Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a personal story from his years at a Thai monastery—where a fellow monk’s counsel, “Begin again,” became his guide—Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen spends this 46-minute teaching on human freedom and the capacity to consciously direct our lives. He contrasts habitual drifting with deliberate commitment, introducing going for refuge to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as a formal Buddhist framework for that commitment. He explains these three pillars and how to expand motivation from personal benefit toward the welfare of all beings. The second half covers death meditation—the nine-round contemplation of death’s inevitability, uncertainty of timing, and what remains useful at death. He concludes with an overview of the death process and its relationship to karma. The talk is accessible to practitioners new to Buddhist meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 H and M of A.mp3
UUID: decc9d12-9568-425e-b0a1-50ceb7f5c224
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996 Jul-Sep (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~6,361
I guess it’s a somewhat familiar saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with — well, maybe a thousand kilometers, whatever — begins with a first footstep. Begins with that first single step. I guess which is to say that no matter how long the path may be, still we have to actually begin it if we’re ever going to complete it. We have to actually begin. There’s no substitute for beginning, putting one foot in front of another.
And no matter how humble or however tentative or faltering, stumbling, imprecise, other steps might be, we actually have to begin to tread the path if we ever hope to solve our problems at the end. Now we have to at least begin. And we have to maybe begin for the first time or maybe we’re going to begin differently or we’re going to begin again. But still, we must begin. And we can do that.
We can all choose to do that. A number of years ago, just before I came to Australia originally — I think it was in nineteen eighty-seven — I spent about a year in Thailand. And for most of the time I spent on a small island up the northeast — southeast coast called — I know, maybe you’re familiar with Thailand — a small island called Koh Samui. It’s quite a tourist paradise. But I was a monk then.
I wasn’t much of a tourist. I stayed in a little wat, a little monastery in the center of the island. I lived in a cave under what was called the Buddhist footprint. It was a huge footprint — made out of carved — out of rock, I think — it’s probably the length of this room.
And they built a temple over it to protect it from the elements. As a consequence of having built that shelter, a cave was formed underneath the rock. So I lived there for a while. And in this little wat, this little monastery there, for most of the time I spent there, there were two other monks — both Thai monks — one of whom spoke no English, one spoke a little bit of English. I’m never quite sure how much English he actually did understand, but he spoke some English.
And over the number of months that I spent at this monastery — more or less in isolation, in retreat — there were times when I got down, became depressed, lonely, and I began to question what exactly am I doing here? Separated from everything that was familiar to me, everything that I valued, that I loved — the people I cared about and who cared about me, all my various habitual pleasures, my distractions, anything that was more or less of meaning and value to myself was somewhere else than where I was at present. And we used to meet in the afternoons, the three of us, to have a hot drink, usually chocolate — hot chocolate. And sometimes when I was feeling especially low, depressed, discouraged, I guess you might say, I would share these feelings with the one monk who did speak English. And I was never sure if he understood even half of what I said.
But maybe it doesn’t matter. But he would always smile and inevitably he would answer — whatever it was that I had said — begin again. Whatever happens, we can always begin again. The point is that we can always be beginning again. We can begin anew no matter what has gone in the past, no matter who we might have been or what we are, even just up to a few moments ago.
We have the freedom. We have the great gift, the opportunity to begin all over again, to bring about the type of person that we might want to be, to bring about the world that we would want to live in. We have the capacity, that chance, that opportunity to begin again, from moment to moment. And it seems as if — the very — as I’ve tried to emphasize — and I think in my view of my life — that there are very few dramatic moments over the course of our life, when it’s a life or death decision. Perhaps for some it’s happened.
But for most — and if in fact it happens, it’s very few. But we have many seemingly insignificant choices over the course of our life, an infinite number of choices when we are choosing rather the pattern of our life, the direction, the overall texture, the context in which our life is going to be experienced. And it’s making — being mindful of these seemingly insignificant choices — that we are continually making over the mundane course of our everyday life. That we begin to choose a destiny for ourselves. And here we can begin to exercise our freedom in these minor choices.
Beginning to — what step do you want to make? Where is it that you want to go? You know, unless you change the direction, you’re going to end up where you’re headed. And beginning to question — we have a great belief in the potential, our human potential, that we can transcend our past, that we can transcend our history, all these repetitive patterns.
This self-subjugating, self-oppressive story that most of us keep telling ourselves about ourselves — this loop of self-talk that continues playing in our minds, telling us who we are and what we can expect out of life. What was true once for us may not be true anymore. You know, often I read a quote: often we do not choose but drift into those modes which eventually define us. Circumstances push and we yield.
We did not choose to be what we had become, but gradually, imperceptibly, became what we are by drifting into the doing of those things that we now characteristically do. You know, I think it’s quite true, isn’t it? I mean, how many of us have chosen to be who we are and consciously with awareness — amongst, you know, looking at our priorities in terms of our options and alternatives — and freely chose to be the person we are, doing what we’re doing, associating with the people that we do associate with, doing the work that we now do. You know, whoever we are, whatever our circumstances, our situation, whatever our lot in life is, and whatever its real or imagined constraints might be — in some way, in some fashion, there’s some form of choice. There’s some measure of freedom.
However limited, however narrowly circumscribed our lives are, the chance is always open to us in a certain fashion — if we’re aware, if we’re looking for that opportunity — where we can begin to exercise our freedom and begin to choose the type of person that we want to be in the world that we want to live in. The chance is always open, always there within us, around us, to stop drifting, to stop yielding — if we only know what it is that we want — and beginning to choose some kind of new life story for ourselves. We kind of reinvent another version of ourselves. Who would we have ourselves be in another version of the type of world that we would like to experience, to live in. You know, if only for that moment — and we can’t perhaps consider next year or infinitely into the future — but if only for that moment and for that moment to choose the type of person that you want to be.
Maybe that’s all we can do — is choose that next step on this long thousand-mile journey that we’re all involved in — simply by means of our ability to choose to do so, the freedom to step onto another path, taking us in another direction. You know, if we’re committed, if we are aware of alternatives and constantly look for them — these chances of choosing a difference which is going to make a difference. You know, this is what changes people. This is what changes lives. A consistent choice in a particular direction which we’ve consciously chosen for ourselves.
You know, some — which is all that we mean by commitment. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. This is a quote by Goethe. I think it’s quite profound. Until one is committed, there is a hesitancy, a chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.
There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideals and splendid plans. But the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no person could have dreamed would have come their way. Whatever you can do or dream, you can.
Begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. The decision in itself begins — we think in a very near-linear fashion, from going from a to b, and what are the substantial causes? What are the indispensable, the primary causes of getting there.
But we don’t see the interconnecting web of circumstances and cooperative conditions which are going to facilitate or cause us obstacles along the way. And there’s a very intentional quality of the mind in beginning to clearly decide what it is that you want, which begins to — as he says here — have providence begin to move in your favor. You know, old boundaries are set aside. Now we go beyond what was a limit for ourselves and our conceived abilities. It seems as if the world begins to support us in what it is that we want, once we’re committed to some course of action, some direction in what it is that we want.
You know, commitment to a consistent choice of a discipline that a particular context prescribes. Commitment to a particular consistent choice that a particular discipline prescribes. You know, if you want to be a doctor, you commit yourself to a particular discipline — the context of study, of development and training and skills. Out of that, you become a doctor. If you want to be a biologist, if you want to be a pianist, there’s a particular context of skills which you commit yourself as a discipline to. In the same way with becoming a happy, healthy, happy, loving, sane human being — a Buddha.
There is a context, a discipline which we make a consistent choice to follow, to put ourselves in that context. So it’s not just a preference. It’s a belief that some certain mode of life is deserving. It merits our support. Even though we might find it difficult to live up to it — our lives are given over to finding fulfillment in that way, as best we can, in the terms of these ways of life.
You know, if it’s necessary, we go through legitimate suffering, but we consistently choose that context as a direction. And this is what it might mean by commitment. And here we’re talking about a commitment of going for refuge, which is another type of commitment — a particular context in which we’re putting our minds in, a discipline which we’re seeking to consistently choose to follow. Going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and the spiritual community is a way of honoring such a commitment to ourselves, and ultimately to others as well.
It’s a way of not giving up on ourselves. We’re not going to allow our lives to drift. We deserve more than we’ve experienced up to now. And then as a way of consistently choosing and supporting a different mode of life — what it is that we must — for ourselves — the mode of life that the context of Buddhism prescribes — to ensure that what we choose is going to make a difference for the better. We can always choose, but it’s not necessarily the choice which is going to make things better.
And here we’re choosing a particular path. And in that context, consistently choosing within that discipline in order to ensure that the energy, the time, and the effort that we put in — this commitment — is going to make things better in our lives, the quality of our lives, the relationships of our lives. We’re going to be a better person as an outcome of this choice. We’ve learned to be who we are. And whatever has been learned can be unlearned.
And new learning can take its place. We can unlearn to be our present self, and we can begin to learn to be another person and experience the world in other ways. This is possible. In the beginning of real learning — the very basis of understanding the nature of learning — is to appreciate the very fact, which is quite often overlooked, that we can learn, that we have that capacity. The basis of learning is to come to deeply appreciate that in fact we can learn.
And what is it that we are to learn? To learn to choose — what and what to choose, to learn what to choose and not to choose, and how to consciously choose it. That’s all that the Buddha offers us — to learn what it is to choose, what we are to choose in terms of priorities, in terms of our goals, what is it that we want most in life out of our life, what we are to choose and what we are not to choose, and how to consciously go about choosing it — to actually exercise our ability to choose. The beginning of — we all have this freedom, this capacity. But perhaps we’ve never exercised it.
We’ve never availed ourselves of this potential of ourselves. The beginning of real freedom is to choose to act as if we were free. And thereby we begin to regain the freedom that we have unknowingly lost, that we have unknowingly denied ourselves. To choose to assume that I am a free human being and I can choose what I want in my life, and thereby to consciously choose what it is that you want, and thereby to regain your freedom. And then the point is that we are what we do and may do whatever we choose.
New freedom — freedom is an awareness of alternatives and the ability to choose — and we can choose to change. We can choose to be other than where we are now. There are alternatives. We can choose to be Buddhas if we so choose. You know, we have a sense at some deep level of our being that I can’t be any other way than I am, that I’m pretty much stuck — that all I can do is make cosmetic changes in terms of who I am and the quality of my life, nothing more than that.
At some level of our cognitive awareness, we’re holding on to such a conception of ourselves. And we have to challenge this way of being and this understanding — or this misunderstanding. And at the beginning — genius, power, and magic are in boldly believing that we can. If you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, you’re right. We have to believe that we can.
This is the starting point of the path. But not just believing, but consciously determining — I will. We are free to do what we will. So we are — there’s a beautiful quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet. We are not prisoners.
No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors. If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us.
If there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with that principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races? The myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage.
So there is — there’s nothing left to do but begin. With beauty and courage to begin. Anew, again, differently. However — we have to try harder, whichever — but nevertheless begin. And there’s no time to begin but now, and there’s nowhere to begin but where each of us is.
You know, there’s no substitute for committing ourselves in stepping on the path. Choosing again and again the less traveled, the difficult path, the one of growth, and ultimately of awakening. And we’re all on this thousand-mile journey — or this thousand-eon journey, however you want to look at that — and we perhaps have to become conscious of the fact and begin to constantly involve ourselves in our journey — to begin to take that kind of perspective on our lives. We are the paths that we have taken up to now. And the path that we choose now is what we will become.
The path of awakening — the path that we’re discussing, that we’ve been talking about for the last few months now — involves very much a realigning of our allegiance from passively following our hopes and fears to one based upon actively choosing to grow, to change. Anyway, we don’t allow our fears and our hopes to dominate our lives any longer. The dominating forces which have only brought us more of the same and will only bring us more of the same. Only these reoccurring compulsive patterns which have very much constituted our lives at present. But we want to interrupt those patterns — to begin some kind of positive feedback, some kind of new possibility.
There is a transformation of the system, a new way, new adapteachings, new ways of being developed by taking responsibility for ourselves. For — we’re deciding how we want to live. It is — we have to stop blaming it on our circumstances, on our history, on other people, whoever and whatever, and beginning to take responsibility. I must be doing what I do want to do.
And if that’s not what you want, then begin to change it. These are the consequences of decisions that we’ve made somewhere along the line — who I am now and what I’m experiencing. You’re beginning to freely and constantly direct ourselves in the light of our own truth — to new and different possibilities in the future — and adjusting our priorities, finding out what works for you, what brings meaning to your life, a sense of connectedness with others. What is of ultimate concern to you as a very unique, self-actualizing individual?
You know, what works for you? What makes you feel that life is worth living at a very deep level? And holding that before your eye as a priority in your life. And it begins with some kind of — in Buddhist context — with a heartfelt commitment to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the spiritual community. In this context, this is the ultimate outcome — what brings meaning to my life.
The inner focus of our life is Buddha — to put it inside ourselves. This is your priority, however you want to define who and what Buddha is. This — the outcome of the most fine, the finest story that we can tell ourselves about ourselves — which we actualize. We have to not just imagine it. We have to translate these images in our mind into some kind of reality.
And that takes work. We have to make effort along certain lines according to a certain context of discipline — the meditative techniques, the means of Dharma, the teachings, the truth, the various practices that we’re involved in. And this process occurs within the social context of a spiritual community — those who assist us in implementing the Dharma in our lives — the actual mechanisms by which we can translate these images out of our minds into a reality, those people who support us and who validate our Buddhist story.
And we try again and again to raise the level of our motivation — why we’re doing what we’re doing. Why is it that we are going for refuge to this particular refuge? Why are we going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and the spiritual community? Such that we’re not doing it just for ourselves alone, not just for our own narrow and limited self-needs, but for an ever-growing altruistic commitment to others — to an ever-widening circle of others.
Ultimately, for the sake of all living beings. This is the direction of the orientation that we commit. We again and again keep recommitting ourselves to — in going for refuge in the ways that we do, whether in formal terms in reciting the formal formula that we recite before the teachings, before meditation or whatever. But in a more real sense in terms of how we direct our lives — the orientation — this is what it is that we’re committed to.
As I’ve tried to emphasize, we’re all going for refuge to something or other. Something that we see as helping us to solve our problems, which is going to bring about what it is that we want in our life. And we try to associate that and develop the understanding — which we want most — in terms of the person that we can become — we’re calling a Buddha. And that discipline, that context which is going to aid that, is the Dharma. And those who are assisting are the spiritual community.
And the why behind this process is others. And this is our commitment. Keep reorienting — like bringing your compass needle continually back to the same direction. And then we can be assured that what we do and the choices that we make will be for the better. And perhaps the quality of our relationships, the quality of our work, the quality of our being in the world — well, some perhaps unforeseen, perhaps at present impossible to predict or envision — will be for the better.
We have confidence in that. We have faith in all that. And we commit ourselves to that. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, and mind and present clouds of every type of offering — those actual and imagined.
I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. So, we’re going to meditate. Would you like to stand up for a moment and stretch your legs?
So we’ve been discussing death, and we’re going to continue meditating on that. And this is an imaginary technique, perhaps a visualization technique, where we try to — however best we can — visualize our actual death and go through the funeral and sort of give it a tryout and see how it’s going to go, how you would actually feel if you could do it over again. You know, there’s a saying that life is learning how to play the violin while you’re giving the performance. You know, it’s too bad that we can’t say, well, now the rehearsal is over, let’s do the actual thing now.
And then we can’t go back and, having learned all the lessons, repeat — give the good performance that we’d rather, that we choose to perform. That’s not the way life works. But we can imagine — if they work with predictable outcomes and draw lessons in terms of our felt experience, how we might imagine feeling — and thereby perhaps learn, begin to adjust, to make adjustments in light of what we learn in the course of our meditation. And meditation is above all else a way that we learn about ourselves and how we might feel about certain possibilities, how we would experience them, and therefore begin to make some kinds of adjustments in the direction of our priorities. We’ve been working in terms of our motivation, the development of love and compassion, with a spectrum of different types of relationships.
Now we’re coming to almost the extreme of the qualities of our relationship in terms of those we feel some aversion toward. Pick somebody that — you don’t have any heavy-duty anger or hatred toward this person, you don’t feel comfortable, you don’t particularly like them, you’ve had maybe some difficulties in action or just imagined in the past. You’d rather not be around them. Don’t feel good about them. Choose such and work with such an individual.
Heavy duty — nothing really kind of gut-wrenching hatred that we might experience toward some people — but just a mild form of aversion. You know, some people say, well, I can’t think of anybody I have that feeling toward, but maybe they aren’t being quite honest with themselves. Doesn’t — again, to reach somebody — somebody who steps in front of you in a queue or somebody pulls in front of you in your car or something like that — we can find somebody that we’ve had these experiences with and working with those experiences and how we feel about them. So if you take a comfortable front posture. Down to it.
So let’s get in touch first with the body. Noticing any tightness, any tensions. Our life — our human life — affords us. And amongst humanity, we are extremely privileged — in beginning to appreciate that fact so we don’t throw it away. We don’t waste this opportunity that our life of leisure and fortune presents us with.
Because, moreover, the fact is that it’s definite that we’re going to die, and we don’t know when. And the only thing which is going to be of use to us — whether it’s a big death at the end of this life or through the course of the many deaths, the little deaths which occur throughout our life — is the patterns of our own mind, the imprints, our attitudes, our beliefs, how we’ve developed our mind, how we’ve grown. We look at death as a means of helping us to appreciate our life, to make the best of it, to lead our lives with an intensity of being and try to achieve a quality of life — because the quantity is going to be limited. So in terms of death, we’ve looked at the nine-round death meditation. It consists of three roots, each having three supportive points to it or reasons, and coming to three distinct conclusions.
The first of these was that death is inevitable. That’s the first root, and this is supported by three points. The first one of which is that death is certain — it happens to everybody. And then secondly, our life is continually decreasing — the span of our life constantly, without interruption.
And then thirdly, beginning to see in terms of our life — what part of our life has really any quality to it. How much of our lives are dedicated to actually growing, developing ourselves as opposed to other ways that we distract ourselves — other ways which perhaps aren’t as significant and might not be bringing us the quality of life we want. So considering these facts will bring us to a certain conclusion — that is to begin to live our lives wisely and mindful of the quality of our life and the development of our minds and our attitudes. And then the second root is that the time of death is uncertain. And the three supporting facts in terms of the time of death being uncertain are: firstly that our lifespan is indefinite.
There’s no certainty as to when we’re going to die. And then secondly, it begins to look at the fragility of human life — how easily it can be lost. And thirdly, all the very many causes which can end our life — some are quite subtle. It doesn’t have to be a catastrophe. It can be something petty, insignificant, minor, but still our life can be lost.
And this will lead us to the second of these three conclusions — to use our life wisely while we still have it and to begin something now, if that’s what we want, because we’re not sure if we’re going to have enough time in the future to achieve what it is that we want. And if we’re going to practice the Dharma, to begin to practice it now, because the tomorrow when we were going to practice might come later than the day of our death. Then the third root is beginning to understand what is it that’s going to be of any benefit, of any use to ourselves at the time of our death. And look at the three supporting points in this context. That those who love us — the people who really want to help us, who have our interest in mind sincerely in a very unselfish manner — even they, with their best intentions, can’t be of any benefit to us at the time of our death.
And that’s the reality of our situation. And what to say of our material possessions, all our enjoyments that we pursue, and even our own body. Those are the three supportive points — the loved ones, our material possessions and the pursuits of enjoyment, and thirdly, our body itself — which we have taken such great care of over the course of our life — are of no use at the time of our death. And what can be of use? Whether the big death at the end of our life or these many deaths, these small deaths that occur over the course of life.
The attitudes of our mind — whether skillful or unskillful — the imprints, the potentials, our beliefs, our worldview, and how we’ve developed our mind — is the only thing which can see us through, by means of which we can be assured that we’re going to land on our feet at the end of these transition periods, these gaps which death presents us with. And the conclusion that we come to is to begin to use, to begin to practice, to do something, to make self-development a priority in our life, to create the space, the time, put forth the energy in working with some systems, some methods, some discipline to improve ourselves, the quality of our mind, and thereby our life. And so now I thought we’d discuss the death process. It’s a little bit technical, but I think it’s of great interest and I think it can be of great use. Maybe an advanced student of Buddhism — and in particular someone who practices Tantra — seeks to make use of the opportunity of death as a means to gain awakening.
Familiarizing themselves with the process of death will prepare them to follow the experience of dying and moving into the intermediate stage — we’re going to explain — with a great deal of confidence and a great deal of awareness. And they can make use of this transition period in terms of their practice. They can actually be transformed into a way of developing their own mind. But even for ordinary individuals like ourselves, an understanding of death — if we can understand the process that we’re going to go through, this — if we can have greater awareness, and this will help us in having greater awareness, will help us in having less fear, and thereby it’s going to contribute to the eventual outcome of a more positive rebirth.
And understanding the death process also helps to gain some kind of rational acceptance of the reality of rebirth. It becomes more plausible. This is not a wishful notion, some kind of wishing that there’ll be more life, sort of without any foundation, without any plausible explanation, without any mechanism — we can begin to understand the actual process. So we’re going to discuss the actual death process.
The ordinary physical form — this body that we have — composed of all the material elements, is subject to inevitable decay, inner deterioration, sickness. And finally it’s going to die. And this body that we’re so attached to is inevitably going to be lost. All the causes of death whatsoever — whether due to old age at the end of our natural lifespan or due to some interruption, perhaps by accident — are determined by the karma of the person, of the individual. You know, any outward happening which might be viewed as the apparent cause of death is, from a Buddhist point of view, really a cooperative condition.
The deeper cause of the death is the interruption in the life-sustaining karma of the person. No matter what conditions might occur outside, no matter what happenings might happen, if the person still has the karma for their life to continue, they will not die. On the other hand, once an individual’s life-sustaining karma is exhausted, it takes any insignificant event as a cooperative condition necessary to bring about their death. And by karma, we mean all the activities. The notion of karma — there are many ways that we can approach karma.
Now we’re going to discuss karma in the near future. But it can be approached from many points of view. It’s very complex and it’s a very profound subject. It’s really — I think in many ways — it’s the way that we thing-ify — we make objects into things. It becomes difficult for us to imagine what karma is because karma is thought of more in terms of processes than things — than it is a static thing — what is shaping.
It’s the activities or the shaping that formed the being. Rather than being a static thing, a person is an expression of a happening. You know, remember in the sixties, in San Francisco and in California and Haight-Ashbury and all that — they used to have happenings. You know, you get a bucket full of — well, LSD — and you get some music, and you get some paint, and you get some balloons, and you get the venue, and you get all these things together. Yeah.
A happening. Something happens out of all these conditions. And like — we are happening. We are an expression. Everything, in fact.
An expression of a latticework of complex subtle variables, processes — not isolated things that we somehow try to fixate on. So karma is part of these processes which are maintaining the continuity of life — this flux, this flow of events which we call our life. This includes all the imprints of our past actions, our genetic coding, life in the womb, our parental and social and cultural conditioning. The sum of all the interactions between an individual and these processes — we aren’t a solid fixed entity. We are an expression of momentary happening in continuity over time.
An intimate or necessary condition of which — which is supporting this whole context of maintenance of an identity of who we are — is our own inner karma, our own inner conditioning, our evolutionary code, finding expression, reacting to the world about it. The cells of the body, for example, controlled by karma. Any breakdown of the cells — whether naturally through disease or due to — whether naturally or through disease — is a breakdown of the continuum of the karmic flow which is sustaining and shaping that form. You know, if something does not arise — this applies to everything — but we can begin to think of it in terms of our embodiment, that things are continually replicating a similar type. And we’re going to discuss this when we talk about rebirth, the logic behind rebirth.
That things do not come out of nothing. They must have a cause. But moreover, there are various types of cause which bring about a product, a result. One of the necessary types of causes is a type that’s called a homogeneous cause — a type which is similar — a cause which is similar in type. That is to say, there must be a similarity of type between the cause and its effect.
And like with ourselves, there is a con—