Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 30-minute teaching, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen opens with the young woman/old woman optical illusion to establish how perception depends on karmic conditioning rather than objective fact. His central example is the glass of fluid—perceived as refreshing water by humans, blissful nectar by celestial beings, pus and blood by hungry ghosts, molten lead by hell beings—showing how karma imprinted in the mind shapes experience. Through contemporary examples like smoking, he demonstrates how culturally shared karma creates collective reality. He then systematically teaches the four effects of karma: ripening effect (realm of rebirth), experiential similarity, functional similarity (habitual tendency), and governing effect (environmental circumstances). Phenomena lack inherent qualities; our karmic conditioning determines perception and experience. Understanding this is liberating because we can reshape our world through skillful action. For practitioners with Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 H and M of A.mp3
UUID: 0e756195-dc3d-4941-8ef3-5f0285845754
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: 30.2 minutes
Words: ~3,574
One person — okay. Somebody sees a young woman. Okay? Okay. Somebody sees an old woman.
Okay. Why — why are you looking, why is it that one of you is seeing a young woman? Why is another seeing an old woman? I mean, there’s only one object here, isn’t there?
You’re doing the scene. But you see an old woman? Me. Yeah. Yeah.
Why do you see an old woman? It’s the facial expression — they’re creating the agenda of the big nose. How in the world can you see a young woman? And it’s obvious it’s an old woman. Wait.
How can you see a young woman when there’s an old one? Well, it just depends which way one looks at it. I can see both. Yeah. I don’t — so, you know, I’ll show you what I showed the others.
I mean, you probably know. So here — I showed the right half a picture which is similar to an older woman, I think. Would you agree with that? Yeah. So and then the left half saw a picture of a young woman.
Okay? So, you know, you have some experience. And how would this affect you in what you, in fact, saw here? And, you know, there are two possibilities, aren’t there? If you take this to be a nose — big nose — and this to be a mouth.
Can you see the old woman? This is a mouth here, big, big nose. But there’s another possibility, isn’t there? This could be a choker, a necklace. This is her chin.
Chin here. Nose here. Ear. So, I mean, we would agree. We would all agree that there are black marks on white paper.
So it’s like we’re pretty much in agreement about the objective fact. But how we interpret those facts is going to be very much dependent upon our past experiences — or it’s supposed to be. The past experience is what determined which of these two you saw. So, you know, just check — our minds are conditioned by what we expect to see, our past experiences, the conditioning factors that have been implanted within our mind. Take a more traditional Buddhist example: like a glass of fluid. Seemingly, a human being would perceive — due to the way that they interpret, due to their karmic latencies in their mind — perceive this glass of fluid as a glass of water.
And they would experience it as refreshing. But, you know, if somebody had rabies — a hydrophobia — they would have a great dread around it. But in general, a human being would see it as a glass of water and as very refreshing. A celestial being would see it as a glass of nectar and experience it as great bliss. A hungry ghost would perceive the relatively same object as a glass of pus and blood and would experience it as repulsive.
A hell being would perceive it as molten lead and would experience it as tremendously painful. A mosquito would see it as a place to lay its eggs. A fish would see it as a complete environment in which to live. So, you know, there are all these diverse ways of perceiving what is more or less the same object. And what is the variable?
Why is it that there are these varieties of ways of perceiving — this diversity in ways of perceiving and experiencing — something more or less the same object, this glass of fluid? This is attributed to the diversity of karmic predispositions, the karmic latencies within these various beings’ minds. You know, almost all of us, due to the influence of our cultural conditioning — which is our collective karma or our social karma — would tend to conceive of a long white tube of paper stuffed with, you know, dried tobacco as something to be placed in the mouth and set on fire.
That would come to mind. We would label it in that fashion. But there are people in other cultures who would not share that same karma. It would never occur to them that the function of that long white tube was to be placed in the mouth and set on fire. It would seem absurd to them.
So some people tend to conceive of the inhalation of the toxic fumes given off by these white tubes as pleasurable. Some people tend to conceive of the inhalation of those toxic fumes — the smoke — as being obnoxious. So this is their individual karma. So if it were the inherent nature of an object to be pleasurable or painful, then any valid experience of that object would necessarily have to be one or the other. If we were to experience it in any valid manner, it would have to be either pleasurable or painful.
But that’s not the case, is it? There’s no inherent desirability, there’s no inherent pleasurability or painfulness about the object. It is in our interpretation of it — how we label it and how we conceive of it — and the feelings associated with that process. So if an object such as a cigarette were inherently pleasurable or painful, if that were in its very nature, if it itself were determinant of how we are to experience it, then any valid experience would have to be exactly in accordance with it. There would be unanimity in how everybody experienced it — either we would all be smoking or we would have no smokers at all.
So phenomena are empty of any inherent properties whatsoever — whether their attractive properties or their unattractive properties, even the very fact of their existence. Nothing whatsoever exists purely from its own side, completely from the side of the object. Everything is empty of such a way of existing. If there’s no such thing as an inherently attractive or unattractive object, then what is it that determines our actual felt experience in relationship to the various objects that we come in contact with? It is the karmic latencies within our own minds.
How do we account for them? We account for them in terms of some conditioning factor. And this conditioning factor is brought about how? By means of our previous actions — in terms of how we think, how we behaved, both verbally and physically in the past. You know, we’re beginning to find some mechanism for the explanation of suffering and happiness in the world.
Not only that, but for the very nature of the reality in which we participate. The very idea of the various realms and levels of existence becomes more and more plausible. As we begin to see them not as solidly existing out there independent of our own minds, but to see how it is a participatory universe — we are involved in its co-creation — and that there can be levels of reality co-extensive with one another that we aren’t able to perceive simply because we don’t label that particular reality. We don’t have the metaphors. We don’t have the images within our mind because we don’t have the common latencies which are necessary, which are to be activated in order to organise our reality along those ways.
You know, this idea that knowing is an organising into the known. And the rules by means of which we organise are dependent upon our karma, the conditioning factors within our own mind. So, you know, we can begin — these various possible ways of conceiving a glass of fluid — our mind can begin to see the possibility of other realms of existence. You know, it’s not a farcical or childish notion to think of hell realms where everything is seen as threatening, where everything is experienced as tremendously painful. Why can’t there be that way of interpreting our reality?
Why can’t there be those rules which would organise our experience along those ways, just as much as we have our present rules by which we organise our present reality — in terms of the fairly balanced mix of slight sufferings and slight happiness that we experience in the human realm and the way it’s organised? And anything that we can imagine can be — because nothing exists from its own side objectively, inherently. The mind is shaping it, and that which is determining how it’s shaped are the karmic predispositions in our own minds. So you know, we can talk about karma from the point of view of cause — which is very much what we’re talking about — and we’re going to go into this more in the future. But also in terms of its effect.
Karma, in terms of effect, is discussed from four points of view. There are four types of effects of karma. There’s the ripening effect. So we’re talking about some type of conditioning factor, some residue which is left in the mind having thought in a particular fashion, having acted in a particular fashion. The actions of intention and intended actions.
That the way that we think, what we think about, the intentional quality of our actions simply doesn’t pass through the mind without leaving a trace. That there are some tracks left behind. Having thought in this way has conditioned the mind in a very specific manner. It’s not as if thoughts can pass through our mind as if through some medium, like a duck flying through space — and the atmosphere just closes up, as if nothing ever passed through that area.
There are no tracks left behind. But in fact, all of our various thoughts, our motivations, our intentions are leaving some sort of residue. They’re conditioning the mind. We know this. And we use this idea every day in terms of what we mean by habits.
And thinking in one way will facilitate it being thought again with increased force. You know, the idea that doing something once facilitates doing it again. It becomes easier the second time. It becomes easier the third time, easier the fourth time. So there’s some kind of residual effect left in the mind.
There are some kind of tracks left which cause us to — which have certain effects, certain results. There are four types of effects. There’s the ripening effect. There’s the effect which is experientially similar to the cause. The effect which is experientially similar to the cause.
There’s the effect which is functionally similar to the cause — functionally similar to the cause. And finally, the governing effect. So there are these predispositions, latencies, tendencies, these tracks which have been infused or left upon our consciousness. And they’re going to have certain effects or types of effects. They’re classified in terms of these four types.
So the ripening effect. You know, the overall level of reality that we experience — the projected realm that we come to know, that we’re born into. You know, it’s interesting. We have this notion — like we’re an explorer, you know, exploring the deepest dark of Africa, and we discover something that’s never been seen before. And so we have that sense, like we’re born into something which has preexisted ourselves.
And we just — it sort of is out there, and we come to know it. It sort of forces itself upon ourselves, rather than having the understanding that we are born into a particular collective reality in which we are participating in its evolvement, in its existence. And that this world as we know it didn’t preexist our being born into it. Well, existence is defined as that which is known by a valid cognition. So Buddhism is always coming from the notion of mind.
But it’s not to say that machines cannot extend the capacity of mind in certain areas — like with a microscope. What was unknowable to our eye consciousness can be made known to ourselves, like seeing microorganisms, for example. So machines only extend the capacity of mind to come to know. Existence still ultimately comes down to the mind knowing. So, yeah. So the ripening effect — the overall realm that we come to know, that we’re born into more or less.
This is an effect of what we call propelling karma. Propelling karma. We talked about death and rebirth, and I’ll talk about this more in the future when we go through the twelve links of dependent origination — that a propelling karma is activated. It’s called propelling karma because it actually throws us into another existence.
It throws us into an overall realm, an overall way of perceiving — the realm of existence in which we’re born. You know, most simply, it throws us into a rebirth. But what is it? It is an overall pattern of perception of our environment, of the world that we come to know. We share in this.
We have very similar propelling karmas that have caused us to have a shared reality. We both share more or less the same world. But we experience it individually. We have a shared reality which is due to our similarity of propelling karma, by means of which we all took rebirth in the human realm. But within this human realm, there are what are called completing karmas, by means of which we come to know the specifics for ourselves as individuals — the effects of that particular realm.
You know, how we fill out the life in that realm, the qualities, the type of world which we perceive out there — is determined by our completing karma. So all of our various feelings and happiness that we experience individually, within this overall realm of human existence. You know, for example, in terms of the ripening effect — talking about the effects — the ripening effect of the action of killing is to be reborn in a hell realm as a hell being, with an attitude of great fear and paranoia and the experience of excruciating physical pain. And a body which is able to sustain that pain.
A human body could not sustain the type of pain which the hell being is able to undergo. Our body would disintegrate immediately. It wouldn’t — who we are, what we are, and even our materiality is appropriate to the condition in which we find ourselves. It’s like a statement about what we’ve done in the past. Our human body has certain capacities and is appropriate to our conditions of living in the human realm and having certain experiences, being predisposed to undergoing certain other experiences in terms of physical pleasure, physical pain, etcetera.
So everything fits together. So the ripening effect. Then the second was the effect experientially similar to the cause. The effect experientially similar to the cause. So this is simply a formulation of the teaching: as you sow, so shall you reap.
That you get very much what you put out. That is, you experience an effect similar to the cause that you created. So the effect which is experientially similar to the cause. This characteristic of karma points out that all of our very specific experiences — whether we have wealth, whether we have poverty, whether we have beauty, whether we have ugliness, whether we have a short life or a long life, whether we have loving friends or hateful friends — all are the results of specific causes similar in type to themselves. In other words, like begets like.
For example, experientially, the action of generosity will bring about the effect of wealth. On the other hand, miserliness will bring about poverty as a result. You know, that’s — patience will bring about a beautiful form. Intolerance will bring about a repulsive form — let’s say, a body. Taking life will cause us to have a short life. Saving life will cause us to act as a cause, as a karmic implant — the karmic predisposition such that we will have a long life. Through the actions of caring and loving others, we ourselves will be cared for and loved by others. So there’s a similarity between the cause and effect, experientially.
And the third type of effect is the effect functionally similar to the cause — functionally. So this is the resultant tendency to repeat past actions. There’s a tendency to commit the same action again — habit. Our predisposition to perceive and relate and to act in similar manners again and again. Habitual ways that we’ve behaved before.
Committing an action once facilitates its repetition, committing it again. So it’s functionally similar to its cause. The predisposition to repeat the same types of actions. That is, for example, having enjoyed killing in the past, then you would have a tendency or predisposition — you would have an inclination — to maybe join the army or become a butcher, to take up some type of livelihood where you would be able to express this type of function, this type of behaviour again.
You would enjoy hunting. You would have very little regard for life. So this is the effect functionally similar to the cause. Then the fourth type of effect is the governing effect. So this is the — you know, the ripening effect was the overall realm in which we find ourselves.
The governing effect — sometimes it’s called the environmental effect — is the resultant immediate surroundings and resources that you have at your disposal. The governing effect of killing, for example — the ripening effect is being reborn in hell. Either that force can be ameliorated or that one can eventually be reborn in the human realm. But as a subsidiary effect of the action of killing, in terms of the governing effect, one would be born in a barren place, a sterile environment, a place where life forms found difficulty in growing and surviving. The food that you had would lack nutritional value.
That medicine would be impotent — it wouldn’t have much effect on your illnesses. So these would all be types of governing effects. Anyway, I think — then we’ll continue to go into karma more in the future. I guess the main thing, as has been mentioned, is that because things are empty — that is to say, they don’t have inherently desirable or undesirable qualities; they have no inherent qualities whatsoever — the mind is participating in organising into the known, into the reality that we come to know. And all the various qualities that we attribute to that reality, to the things about us — this is a nice person, this is a terrible meal that you just cooked, whatever — all of those various qualities. And what is it that is determining how we are organising — the way that we’re interpreting and perceiving and coming to know and feel about the world? It is the conditioning factors within our mind.
These conditioning factors are the causal linkages, the karmic latencies left in our mind. How are they implanted? By our various previous actions, by our ways of thinking and behaving previously. So, you know, we can begin to find some sort of mechanism which explains our experiences and helps us to be able to intervene in the process in terms of what we, in fact, want. We can begin to act skilfully to create an environment and felt experiences desirable to ourselves.
We can begin to avoid unskilful actions — that is, the types of actions which will cause us to experience an environment and felt experiences which are undesirable to ourselves. It’s empowering to ourselves in the way that we can begin to take control of our lives and the quality of our lives in terms of our experience. We can create the world we wish for ourselves and how we experience it. So we’ll stop there. We’re going to — if we all make it back — resume on the sixteenth of October.
Okay? Sixteenth of October. And, you know, many of you may not know — but Lama Zopa is coming the first week in October, after the Kālacakra ceremony in Sydney. He’s going to be teaching over the course of that week. And by all means, I think I would take advantage of the opportunity.
You know? Really? Yeah. There are some brochures that you — I think up in the hallway. And, you know, he’s a really tremendously special person.
Take advantage of the opportunity. Really make the effort to create the space and put forth the effort to get there. I think it’s really — I really more than recommend it. And I really would like very much for you to meet him and to receive his teachings. So anyway, I just wanted to remind you of that, to keep that in mind. So let’s dedicate.
In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful one, remain until the end of cyclic existence. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skilful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. Thank you.
Have a good break. Would you like to get a cup of tea, or have a discussion?