not know this, but the function of the assistant of the executioner was to lift the hair of the condemned because the hair would interfere with the decapitating blow. Then this, one is, you know, this young boy, this was his function, you know. I think his dream in life was probably to become an executioner, you know, in his own right. Everyone has their ambitions. And what is interesting is to see the pattern in the recollected past lives.

Because this mid medieval life, we cannot date, but you could assume it is probably before the late seventeenth century. You could assume that. After that, decapitation by the axe goes out of fashion. Then he has a clear memory of being a young railway engineer assistant whose function is to check the functioning of the wheels of the early steam engines and one is jammed and he puts his head inside the wheel to see what is jammed and unfortunately for him, the steam engine starts moving and his last memory is of having his head crushed at the neck. Now here, we have a very striking correlation between someone who was an assistant to an executioner, helping decapitation sometime in the middle ages and who is reborn as a human being a certain number of centuries later and whose head is basically crushed and severed at the neck in a very improbable accident.

So I think it’s the analysis of these cases which is extremely interesting to understand the 12 links. Please. The distinction between beginningless ignorance and ignorance because I I always my understanding was that the definition of ignorance was the apprehension of the self. And in the teachings, the definition of beginningless ignorance is an apprehension of itself. So if they both have the same definition, I don’t understand what what the difference actually actually is.

Beginningless ignorance is the innate spontaneous apprehension of a self which is in every living being unless they are liberated. So ants, human beings, dogs, animals, everyone has it. There are millions of different forms of ignorance. We can ignore who Parasites are, that is a form of ignorance. We can be ignorant of Sattipattana meditation, that’s another form of ignorance.

These are all ignorances. So every case of beginningless ignorance is necessarily ignorance. But there are an infinite number of forms of ignorance which are not beginningless ignorance and actually which are irrelevant for us. When you go to school, you go to school to eradicate ignorance. But if you learn, I don’t know, how an LC circuit oscillates, it is totally irrelevant to spiritual practice.

Does that answer your question? Beginningless ignorance is that misapprehension that is innate and spontaneous. So in that case it’s just ordinary the ignorance that’s being referred to is that what’s defined here in the Lamrim Chenmo as unclear about the nature of the four truths, karma, effects, and the three jewels? Yes. That would be ordinary ignorance in the context of dharma.

Yes. Then when we talk of the 12 links to be precise, we always say ignorance from within the 12 links. Compositional factors from within the 12 links because there are many forms of ignorance which are not the root of cyclic existence. There are many forms of compositional factors which are not involved in the 12 links. The ignorance within the 12 limbs is beginningless ignorance.

It is beginningless ignorance. Then there’s there’s a debate we won’t enter into between Asaṇga and Vasubando on this one, but I think it’s a bit complicated. There’s no point in entering into that. Excuse me, please. No.

No. Beginningless ignorance is not the subtle selflessness of persons. The selflessness of persons is a way to counter beginningless ignorance. Yes. Is not the intended which is not the which is not intent the intended action, the karma of intention because the act, the deed is not is not performed.

Uh-huh. The intended deed is not performed. Basically, if the deed is not performed, the karma is said to be uncertain. What is meant by uncertain karma is that it does not necessarily mature. Elements are missing.

Normally, it does not mature, but we cannot say too much. If the four elements of the karmic deed are present, then the deed is definite. It will mature unless it is purified. Necessary karmic consequences? Well, karma does not have necessary karmic consequences.

For instance, upon the attainment of arhathood as Geshe-la explained this morning, the mind remains filled with non virtuous karma, which is never gonna give rise to consequences. Precise effects of a karmic effects of karma which are intention basically are the unfolding of a comic deed. So intention is a mental factor. If that mental factor leads the mind to engage in an object in a virtuous way, you have a virtuous comma. If all four components of the deed are complete, that virtuous karma will mature at some point in the future, we can’t say when.

If any of the four components is missing, that virtuous karma is incomplete. Now that intention by itself may not for instance give rise to impending karma but it will still affect the mind stream. If you have a steady stream of hostile intentions towards someone else without ever putting them in action, then this is not morally neutral. One’s mind is changed by this. Eventually, very probably, one will engage in our own virtuous deed.

And I must apologize, but it’s 02:15. So I’ll take Mary’s question, the first question tomorrow with your permission. I’m sorry for these dark examples. But unfortunately, people who go for hypnotic recollection have difficulties. They all remember the past lives.

All remember their past lives. 80% of residents in the village will remember their past lives as humans. So, yeah, it’s quite quite interesting. It’d be interesting to know why. They all ended up in the same place, in the same village.

You’re talking about a specific unusual example of the cluster of people that Yeah. There’s one mom, one lady who was born in Indo village. Because they are minority Chinese, they speak a lot of language. They don’t speak the Han Chinese, the Mandarin. And that particular person, she only speaks Mandarin even though she was brought up in the Chinese?

Oh, no. Not yeah. In other minority, you know, family. A thousand times because it’s brought, you know, the culture in the family. And she can only speak Mandarin.

She can only write Mandarin. That’s and she’s So she’s got unlearned language, basically. You’re saying? Yeah. And then she remember the name of his son and his daughter.

He was basically reborn as a human two years after another. When when she passed away, you know, her previous life, her son was only cute, and she remember clearly the the names of her son and daughter. So she she traced them back in a lot of place, and she she she basically said everything every family member’s name in his son in her son’s and daughter’s family, and everybody was shocked. A lot of things was kept in secrecy. And she know basically, she knows Eric.

And, yeah, and the the son and and the daughter.