Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A half-snake, half-human being burdened with a grotesque body yet surrounded by wealth — the Naga — is Geshe Pema Tsering’s most memorable illustration in this 45-minute session on the second noble truth: the origin of suffering. He traces the causal chain from ignorance to afflicted emotion to karmic action, then maps karma’s main divisions — positive, negative, and neutral — and identifies mind as the determining force behind every physical and verbal act. The session’s central framework is the three-way division into throwing karma (what realm one is born into), establishing karma (the specific conditions of that birth), and completion karma (the happiness and suffering experienced within it). He closes by distinguishing pure from impure karma and showing how intention — whether one acts for personal gain or dedicates the act toward nirvana or Buddhahood — transforms its ultimate result. Suited to students with a basic grounding in Buddhist thought.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 2004 05 31 P and M.mp3
UUID: 61fc2491-20c0-4c1e-bc69-1cf75555c4d3
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: IB Philosophy and Meditation (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-05-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~4,348
Hello, Vic. Uh-uh. Okay. So last week, we were going through the four noble truths, right? Which is the Buddha’s first teaching and what are called the different sixteen aspects of the four noble truths.
We finished the first noble truth, which is the truth of suffering. Sorry, that’s the things we said you know not what we’re saying now but yes anyway so we’ve talked about the different characteristics of the first noble truth which is the truth of suffering and the phenomena that are instances of the truth of suffering that is our experiences and so forth. We finish by explaining how they are empty. Tonight, we’re going to talk about what’s called the truth of the origin of suffering or where suffering comes from. So, these things that we were talking about last week, which was the truth of suffering, right?
And that is the experiences of suffering, what their nature is and so forth. They are what’s called the result of something. And what we’re talking about this evening, which is the cause origin of suffering, is the cause for this suffering to come about. Last time we talked about their effect, and now we’re talking about their cause. Or the truth of where suffering comes from also has four characteristics.
They are that it is a cause, that acts as a cause for the experience of suffering, that it also acts as conditions for suffering to come about. Okay. It’s different characteristics that all come out basically the same in English. It’s a cause, it’s a condition, it’s the origin of arising, and it’s the And it’s the thing that makes things happen in an intense way. So like it’s called it’s actual direct translation is intense production or great production, but it basically means the way that suffering comes about in in different levels of intensity.
Cause for things to happen in different levels of intensity. Okay, so one by one, the reasons that this cause for suffering is said to have these characteristics we just mentioned was, first of all, it’s called a cause because it causes suffering, right? So the cause of suffering causes suffering. That’s pretty straightforward. The second one is called the origin of suffering.
Now this word that’s translated as origin in Tibetan actually has two parts to it. The first is all and the second part is arises. It means all arises from something. What everything comes from. It’s original, the thing that everything comes from, right?
So that s another way of saying all suffering comes from this cause of suffering. So it s a cause for suffering but it s also another characteristic is it s a cause for all suffering, right? The third one is that it is a condition of suffering. Basically, we re talking about negative emotions and negative and ignorant ways of thinking, they act as a cause for suffering, they act as the origin of suffering, they act as a condition for suffering. So there’s a difference in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy between cause and condition.
A cause is a direct reason something happens and a condition is something that helps an experience to come about. So, everything that is a cause is also a condition, but it’s not the I’m trying to think of a simple way to say it, it’s coming out confusing. Okay. So anything that is a cause is a condition, right? But it’s not a cause and a condition for the same thing.
With me so any phenomena has something as its cause and it also has conditions that help it come into being yeah and but they’re not the same thing the conditions in the cause for it from any the point of view of anyone phenomena isn’t the same right but anything that is a cause for something is condition for something else. Is that okay if everyone’s nodding? Cool. Oh, okay. So the last one is what’s called the last characteristic of these emotions or negative ways of thinking is that it creates different levels of suffering, different intensities of suffering.
So this is a different characteristics that the cause of suffering has, but when we re actually talking about the cause of suffering itself as opposed to its characteristics, then we describe the cause of suffering as being two different things. One of them is karma, that is an action of body, speech, or mind, and in this case, an afflicted action of body, speech, or mind. The cause that negative action which is oh, sorry, the cause for that afflicted action which is destructive emotions or afflicted ways of thinking, negative ways of thinking. Or another way you could translate it would be deluded ways of thinking. From our deluded ways of thinking, we act in certain ways that then cause us to experience their results, which is suffering.
So therefore, have karma is the cause of suffering, and the cause of karma is these afflicted emotions, these ignorance, these negative ways of thinking. So, when we’re talking about this working backwards from the result, which is suffering, we then come to the direct cause of suffering, which is these actions that we perform, the way we create karma, collect karma. There are three different types of karma that we can collect. We can collect positive karma, which has happiness as a result, negative karma, which has suffering as a result, and what’s called neutral karma, which has a a neutral experience as a result. As a positive action, a negative action, or a neutral action in Buddhism is by what its results are.
Something is a positive action if it brings about happiness. Something is a negative action if it brings about suffering. And something is a neutral action if it brings about a sense of equanimity that is neither suffering or happiness. Now, all three of these experiences, whether it’s outright suffering or samsaric happiness or this neutral experience, all three of these are contaminated because they are actions performed with misperception of the true nature of reality. So yeah.
So everything that we do, everything that we think, and everything that we say creates karma, right? It’s karmic process. This means that in every moment of the day, we are creating karma or we re collecting karma or doing something. Every moment of the day, re doing something that is either going to be the cause for happiness, is going to be the cause for suffering, or is going to be the cause for experiencing a neutral type experience. That is because we don’t ever have a moment where we don’t have a moment of consciousness, even if we don’t say anything or we don’t do anything physically.
We’re involved in this cause and effect system where we’re going to experience results of our actions. Even when we’re asleep, we are still creating karma. We’re still collecting karma because we’re still thinking one way or another. Anything that we do physically with our body is what’s called a physical action or an action of the body. That’s one type of karma.
That we do with our speech, anything that we say, a verbal karma. We’re creating verbal karma. And anything that we think, and there’s many times in the day where we perceive different sorts of things or we think something comes to our mind. Any of these, anything that we think is mental karma. We’re creating mental karma.
So for example, if we take our physical actions, any physical action that we do is either a positive physical action, itis a negative physical action, or itis a neutral physical action. That means that any positive physical action we do, we have to experience the results of that as a pleasant experience or a happy experience. Any negative physical actions we do, then we experience their results as a negative experience. Any neutral physical actions we perform, we experience their results as a like an equanimity or a a neutral experience. Mhmm.
So every action that we do of body, whether it is negative, positive, or neutral, is actually preceded by a mental action, an intention of the mind. Every action we also do a speech every time we say anything, then that is preceded by a mental action. So we can say things that are positive, we can say things that are negative which is, for example, harsh speech or slandering people or lying or we can say things that divide friends. They were all negative actions of speech and that we have to experience negative results of, or we can say something with no meaning and no intention which comes out as a neutral action, which we have to experience a neutral result of. But any action we do, whether it’s a physical action or it’s a verbal action, they’re both dominated by the thought that preceded them.
So, of the body, the speech, the mind, if we want to know who the boss is, it’s the mind. If we wanna know who’s in charge, then we have to look to the mind. So if we take, for example, if we spend a day or a morning doing looking at, like, Geshe-la said, if he was looking at a Buddhist text or trying to study something that he needed to study. Before he was going to look at this text, before he was going to study the thing that he needed to study, then he would have to have the thought, Oh, I really should look at this text and I really should meditate on what it says in the text and try and put it into practice. So, you have to start with that intention otherwise, you don’t get anything done.
Then, he starts doing the action and he would be in a physical posture of meditation and he would be using his body to perform this action, so therefore his body would be doing a positive physical action. Then, if he’s looking at a text and he’s trying to understand the text, he may say something or he may have to ask a or make a comment about it or if heis reciting a prayer, then heis using his mouth. Heis making a verbal action. That means that in this way, all three of these things came from the intention of mind. Mind had already come up with the idea of doing this thing, and then the body and the speech follow.
So if we that was an example of a positive action of mind that was followed by positive actions of body and speech. An example of a negative action of mind or a negative thought that is followed by negative actions of body and speech would be, for example, if we decided that we were going to kill a sheep in order to eat order to have lamb or mutton. First of all, we have the idea, I’m going kill the sheep. I need something to eat. I iI want something to eat.
That’s first negative action that we perform in this whole cycle. And then, after this, if we then say to the sheep, iHere sheep sheep, come here, come here, come here, i with the intention of trying to kill it, i right? Then, that’s a negative of speech if we then proceed to physically kill the sheep then that’s negative action of body so from the negative thought I need this I want to kill the sheep so I can eat it we then go on to perform a negative action speech and a negative action of body. So this shows that before any action ofO this is an example, sorry, of how any action that we perform, whether it’s to say something or whether it’s to act in a certain way, is preceded by some kind of a thought, some kind of movement of mind. And it shows that from these movements of mind, go on to perform physical and verbal actions.
But if we think about it and if we start processing that, that every time that we have an idea or every time we have a moment of consciousness where we’re focused on something and therefore doing a mental action, that means there isn’t really a moment that we experience when we’re not creating karma. So there’s also there’s and Geshe-la said there’s many things you can say about karma and itis divided into many different ways. Another way that people, that a karma is approached is to divide it into groups of the karma that is or the actions that create the causes for being reborn in saṃsāra, which is called throwing karma the karma that creates the causes for actually bringing that about. So we have the initial cause to be born in saṃsāra, and then you may have a cause that is a reason to be born in a specific place. Then you create the karma to actually experience things when you are born after you’re born in a certain place.
That’s three different types. It’s what’s called throwing karma, establishing karma, and completion karma. Throwing karma, you get born in saṃsāra. Establishing karma, you get born in a specific place. Completion karma, you have certain things happen to you after you’re born.
Mhmm. So there’s lots of different ways to say about karma. But yeah. So there’s all these different ways that karma fits together. Right?
So you could have a positive throwing karma, a negative throwing karma, and a neutral throwing karma. And then you can have a, oh, hang on. Okay. Yes. You can have neutral throwing karma.
So this is a throwing karma that creates the causes for being born in a meditative state of higher concentration. That’s what’s called neutral throwing karma. You can have virtuous throwing karma, negative throwing karma, and neutral throwing karma, and you can have virtuous establishing karma and neutral throwing establishing karma and so on. There’s all the different combinations of the different things work together, if that makes sense. So you can have there’s many divisions of karma.
So if you’re born if you’re if you’re creating positive throwing karma, that means you’re creating a cause to be born in a positive rebirth. Alright? That is, for example, in a human or a more more blissful state of experience than a human. If you’re creating negative throwing karma, that means you’re creating the causes to be born in what’s called a lower realm, is to be born as an animal or to be born as a spirit or some other more as in some other existence with more suffering. This establishing karma is then the thing that creates the causes to be born in a particular place and works along with the throwing karma to act as the main causes for us to be born in a specific place.
Okay. So we’re constantly creating the causes to continue with our existence. In every moment, through our actions and through things that we think or say or do, then we’re creating the causes for us continue experiencing certain things that weire going to experience. We can be creating positive causes to experience a good rebirth and we can be creating positive causes to bring that rebirth about. We can create the causes to be born somewhere and then we can create the causes to actually bring that birth into being.
Does that make sense? I’m trying to think of a way to translate it. So you create an initial cause that something may happen but you need something else to actually make it come about. So you’ve established a cause something happen but you need condition to bring it about. So this is what we’re accumulating, these causes and conditions for our future experiences.
Actually, it’s hard to translate because it’s hard to understand. So what happens then is we create these causes and conditions for being born in a certain place, and that sets us up to have certain experience. The body that we’re born into, which comes about because of these two different types of karma that we’ve been creating, is the basis for us to experience all these different things. This third type of karma that we’re talking about, which is completion karma which we’re also accumulating at a rate of knots in a very, very, very quick way, on that base acts as the cause for us to experience happiness and suffering. But it’s this happiness and suffering that is constantly changing because weire constantly accumulating different things.
So we create, for example, the cause to be born as a human, but we donit create the cause to be born as a human and be in a total experience of happiness with no suffering there. Weire constantly experiencing different types of changing. The happiness we experience doesn’t last because we are constantly creating different kinds of karma that we have to experience the results of. Okay. Sorry.
I was just giving you an example that I thought would be strange for you guys. But, anyway, was going, I’m low. I’m not sure they know what a naga is. Anyway, there’s I hesitate to use the words mythical creatures because the Tibetans believe that they exist, right? A type of creature that is a part human they’re actually said to be an animal, but they are partially like a snake and they live in a different realm.
They’re really wealthy but their body is horrible. Right? Yes. Now, this is an example of a being who has achieved good completion karma because they’re really wealthy and everything and they have all the things at their disposal, but they didn’t have very good throwing karma because they’ve ended up in this grotesque body. Alright?
So, it’s like this mythical being called a Naga that’s part snake, part human. Right? Not a very nice body. And so, they’ve got good completion karma, bad throwing karma. They’ve been thrown into a bad realm, and they’ve got lots of good things in that realm.
So, I said, please give us another example. Another example is like a cat, yeah? It may have been born as a cat, but they have very loving owners who always give them food, and they always protect them. Everything like that. They had the bad karma to be born as a cat but they’ve got the good karma to be protected all the time and to be given food and so forth, right?
Then, we have on the other instance someone who may have good throwing karma and be born as a human but they may not have very good completion karma so they don’t have any money. They don’t have any resources. They don’t have any happiness, and their bodies keep giving them illness. So there’s many people in the world that we can see that have actually had the good fortune or the good karma to be born as a human, but they haven’t developed good completion karma or their actions that weren’t done with the intense intention or dedication. They don’t don’t experience the happiness that necessarily that life may bring about.
These are people who don’t have food, who are always ill, who are constantly sad, of these experiences are because they haven’t developed good completion karma. Okay, so there’s also another way that we can look at karma. karma can be seen as the type of karma that ripens very quickly in this very lifetime that we see the results of straight away. There can be karma that we create that we experience in the next lifetime and then we can create karma in a very insignificant way in this lifetime that we don’t experience the results of until many lifetimes in the future. So thereis these three different types of another division of karma into these three.
So if we do something very powerfully, it can happen in this life and also powerfully next life and very like a very something with without intense intention or whatever may ripen in many lifetimes to come. So as a human, experiencing a human lifetime, there isn’t a moment when we aren’t creating karma. So what we need to remember though, which is unfortunate, is that we’re not usually aware that we’re constantly creating karma, and we’re not actually even usually aware of what we’re doing, saying, thinking what we’re physically doing, saying, or thinking. Without this awareness and without even the capacity to distinguish between what is going to create suffering and what isn’t, what’s a positive action and what’s a negative action, this means that most of the actions that we do are negative. So so this means that we need to be more aware.
Right? And this is the basic point of Buddhism, is to make ourselves aware of what we’re doing, to practice mindfulness, so we know what it is we’re doing and we think about the consequences of our actions, and we realize that things that we do that are negative are going to cause us suffering and things that we do that are positive are going to cause us happiness. So through awareness, through developing our awareness and concentration, then work towards stopping ourselves doing negative actions and trying to perform positive actions. Because in Buddhism, everything comes down to all of our experiences and all of our environment and all of the different things that make up our world are created by karma. There is no belief in a creator who makes the world the way it is.
In Buddhism, everything is said to come about through karma. So, for example, everybody in Australia has created a has some kind of impure karma, not necessarily negative but impure, to be born in Australia, to have the environment that we do, to have political situation that we do. We have like what’s called a collective karma. We all share the same type of karma to be born into this environment. Then through the force of our karma, Australia comes into being.
Mhmm. Mhmm. So there’s no acceptance of a creator god. Instead, everything comes about as a as a as a what’s the word? As the consequences of actions.
So in this way then, Buddhism is very different from other world religions in not accepting some kind of creator god as the source of the universe. Instead, it has this idea of one thing causing another, therefore we experience the results of that cause and effect in the environment we live in at the moment and our experiences. In Buddhism, what people practicing Buddhism, the way I should say, try to do is to develop their understanding of exactly what’s going to create happiness for them and what’s going to create suffering for them. By making that understanding more subtle and more subtle and bringing more wisdom into the equation, then they’ll be able to be more precise with their actions and with their understandings and less create the causes for suffering and more and more create the causes for happiness. And as creating more and more causes for happiness means there’s more and more causes for wisdom, this thing can bring about nirvana, can bring about the experience of nirvana because one is able to develop the causes to be able to see the way things are.
So, it’s not something that happens overnight. It’s not something that happens very quickly. Even to understand what it is that’s beneficial and what it is that’s not beneficial in a true way as opposed to just listening to it can take many years, ten to fifteen years. You can take just trying to understand what it is that you should do, you know? This understanding has to get more subtle and more subtle.
It’s not something that happens straight away, but it’s the goal of Buddhism. So in Buddhism, they talk of there’s many different ways to create positive karma, and there’s many different ways to abandon negative karma, and so all the different practices that are performed are done with these two intentions. It’s different ways to get rid of accumulated negative karma or to stop ourselves from accumulating more negative karma and to create positive karma. So there’s another thing that we need to mention in terms of karma in the in the way we perform actions, and that is what’s called pure karma and what’s called impure karma. Now, the things that we do as an ordinary being, someone without meditative insight into the nature of reality, are contaminated karma.
Is our karma contaminated? Oh, sorry. So, most of the things that we do come about was I talking about? Pure Yes, right, right. As ordinary beings, most of the things that we do come from a point of view of ignorance, and therefore, they are impure karma.
But the thing with karma is that whether something is positive or negative or not depends in the most part on what the intention behind the action is. So it’s the intention or the thought we have in the mind that determines whether something is positive or negative or not. If we do something for ourselves, then the result is that we get short term benefits for ourselves. But if we do something, for example, of, iIim doing this in order to attain Buddhahood to benefit all sentient beings, i then that action becomes a cause for us to achieve Buddhahood, i one of many that we need. I And then, if we do something with the idea that iIim doing this in order to achieve nirvana, then that action becomes a cause for us to achieve nirvana.
If we do something in order to get a good rebirth in the next life, we think I’m doing this in order to be who me? Battery’s dead. It’s not me. Okay? And if we do something in order to become