Emptiness — 2015-07-11

# 01-150711_1405 4.mp3

> **Collection:** Audio Recordings — Emptiness
> **Duration:** 55.9 minutes
> **Words:** 6,947
> **Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
> **Corrections:** 9 Buddhist terminology fixes
> **Transcribed:** 2026-03-02 20:42

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I think we start now. First of all, welcome everybody, and most of you know. My name is Denzin. I’m director of the Tārā Buddhist Institute. And we are very privileged to have our highly esteemed translator and generous benefactor, mister Ilya Durek, and to once again present another one of these very informative seminars, karmic intensity amplification and purification, please visit our website.

I wanna see other seminars on YouTube, and this one will also be available in due course. There will be a fifteen minutes break in halfway through, and Ilya has a lot to get through. So if you could keep to the time, this will be appreciate. So we have allocated someone to ring the bell. You’re welcome to bring your cup of tea into the gompa, but please be careful not to be not to spill it.

So there will be opportunity for question in at the end. The toilets are located. You all know behind me and yeah. Yeah. It’s and thank you for your small donation, five for members and eight for nonmembers, which helps our center to run.

And it is a former monk who achieved a level in his studies equivalent to that of a fully qualified Lharampa Geshe. He is widely regarded as one of foremost Tibetan translators and the Western scholars of Buddhist philosophy. He has translated for great masters, including the renowned Geshe Rabten and his holiness Dalai Lama. And, of course, our own beloved and founder, our Kinsu, Gonsar Losang Tendzin Rinpoche. And, just a couple of quick announcement.

Ilo will be present at our two days symposium with, doctor Anne Carolyn Chambaini on August on a karma and reincarnation. And, tomorrow after 09:00 meditation, we have our opening ceremony for construction of Generisic Mandala, Sand Mandala, for wall peace and commons at 10:30AM tomorrow. Please see the flyer for the program. There’s plenty of flies there. If you would like to keep update with our program, please leave us your email details.

And with that further, please welcome Ilya. Please be seated. Thank you, Tenzin-la, Kanisha, Janos. And I’m delighted that so many of you have faced the inclement elements, especially lobhsanima who, as you see, has to struggle with some of the preconditions of ordination. So as the Dalai Lama said, if the right arm is not bare, there is no ordination.

So I’m delighted to see you today. And we are going to continue our investigation of karma and causality. We have dedicated this entire year to the study of karma. And as I had mentioned at the beginning of this cycle of conferences, I wanted to connect the teachings on karma and causality with cases of the reincarnation type drawn from Ian Stevenson’s research. I have presented two cases over the last couple of conferences.

The case of Vijaya Ratna, a Sri Lankan who remembered having murdered his ex wife and who faced very major consequences in, the life in which he remembered this. And the case of a Burmese who remembered a life as a dacoit, in other words, a brigand. Today, I’m not going to present any particular case because we are wrapping up the presentation of karma. Instead, I’m going to try to draw on various elements which we have yet to present as far as karma and causality is concerned. And then we will be considering some practical cases next time.

And I suppose I ought to warn you, I’ll be asking for your input next time. It’s not an exam, as Geshela always says, but do peruse your notes. So our topic is karmic intensity amplification and purification. The very foundation of Buddhist practice is karmic strategy. For most of us, an understanding or a realization of emptiness is far removed from our present capacities.

But it is possible for us to live in keeping with karma and with causality. And if we have accumulated non virtuous karma in the past, it is possible to purify this to a large degree. This is a realistic goal for all of us, those who are lay and those who are ordained. Then an understanding of emptiness, let alone direct realization of emptiness, as obtained by my late teacher, Geshe Rabten, is something of a very different order of magnitude. Probably, is not possible for us.

Geshe Rabten and so Geshe Rabten himself was very dubious about the possibilities of our gaining an understanding or a realization of emptiness, but an understanding of karma is something which is a realistic and possible goal. So this is where effort should be brought to bear. And this is very much in keeping with a passage from a very famous Kadampa Geshe Geshe, Puchongwa. Excuse me, Geshe Khamlung, who said to Puchongwa, I wonder if karma and causality is the only practice that is difficult. To which Geshe Puchongwe replied, it is just so.

So certainly for the great Kadampa Geshe who were the disciples of Atisha, It is the practice of karma and causality. In other words, ethics which is the absolute foundation of practice. Now when we speak of karmic ethics, we are speaking of a different order of causality than the normal scientific causality we are accustomed to. So I’d like to open a parenthesis and talk briefly about ordinary causality. Ordinary causality is basically the causality which underlies completely our modern lives.

This is a picture of Voyager the first to know the satellite which was sent, it at present is beyond Saturn. If we can send, missions such as the Voyager mission, it is largely because of our understanding of natural causality, in other words scientific causality. And therefore we can see causality subdivided into two. Exterior physical causality and interior karmic causality and there is a very important difference we shall be talking about shortly. Now, perhaps the domain, of science which has studied exterior causality the most is physics and the field, in which physics has been the most successful in the application of exterior causality is celestial mechanics.

We can calculate the position of planets millions of years in the past and millions of years in the future. This is a clear indication of just how powerful the scientific understanding of causality combined with mathematics is. And the key features of physical causality are threefold. For events to be physically causally related in physics, A must occur before B, A must be somehow related in space to B, and whenever B occurs, a must have occurred. So to give you a very basic example, if the appearance of a cat on a fence precedes the barking of the dog and in addition the dog barks within 50 meters of the cats being on the fence.

And if as well whenever the dog barks there was a cat, we can say the cat’s presence is the cause of the dog’s barking. This is ordinary physical causality, which we use every day and which is certainly at the classical level. We’re not talking of the subatomic level used systematically in physics. Now this exterior causality has foundations which are quite similar to interior karmic causality, but there is one very major difference which I will address with you at now. When we speak of interior comic causality, we have to refer to what I mentioned mentioned in the first conference this year, the four general features of karma.

If you’re going to memorize anything, please memorize the four general features of karma. If you don’t know them by heart, try to learn them. Perhaps there is nothing more beneficial for the mind than to reflect on this. The first is that karma is definite. The second is that karma is increasing.

The third is that one does not experience an unaccumulated karma. And the fourth is that karma is inextinguishable. I’ll explain them briefly because we have some newcomers. By karma is definite, we mean that a virtuous deed committed in life a definitely leads to a happy result in life b. And a non virtuous deed committed in life a definitely leads to a non virtuous result in life b.

If you prefer to use a traditional Tibetan metaphor, if you plant chilli seeds, you get chillis which are hot and burning and if you plant, let us say, rice seeds, you will get rice which is not hot and burning. And a chili seed will never give rise to a rice sprout and a rice sprout will never give rise to a chili seed. This is what is meant by the definiteness of karma. Virtue can only give rise to happiness at some point in the future, and non virtue can only give rise to unhappiness. The two do not mix.

Karma is increasing. Like this? Yes. You. Sorry.

The mechanics of the microphone. The increasing nature of karma what we shall be talking about shortly. This refers to the fact that once one has accumulated a karmic deed, virtuous or non virtuous, it naturally increases in power over time until it leads to fruition. Now the third point, one does not experience unaccumulated comic results is an exact correlate of this point whenever b occurs a must have occurred. It’s just a basic statement of causality.

In other words, if in this life I stub my toe which happened which happened this morning actually and as you know well know there is no pain greater than stubbing your toe within a human existence, then that suffering, that experience of suffering necessarily has a cause and its cause gave rise to it. Stubbing my toe would not arise and the suffering arisen from it would not arise with it without a karmic result, karmic cause in some past life which one we do not know. So if an experience of suffering or of happiness arises, there must have been a karmic cause. And finally, the fourth point is that karma is inextinguishable which means that unless karma is purified, it will not disappear. Traditionally, the Tibetan metaphor given is that of seeds which have been cast in the ground and forgotten and when the conditions arise they sprout.

Now within these four general characteristics of karma, the one in which coma as interior causality differs from physical causality is that karma is increasing and this was an object of puzzlement for Je Tsongkhapa himself. Je Tsongkhapa mentions in Lamrim Cemo, an effect of immense happiness may arise from a small virtuous karma. An effect of immense suffering may arise from even a tiny non virtuous karma. Hence, internal economy causation seems to involve a magnification that is not found in external causation. It’s quite striking to me that Je Tsongkhapa and Lamrim Chenmo which was written around 1409 had such a clear understanding of the difference between exterior physical causality and interior karmic causality.

And the question I’d like to ask with you is why precisely is karma increasing? So I will just suggest some possibilities. These are notions which I have not fully explored and then we will enter into the issue of karmic amplification which is related to this. So karma is basically akin to a sequoia tree seed. The seed is tiny, you cast it and it gives rise after one, two, five, ten or 100 lives to a result which is totally out of proportion with the seed.

And an understanding of this is critically important to start to live strategically. We must be wary of karma because small virtuous karma can lead to extraordinary results in future lives but small non virtuous karma can also lead to almost inconceivable suffering. Now there is in the physical world or there are in the physical world some mechanisms which are related, as far as amplification is concerned to karma and I’d like to discuss their characteristics, it’s interesting for us. Now I shall use these as metaphors. I am in no way saying that karma functions on this space.

These are just metaphors for karma from physics and climatology. And the metaphors I would like to use are chaos theory and fractals. Chaos theory you have probably heard about the famous example of the butterfly flapping its wings over China which eventually over the years acts as one of the causes for a hurricane on the South America. So clearly in chaos theory, have huge amplification. And fractals will be very interesting for us because in fractals, we have the replication of a structure which repeats itself over time and this is something we find in coma.

So let us just, and I reassure you we’re to stop talking about science pretty soon. Those of you who are not scientifically inclined, I inflict this on all the students for ten minutes. It’s like throwing them in the cold water and then we talk about Buddhist philosophy. But it is interesting to connect a little bit, Buddhist teachings to reality. It’s not just interesting.

His Holiness has pointed out repeatedly. It is the only way which is left open to us. If we do not wish for Buddhism to end up by being something which is studied at universities and in museums. Yes. By all means.

I’ll answer as best I can. Then what are the factors necessary for chaotic motion? We need a high sensitivity on initial conditions and we need recurrence. You know what recurrence is? Something repeating itself, in other words, feedback.

For recurrence, you need for an element from the initial state to be fed back to the initial state. Now those of you for instance who have stereo sets, I don’t know if anyone does, you know if you have a stereo amplifier or even for that matter with this personal address speaker system and there’s feedback in the system, what happens? You have uncontrolled oscillation. Right? The amplifier start off starts oscillating.

This system would start howling. So when you have feedback, you have amplification. And feedback is one of the key elements I suspect at work with karmic amplification. Fractals, in my personal opinion, can be taken as a metaphor for what I’ve called karmic supersymmetry. The fact that when karma unfolds, it tends to repeat itself in its unfolding and I’ve talked about this here previously.

I’ll give you one or two examples later. Now what are the features to create a fractal, this type of repetitive geometric design? I’ll give you examples of in a couple of minutes. The first is self similarity. The second I won’t enter in this called fractional dimension that takes us far too far field And the third is recursive generation, in other words, again recursiveness.

Now fractals are very present in nature. The classic example are coastlines which seem to repeat themselves as you increase the magnification. If you look at this, I think this probably is a bit section of the British coastline, you can see that the elements here seem to repeat the whole. And the same thing is quite striking with the patterns in the sky. It is even more striking in the vascular system of the lung, where you can see that the overall vascular system is replicated in the microvascular system.

And the classic example for fractals are snowflakes. Now you have several types of fractals and I’ll just mention this briefly. You have, if you wish, the pure fractals which are mathematically generated such as the Koch snowflake. You have quasi fractals which are often used to, modelize coastlines and you have probabilistic fractals. Now how is this relevant to Karma?

If we look and this is a chart I presented a couple, conferences ago at the process of unfolding of a non virtuous deed. We have during a rebirth, rebirth K, the ripening effect, let’s say, a deed of murder, a hell rebirth. Now even after this hell rebirth has been completed, the following rebirth, should it be human, will be a human rebirth and there will still be a linkage with the hell rebirth, and this is the recursion we’re talking about. The person will have a liking to kill. This is a causally concordant effect and the environment will also be related to the held rebirth.

It’ll be a harsh environment. And even in a later rebirth, you will still have the liking to kill the causally concordant environment effect and the environmental effect which is a harsh brutal environment to say Afghanistan or Iraq and as a result you have a very high chance of having a new deed of killing. This is your feedback loop in operation and I think this goes a long way to explain karmic amplification. So what are the similarities between karma and fractals? Self similarity and recursive generation are key features for fractals.

Now you can see with karma that as shown in the previous chart the ripening effect, the causally concordant effect and the environmental effect are all linked and actually seem to feed into each other. And this gives rise to our feedback loop which I think may go towards explaining the amplification of karma. This is far from complete work. It would call for much more careful analysis but it gives an idea of why there is such amplification of karmic seeds. And as I mentioned when we talked of fractals, fractals repeat themselves.

In other words, you have a macro pattern which repeats itself in a micro pattern which often repeats itself in an even smaller pattern and the opposite is true. And this goes a long way I suspect to explain phenomena such as omens. And I’d like to cover one here with you. It’s a historically attested omen. There’s several I could have brought up regarding the history of Tibet, but this one is very striking.

Omens. Portents. Signs. On 08/15/1950, there was one of the largest earthquakes in measured history in Tibet, the tenth largest, the magnitude 8.6. It was felt by all the Tibetan monasteries.

It was commented upon. It was seen I read accounts of the period and memoirs of teachers such as who mentioned, Geshe Rabten mentions it too as a sign of a great disaster, which was on the point of befalling Tibet. Now what is very striking is that this is a matter of weeks removed from the Chinese penetration into Tibet. So I’ll read you first an account of the, August. You will note the area which is of importance for us.

The number of dead was far greater than the seven seven eighty reported. The area was a Chamdo area around the village of Rima or Sayu at present and the quake was felt all the way to Lhasa. The earthquake was actually felt in Europe. Dams cracked and underground structures cracked. And I was able to find an image of the period.

It gives you an idea of the scale of the damage. Now what is striking is that this earthquake occurred 08/15/1950. And 10/07/1950, a bare three months later, the Chinese invasion began and what is extraordinary is that if you look at this map, I plotted here the epicenter of the nineteen fifty Assam Tibet earthquake. The Chinese invasion occurred maybe a 150 kilometers to the north. Now this from the western, let us say, materialistic standpoint is very difficult to explain.

It’s basically dismissed. Yet, it’s a very striking coincidence. This is the tenth largest earthquake in history. The understanding which the Tibetan monks had at the period of the meaning of the earthquake has been corroborated. The Chinese invasion led to the quasi total destruction of Buddhism in Tibet, the annihilation of the great monasteries.

And I think a way for us to try to understand this is through karmic supersymmetry. In other words, as a karmic fractal. This is at the macroscopic level, the manifestation of a collective karma, the collective karma of the Tibetan people and this is perhaps to a large degree how signs and omens function. Then this is one of the two signs or two omens I know regarding Tibet which has really been corroborated beyond doubt. This one is interestingly almost never talked about in Western Buddhist circles.

But it’s very striking because if you look at the map, you can see the correlation. The correlation in space, the correlation in time. Now we have to wrap up, if you wish, karmic theory and address some topics, which were not covered, in the last couple presentations. The first is that of definite and indefinite karma. And I thought the image of a salt crystallizing is a very good one.

You know in chemistry when you have a saturated solution of something, some sort and you add a little bit more to it, you cause a crystallization of whatever was there, the precipitation we say. That is very much what definite karma is. Definite karma is karma which will necessarily mature unless there is an attempt at purification. Indefinite karma is karma which may or may not mature And it is extremely important for us to understand the difference and in keeping with karmic strategies to try to make sure that our non virtuous karmas are definite and our virtuous karmas are indefinite. Whereas as we shall see at present, it is exactly the opposite.

At present, our non virtuous karmas are definite and our virtuous karmas are indefinite. So as our Sangha says in Yogacarabhumi, definite karma is karma whose result you will definitely experience and is that consciously done and accumulated. And an understanding between the distinction of comma which is done and not done and accumulated and not accumulated is one we need to have. It’s not easy so I’ll present this through examples. Let us take the karma of killing, the non virtuous deed of killing.

You can see in this chart, you have the deed which is done horizontally. The first is a consciously planned and performed deed of killing. This would cover killing an insect with insecticide. And also killing in a dream, unintentional killing in a car accident, coerced killing where this doesn’t occur in Australia but in many countries it does, you are forced to kill someone else or killing performed out of ignorance and regretted. All are deeds of killing which are done.

Deeds of killing which are not done are planning on killing let’s say an animal or an insect but not performing the killing and neither planning nor performing the killing. Now within these some are accumulated and some are not accumulated. If it’s consciously planned and performed it is both done and accumulated. It will definitely mature. There is no doubt.

If it is not done but it is accumulated such as premeditating the murder of someone it will mature. On the other hand, if it is done but not accumulated such as killing in a dream, unintentional killing, coerced killing, done once and regretted or neither planned nor performed, these are uncertain deeds. In other words, they may or may not mature depending on the circumstances in future lives. Now, we can see clearly here that it is critical for our virtuous deeds to fall within this category and our non virtuous deeds to fall into that category and not the opposite. And in our own cases, certainly in this life, we know what deeds are definite.

We know what we did and accumulated, and these are deeds which must be purified because they will inevitably mature otherwise. Then Lamrim Chenmo puts it very clearly, you will definitely experience the result of karma that you have done and accumulated. Since the four powers which we shall talk about later on can destroy this kind of karma before it starts to take effect, it goes without saying that they can destroy karma whose result is indefinite. It is not easy to purify karma. It is not nowhere nearly as easy as it is often thought in Buddhist centers, but it is possible.

Now once karma has been accumulated, what is its sequence of maturation? In other words, how does it unfold? It’s a question which was asked I think last time and I thought I would go into it into greater detail. According to us, excuse me. According to Vasubandhu’s Abhidharma Kosha, this is quoted in Lamrim Chenmo, the first karma to mature is the weightiest karma and this is what we shall be talking about today.

How karma becomes heavy. Then the karma which is manifest at death will ripen. Then the karma to which we we are the most habituated, and finally the karma done first. Now you can see here that within these four categories or this this fourfold sequence of ripening, there are three where we have a degree of control. We can try to reduce the weight of karma performed if it’s non virtuous karma.

And if it is virtuous karma, try to increase its weight. Then, we can try to have a degree of control over the conditions during our death process. So that if comma is gonna manifest at death, it’d be virtuous comma, not non virtuous comma. And the third point and that’s why I shall talk today about sexual misconduct which is within the three physical non virtues, a minor one but which is one to which lay people unfortunately heavily exposed. Karma to which we are most habituated will mature next and this is where we have to be very careful.

Even deeds which are relatively minor compared to say to murder or stealing. If they are performed repeatedly, if they become a matter of habit, become very heavy. So this is clearly explained in Vasubandhu’s Abhidhamma Kosha. As to the actions that give rise to psychic existence, there are those that are weighty, those that are near, those to which you are habituated and those you did earliest. Among these are former, in other words the weighty, will ripen first.

And now we will enter into the body of today’s talk, karmic amplification. The first thing to point out is that one of the most important amplifiers which we will deal with as practicing Buddhists are any vows or pledges we have. Any vows or pledges we have function literally as an amplifier within the karmic circuit. They amplify both virtue and non virtue equally. And we can see in this chart how karmic amplification proceeds.

If we have a small karmic deed, k zero, we have initial amplification by weight or strength, we shall talk about soon. If the deed is committed for instance towards one’s parents, towards one’s spiritual teacher, Then we have amplification through the vows. The first category of vows are monastic vows. Actually, Prātimokṣa vows can also be leva. So lei and monastic vows, the eight categories of Prātimokṣa vows.

These amplify greatly every comic deed we perform. The next category is Bodhisattva vows which amplify karmic deeds even more. And the highest category is tantric vows. It’s very unfortunate that in the spread of Buddhism to the West, many students and centers have taken vows which they are unable to protect and keep. And as a result have plugged if you wish in their own comic circuit, a huge amplifier and have very little control over the result.

Very little. Then it is much wiser not to take vows than to take vows and not to keep them. And once one has taken vows, the karmic result of these vows is continuous. For instance, in the case, let’s say of the Bodhisattva vow, the merit accrued through taking the Bodhisattva vows occurs while one is awake and while one is asleep, it is continuous. The non virtue accumulated by someone who let us say makes a false declaration to Centrelink to get welfare he or she is not entitled to and who has Bodhisattva vows is huge.

It’s a huge deed of stealing. Whereas a lay person without vows who fibs a bit with center link will have performed comically a deed of stealing but it’s a small one. Then with tantric vows, is something altogether of a higher order of magnitude. So we have to be very careful of the vows we take. If we have taken vows without fully understanding what they were, then we must study the vows, try to keep them and purify what we have broken.

It’s entirely in our hands. Then, it’s been my unfortunate privilege to have seen firsthand the result, in this life of people who broke Bodhisattva and Tantric vows. It ripens in one lifetime. I have seen that. So from your own side, just think very carefully and whatever vows you have protect and if they have been broken, then we have means to purify them.

It can be done. There is no reason to despair. But we and we alone can do this. Nobody else can purify them for us. So now in the scheme of comic amplification, I’d like to talk about karmic weight.

I would not talk about the vows because I am basically not qualified. And, such vows should only be talked about if they’re going to be received. You have received them from other teachers and, if you have received them then study them because if you do not study the vows you cannot protect them. And once you have studied them, then protect them. If you break them, then weaken the strength of the breach.

We will talk about how to do that. So what is the weight of karma or if you wish how is karma amplified? We have distinctions of weight for the 10 non virtuous deeds and we have doors for powerful karma. And both must be understood clearly. Distinctions of weight for the 10 non virtuous deeds are five components which will amplify a given non virtuous deed.

Let us say, claiming a benefit from Centrelink one is not entitled to, which is a non virtuous deed of stealing. The first is attitude. The second is performance. The third is the absence of an antidote. The fourth is clinging to the perverse or the wrong and the fifth is the basis.

And in this matter, I’d like to give you the example of weighty sexual misconduct. Since western civilization has reached a point where the notion of sexual ethics has become problematical and even though sexual misconduct is nowhere nearly as heavy as stealing or killing. It is a deed which is performed under the power of great desire. It’s a deed which is performed repeatedly and as a result, it is a deed which can be quite heavy comically. And therefore, I would like to address with you what turns sexual misconduct into a weighty deed.

Now if you’re interested in what sexual misconduct precisely is, I would recommend that you read section on sexual misconduct. You have the four modes in which sexual misconduct is performed which you should study and then try to avoid. Now sexual misconduct can be heavy due to attitude. In the case of sexual misconduct, it’s intense desire. Clearly in a society which exalts desire, this arises very easily.

It can also be weighty due to performance. And we can see for instance if and I have taken the example of homosexuality because it is very much at present a case of sexual misconduct which is publicly condoned, in some cases almost encouraged and, which is fully qualified as a weighty deed of sexual misconduct. If one delights in the deeds, in other words one engages in sexual misconduct such as adultery or homosexuality. And not only this, and all of this is from Je Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, one encourages others to do it. In other words, one writes articles or one makes speeches stating that basically there is no difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality and one encourages others to engage in homosexual conduct.

If one premeditated and does it repeatedly in other words turns it into a lifestyle and then does it with elaboration in other words not only is one homosexual or adulterous but in addition one is ostentatious about it. And if finally, one inflicts it onto someone who is defenseless such as the numerous cases of child abuse we have seen, of which some have occurred within religious institutions, which from a Buddhist standpoint makes this even heavier comically, then one is turning a deed of sexual misconduct into an extraordinarily weighty comic deed. In addition, if there is no antidote and this occurs very commonly nowadays where most people have no religious or spiritual bringing of any type, no understanding to put it bluntly of right and wrong. The person has no vows of any type, are materialist. The idea of restraint does not apply.

There is no shame. In other words, having performed the deed instead of feeling bad about it and thinking I really shouldn’t have done this, one instead propagates it. No merit is accumulated to try to purify it and there’s no understanding of any type of religious teaching, not only Buddhist. Then we can say there is no antidote whatsoever to such a deed. This can then be amplified by the fourth component, clinging to the perverse.

Where one actually believes that it’s virtuous to commit the non virtuous. I have, I read The Guardian, it’s a very good paper apart from a certain bias as far as lifestyle is concerned. Then it’s astonishing, one is reading people who are so profoundly deluded, let alone they themselves as the victims of their tendencies, they preach this to others. And this fully satisfies the definition of a weighty deed. As long as the Dalai Lama has had to address this issue directly and I think he has done it very skillfully.

He has made a very clear distinction between believers and unbelievers. Now, this conference is addressed to believers. I am working on the assumption that you are interested in Buddhism and you are interested in karmic ethics. From the standpoint of karmic ethics, there is such a thing as sexual misconduct. Then if you are an unbeliever, you have no particular religion of any type.

Then as long as something does not break the law, you are perfectly entitled to engage. We have nothing to say to you and you have nothing to say to us. We are on different planets. But if you are a practicing Buddhist, if you sincerely believe in the existence of karma and causality, then we have to change our lives in keeping of this or in accordance with this. And this is why his holiness has generally said that, you know, as far as society at large is concerned, should people wish to engage in certain types of sexual misconduct, it is entirely up to them.

And as far as Buddhists are concerned, it is at odds with the teachings. Fundamentally at odds with the teachings. And it’s something one ought to be aware of. Now the next issue I would like to address as far as karmic amplification or weight is concerned is the issue of the doors for powerful karma. And I should mention by the way I brought up sexual misconduct because wanted to talk about it here but felt very awkward about it.

Then it didn’t seem appropriate that it not be talked about. Then I thought as a lay person it is more straightforward for myself to address this in front of you. And then from your own side, you make your own decisions. So the doors for powerful karma are other means of karmic amplification. They are fourfold.

The field, the foundation, the object and the thought. The field is particularly dangerous for us. It includes a triple gem, in other words, the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. One spiritual teacher, if one has one, one’s parents. And a tentative diagram, this is my own, diagram, which indicates karmic amplification in terms of the field would be the following.

A deed performed towards a close friend is karmically more weighty than a deed performed to someone you don’t know. A deed performed to a child who trusts you is weightier. Then in terms of kindness, a deed performs to one’s father is even weightier. And to one’s mother even more than that since generally mothers are kinder than our fathers actually bring us in this world. A deed performed towards a monk is very weighty.

A deed performs towards a bodhisattva is even weightier. An deed performed towards one’s own spiritual teacher is the heaviest of all. Here, we must be very wary because minor deeds performed towards one’s parents, let alone one’s spiritual teacher, can turn into extraordinarily heavy comic deeds. If one addresses a reproach to one’s mother in a moment of irritation and one hurts her deeply, this is a karmic deed which will certainly mature. Certainly because the field is extraordinarily heavy.

Then if heaven forbid, one does not put in practice what one spiritual teacher teaches or one hurts the feelings of one spiritual teacher, then such a deed is really difficult to measure. Difficult to measure. And we shall talk about the spiritual teacher in the context of this conference a bit later on. I shall use the opportunity to take the spiritual teacher as the example of the heaviest field. Now there is karma which technically cannot be purified And it is the karma of stealing from the monastic community.

We have a clear scriptural quote in the Sat Dharma sūtra. There is no clearing away the karma of stealing from the community without experiencing the result because of the weight of the Sangha as community. An explanation which was given to me by my teachers is that in addition, as the Sangha changes continually, it is impossible to ever restitute whatever one has for instance stolen from the Sangha because the community is no longer the same. Then the Sangha as community is therefore a dangerous community, comically dangerous. It must be approached with care, with prudence.

But a center such as this one, which is a community of practitioners comes close to satisfying this definition. So one must be careful not to harm a community because the harm performed to a community is very difficult to purify. The sec Yes. Yes. In the courtroom sutrait is the people who are ordained.

Then when nowadays we deal with a Buddhist community, it is not the Sangha. Community of lay person is not the Sangha but it is close. It is close. A very fine teacher, I transited for said Buddhist centers are in the twenty first century the equivalent of monasteries in Tibet. It is through them that the teachings are spread.

I think in the West it is quite true. It is quite true. Now the second category of power is power in terms of the foundation of the deed. Clearly, if we engage in a non virtuous deed, but when we engage in that non virtuous deed, we regret that deed. We immediately wish to restrain from doing it again and very importantly we do not hide it.

We do not conceal it. We go to our teacher, if we have a teacher or we go to someone whom we respect, who is responsible for these matters and we say, I apologize. I did this and this. Then the deed becomes quite light. It is not purified, but it is much lighter.

And then if in addition we do virtuous actions as a remedy, very possibly this deed will no longer be definite. It will become indefinite. So I noted when I was at Sera, it was very striking. An old friend of mine who had been disciplinarian of the monastery, Yoshi Yoshigawa, whenever issues regarding behavior arose would always ask the question, did the person hide it or not? If they did not hide it, then the deed was much lighter.

If it was hidden, then the deed was heavier. Then we have power in terms of the object. This refers to the offerings we engage in. For instance, within all of the gifts we can lay we can give to people, we tend to think that giving money is the greatest gift. But the greatest gift is actually teaching spiritual practice for us teaching dharma.

This is of benefit not just for this life but for future lives. Then this is a deed which is heavy in terms of the object. And finally, we have power in terms of thought, in other words in terms of intent. Negative hatred can greatly increase the weight of a karmic deed whereas if one has generated within one’s mind stream renunciation or even bodhichitta, then every deed one performs becomes extraordinarily positive as a result of this. And you all probably know the quote from Śāntideva regarding the dangers of anger.

All the good behavior, generosity, offerings to the Buddhas and the like amassed for a thousand eons are destroyed in a single moment of anger. So this is a summary presentation of the doors for powerful karma, field foundation object and thought. And in this context, I would like to address at present the most powerful field for the accumulation of karma, the spiritual teacher. And this is probably a very good point to take a break. We will, reconvene.

I’m told you need a long time to take a cup of tea, so 03:10.