Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 93-minute introductory session on karma from the Discovering Buddhism program, the teacher establishes the foundational Buddhist concept that all of the Buddha’s teachings connect to the law of cause and effect. He clarifies the distinction between immediate worldly consequences and the ripening of karmic potencies in future lives, explaining why actions generate invisible imprints that manifest as far greater results than visible consequences. The teacher walks through the four factors determining karma’s potency: impulse, object, act, and completion. He then systematically covers the ten non-virtues of body, speech, and mind—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, idle gossip, covetousness, ill will, and wrong views—examining the recognition, intention, delusion, and actual performance required for each to constitute a complete negative action. Throughout, he stresses that saṃsāra’s complications require practitioners to understand these actions deeply and make conscious choices, while acknowledging gray zones such as killing invasive species or lying to save lives. The session emphasizes that avoiding non-virtues with understanding becomes positive karma itself and that dedicating good actions protects them from defilement.
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File: 01 – DBKarmaDonrub120312 MP3.mp3
UUID: 14f267c6-80da-4f71-8498-f96c1d89ca17
Teacher: the teacher
Collection: Karma
Words: ~12,177
Okay. So, welcome everyone to our third class. I think it is third class on, something about karma. Something about karma. So So the the discovering Buddhism program is set out to introduce people to the main ideas of of Mahāyāna Buddhism and encouraging us encouraging us to follow the path to which to realize our full potential, not only for our own sake, but particularly so that by realizing our full potential, we’re in a position where we not only cannot harm living beings in any way, but we can only benefit them and we can only benefit them in a perfect lasting way all the time and benefit all sentient beings.
So since this is the purpose of the teaching, from our side, we can try and have the that kind of motivation for listening to these teachings, at least at that in at our own level of understanding, want to wanting to, if we feel that the teachings make some sense and are beneficial to use them to, overcome as much as we can our negative qualities of mind to develop our positive qualities and with the thought of wanting to do this, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of others. And to help us develop that that wish and make it as strong and as all encompassing as possible, we can reflect right now as strongly as we can on the fact that, our existence, you know, even if even if we only think of this life, but the Buddhadharma encourages us to think beyond way beyond this life. But if even if we only think of this life, we can start to see how our existence is totally dependent on the existence of all other beings on this earth, either directly or indirectly. All our good experiences, all the good qualities we develop again also only come into existence depending on the kindness of others.
And so if we can see this is true for this life, and if we start to have belief that there are past lives and future lives, we can see that this this will apply to all of our all of our existence in while while we have this ordinary Samsaric existence that we are totally dependent on the kindness of others. And if one starts to understand there’s a possibility of going beyond this ordinary suffering existence to go beyond saṃsāra, then to do that, we depend on the kindness of others. If we develop some faith, hopefully, through these teachings that, we have Buddha nature and enlightenment is possible, the only way to realize that state is due to the kindness of others. So we try and think of all these beings surrounding us right now, starting with our mother on our left, father on our right. Think of our the rest of our family, all our friends, everyone who’s helped us, all of these beings behind us.
We put those who may have harmed us or disliked us in front to remind us of them that they are, beings who they actually have been kind to me in various ways. And but especially as we think of the kindness of all these beings to also realize that they are suffering like myself experiencing dissatisfaction and that the majority of the beings have more suffering than myself with less ability right now than myself to to really understand why they’re suffering, to modify their suffering, transform it, or eliminate it. And in their confusion, the reality is that most beings are just kept caught using their life unknowingly to create the cause for more suffering. So by thinking strongly in this way, we can generate this very compassionate mind wishing to help beings to be free of suffering. And then we can begin to realize the only way to do that is that we have to work with our mind.
We can’t do it with the mind we have now. We have to purify our mind, cultivate it, and achieve enlightenment. So, with that kind of thought, if you’d like to join in and if you find it meaningful in any way, we can do the prayer of refuge in bodhicitta, which is on page 12. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the supreme assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings.
So then we can imagine that the Buddha we’re visualizing in front of us who I which I forgot to mention, but I’m sure you’d remembered. We can now imagine that the Buddha now comes to the crown of our head. And when directly above our crown, we imagine the Buddha then happily dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can pour down into us, blessing our mind. Then for a short time, we can do the nine round breathing exercise just to help develop or enhance the potential that positive mind we have, making it a bit more calm, clearer, more concentrated so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddhist teachings tonight. And if you find it helpful, you can strengthen that practice by combining that nine round breathing practice with a visualization of imagining breathing in this very calming, joyful white light with each in breath of the cycle and with each out breath of the cycle, imagine breathing out all agitation, disturbing thoughts, suffering, fears, worries, confusion, negativity in the form of black smoke.
Okay. Thank you. So before I forget in the break time, someone’s going to yes. There’s some stuck on the notice board, there are some the everyone’s names set out in groups for the group discussion. So if you just check those list, you’ll know what group you’re in after the break.
So I will try to have a discussion group tonight because I think that’s it is good to do that. So I just, again, try to emphasize, some people in the homework. I think people are doing the homework well. A lot most people are doing it, and people are writing lots stuff. And I have to apologize that I can’t answer all the questions partly because sometimes I can’t read the writing.
And sometimes the questions are just too difficult to answer, like on a piece where I’d spend all day trying to, you know, write some answer, and you probably wouldn’t be able to read my writing anyway. So so, you know, you can always I’m happy if you bring up those questions in the during the the sessions. I’m happy to try and answer them then if if I can. But I just wanna I’ve said it already several times, but I would just try and clarify this point, because every time I say this in every class, all over the what people sort of, you know, latch onto one thing and miss the point I’m trying to make, which is that, come to what from what I have understood, when we generate imprints no. The karma is about the law of you know, it’s it’s the law of cause and effect.
This is the most important fundamental teaching of the Buddha. Everything that the Buddha taught is connected to this topic. Absolutely everything. There’s not one thing the Buddha taught that isn’t connect to the law of cause and effect. And, and if, and, course, in the, in the ordinary world, the law of cause and effect is operating in an ordinary way.
We don’t need the Buddha to come to tell us that if you want a hot cup of water, you you apply heat. You have to do something. You have to create a create a cause. If you want to have a banana cake, you have to create some kind of cause to have a banana. We don’t need the Buddha to come to the world to explain that.
But what what we don’t understand is that when we do things apart from the effects in this life and certainly everything we do in in this world now in this life has effects in this life. There’s no question of that. But what the law of cause and effect is saying, because this is what we can’t see and understand is that as we’re acting with our body, speech, mind, karmic potencies are being generated. And these potency potencies, generally speaking, I will say that again, generally speaking, do not ripen in this life. Yeah.
And those karmic potencies usually ripen in future lives. And when they ripen, the those effects are far greater and far more long lasting than the effects from an action done the the effects that ripen in the life that the action is done. Right? And that applies both to good things, good actions, and negative actions. So, you know, if you kill someone in this life, incredible effects in this life, but the a karmic potency is generated.
And when that ripens, the results of that are far worse than anything that can happen to us in this life as a result of killing. Alright. This is what the Buddha is trying to explain to us in the law of cause and effect. If we do something, you know, like save a life, there’ll be benefits in this life, but a karmic potency has been generated because of that. And when that ripens, the effects of that will be far, far greater than anything than any of the effects in this life we that occur because of saving someone’s life.
This is the law of cause and effect, and that’s the the main aspect of the law of cause and is to understand that our actions not only have effects in this life, but they generate karmic potencies that have enormous effects in future lives. Then the effects, you know, good and bad that we experience in this life from our actions are nothing compared to what’s going to happen in our future lives. All our future lives are determined by these karmic potencies. Right? And many of these put both the good and negative karmic potencies can’t ripen in this life.
One big one reason is because, as I try to explain, this life, you know, there’s a whole whole, like, train load train, you know, baggage load of karma’s karmic potencies about to ripen that make up this life. Right? But the other thing is that because the potencies, when they ripen, they have this huge effect. Our human body and mind cannot cope with those results. Both the suffering like the karmic result you know?
Sorry to go on about this, but this is what the Buddha taught. This is what I believe that, you know, if we do a really negative action like killing, of course, we will suffer in this life. But the Buddha said the karmic result is you get reborn in the lower realms. You know? Yeah.
At minimum as an animal and not not a happy animal, you know, miserable animal, all but in the or in the actual hell realms. And that suffering is far greater than any human suffering. You know, a human body can actually take a lot of suffering. The suffering some human beings endure is just unbelievable, but there’s only so much suffering a human being can endure and then we die. But there’s other sufferings the mind can experience when it’s in another state.
That’s what those states are. I don’t know. This is all very hard to believe, but, you know, if if if you if you’ve ever watched what you know, some of these, amazing, I don’t know what they call programs about natural, you know, life in the wild and blah blah. There’s movies, pictures made of of down in the depths of the ocean where the water is boiling. It is boiling, and fish live there.
There are fish living in living. You know? I mean, in a lot of fish, if you put them in boiling water, which people unfortunately do, you eat them and they they die, and you you eat them like lobsters. We won’t go into that. But there are some fish that live thousands and thousands and thousands of meters below in the complete darkness where it’s boiling, super boiling, and they’re alive and well.
They have the body and the karma too. May maybe they’re not suffer you know, being burned. You know? I I don’t know. But the point is I’m trying to make is that even in this world, you can see beings with bodies that can endure far more than other bodies can.
Right? So if that’s the case here, I didn’t make that up. You can watch it on National Geographic channel or whatever it’s called. You can see these things. Yeah.
So if if that happens in this world, there are people with beings with bodies that can endure things that our bodies can’t endure or even other animals can’t endure, but they can. Why isn’t it possible that one can be born in a realm in with a body and mind that can has to endure inconceivable horror but still live? Sorry to go on like that. Anyway, so our body can’t experience so much suffering, and we can only experience so much joy. This body can give rise to a lot of pleasure, but not the pleasure of the god realms.
It’s it’s it’s far beyond anything the ordinary human mind can experience. So those karmas just simply can’t ripen in this life. There’s only certain you know, a human life the nature of human life has its boundaries of suffering. There’s so much suffering and so much happiness, and that’s the human experience. But beyond that, if our lower realms and beyond it are the upper realms, all saṃsāra.
Okay. And another thing just to make life more confusing or is that, and if we just always take a simple example, when we get angry, anger is a delusion. It is not karma. It is a delusion. It is yeah.
So every time we get angry and this okay. Or every time we generate a moment of, you know, a thought of loving kindness or compassion, same, whatever the mental state As that is being generated, there is a two an an imprint of that. Well, I it’s let’s keep it just on delusions because there’s the virtuous mental states, but just as a bit applies to the mental states as well, but the positive ones. But we take a delusion if we we a delusion arises such as anger. So while that delusion is arising, it is also generating an imprint.
That is not a karmic imprint. It is an imprint of the delusion. And it’s because we have these imprints of our delusions that when there are conditions in the external world, we will get angry again because the seed is there. Because every time we get angry, we replant another seed of anger. Every time we get jealous, proud, have desire, we imprint a new energy to be to to follow that delusion again.
Right? That’s one thing. At the same time as we’re getting angry and generating an imprint of anger in our consciousness, if we cult if we got to really engage in that anger and we we as well, we generate a karmic imprint, and that karmic imprint will ripen as suffering. So yeah. So there are two separate types of imprints, the imprints of the delusions and the karmic imprints, which come
From following the delusions. Not necessarily. I this is a tricky pit, which I must admit I have never really heard explained in all my thirty more odd years of studying by any lama properly. But because someone made the point if you know, because it also this is not so much talked about in or taught in the in the in the Tibetan tradition, but in the Mahāyāna in the Theravāda tradition, they teach certainly, certain Western teachers teach this about how when a delusion arises, you just sit with it. You don’t repress it.
You just you don’t follow it. You just observe it kind of like objectively, and that’s good. And I tend to agree that that’s probably a good practice. Seems to be a valid Buddhist practice. I I I don’t have much familiarity with the Theravāda tradition, but this is what a lot of teachers apparently teach.
I I haven’t heard that explained so much by Tibetan lamas, but so I I I it’s possible if if you can do that, which it wouldn’t be easy to do, but one could train to do that, that the the just merely the mere arising of a delusion that I I’m not sure doesn’t necessarily generate a karmic imprint, but as soon as you allow that delusion to motivate a whole train of thought directed towards, oh, I this person, I can’t stand that person, and they said this, and they did that, and I’m gonna you know? As soon as that starts, then you’re generating, that’s karma. That is definitely karma. That is a come an action of the mind that is generating potencies as well as just the imprints of the delusion itself. Well, just being annoyed is, annoying is kind of a type of anger.
It’s a but it’s not real anger. There’s a little difference between being annoyed and angry. But but what we’re kind of trying to talk about tonight or I’m supposed to talk about tonight if I can get there, is the 10 non virtues. And there are three of mind, one of which is ill will. So there are three, there’s ill will, covetousness, and wrong views.
So both of these are oh, anyway, both of these are states of mind where you don’t do anything physic you don’t say anything, you don’t physically do it, but they are creating an extremely strong karmic imprints, negative imprints. That’s why, you know, this karma of body, speech, and mind. But ultimately, all karma, you know, originates with, you know, a a thought. But as I tried to say last week or the week before, if the thought gets stronger, you say something, and if, you know, it gets even stronger, you, you know, you actually physically act. And so that that that is the strongest when you act to be and it’s generally speaking, one would say that that is the strongest kind of karma when you act on it, when you react on those thoughts.
But even the mere thought of really, you know, dwelling on remember, karma is intentional thought. Anger can like, you you can just, you know, get angry because of something, but you don’t necessarily although we’d have an instinct to do so, but we don’t necessarily get caught up in a whole lot of thought about something and directing the anger. So when that starts to happen, when one starts to intentionally or habitually, you know, dwell on and with the thought to harm, then you’re generating these, definitely, these karmic imprints. Otherwise, if it’s just some moments of anger, it’s just you’re just generating imprints for anger. Does that make a little bit of sense?
Okay. And just another thing before we start tonight’s thing is in the in the teachings, the readings for the homework, mentioned forgotten the term. What was it? Anyway, there’s three kinds of well, there’s many ways of dividing karma. Like, I talked about throwing and completing karma, but this the normal ones you talk about are positive and negative.
These are the main ones, but there’s also another one. Well, there’s neutral karma like chopping wood. While you’re chopping wood, you know, you’re not necessarily you know, it doesn’t have any, you know, positive or negative effects. We’re just walking along this. If you’re just walking along the street, you know, you’re just creating some neutral karma, you’re walking along the street because you’re going towards someone you’re gonna kill, then that’s negative.
Just walking along the street is creating negative karma. If you’re walking along the street to go and give someone to give someone something to be nice to them, as you’re walking along the street, you’re creating good karma. If you catch the bus, you know, to do something good, that catching a bus is good karma. If you catch the bus to do something negative, you you know, it’s good. You know, it’s negative karma.
If you’re just catching a bus, nothing. And then there’s the other one which is called, what is it called? Immutable or unchangeable. Right. So this one, this karma is very specifically why it’s called immutable or unchangeable is because it has this very, very definite result because all the positive and negative actions we do, it’s not definite that they will produce their result because we can purify the negative and the positive imprints can be destroyed.
So it’s not sure that they will ripen. Right? If they do ripen, there’s a definite result. But with with this immutable or unchangeable karma, it always brings us very its result, which is that There is a state of mind what one can cultivate or achieve, which is called in Sanskrit Samādhi, which we translate in English as single pointed concentration. So to achieve single pointed concentration requires a lot of training and meditation.
And once one has achieved that full level of single pointed concentration, your mind is no longer in the desire realm. You know, I think I’ve mentioned that there are three realms of saṃsāra, and we’re in the desire realm, which includes animals, the hell the hungry ghosts, the hell beings, and the desire realm gods and the and the demigods. That’s the desire realm. Then there’s a formless realm, which is an incredibly blissful state. No.
The form realm. And then there’s the formless realm, which is even more, well, blissful, for want of a better word. A very refined state of mind. So all saṃsāra still has the potential for suffering and rebirth. But so when one achieves actual Samādhi or a little bit more than that anyway, your mind even you’re a human being in this world, but your mind is no longer in the desire realm.
Your mind actually is in the very beginning, the lowest level of the formless realm. And if you cultivate these levels of concentration more and more, your mind can go into the higher levels of the form form realm and even go into the the formless realm states of which there are different levels. Right? So when you die so that you cultivate these as a human being. And if you achieve any of those levels and you’ve only achieved it with a worldly motivation because you’re attached to the bliss of these very refined meditative states.
When you die, your mind immediately gets reborn into that actual realm corresponding to the level of concentration you achieved. But from a Buddhist point of view, this is not good because these are the god realms where you have have a lots of fun, and then it’s finished, and you don’t achieve anything in them. So from a Buddhist point of view, the you know, there’s not it’s not worth achieving most most of these levels of concentration. We do need to achieve a high level of concentration, but not just to bliss out. It’s so one can concentrate on developing insight.
But if if one does these practices purely because of the, you know, wishing to, you know, achieve these incredible blissful states. This is a worldly motivation, and you get the result of being reborn in in these god realms or goddess realms. Alright. So that’s what is called immutable karma or unchangeable karma. Did that make a little bit of sense?
Okay. Right. So we’ll just plunge into tonight’s topic now, which is so I’ve given some general ideas about the law of cause and effect. I hope about there are the four determining factors. It’s definite oh, no.
Sorry. The four basic factors that karma is definite. If you haven’t get created the cause, you don’t get the result. The the cause the the once the imprint is generated, it’s never lost unless you purify it and so on. And then when the imprint ripens, it has this huge result.
These are the four basic effect aspects of karma. Then there are the, what, the four, what did I talk about? The the four factors of of of the determine the potency of karmic imprints, which is the the the impulse, the the object, the act, the completion. And then we talked about a little bit briefly last week, the the four karmic results. So we’ll go into that more detail now because by talking about the 10 non virtues.
So there are more than 10 non virtues. There are more than 10 negative things we can do. But these 10, the the 10 nonvirtues that it that the Buddha taught talked about, which are listed where I can’t find it because there’s everyone 17. Right. So the point is that if any of these negative actions are created with those four determining factors strongly present, you know, the the the impulse, the object, the act, and the completion, any of these 10 non virtues results in creating a karmic a throwing karma that throws the mind after death into one of the lower realms.
Definitely. Yeah. So the Buddha taught emphasized the avoiding of these non virtues as the basic practice. Alright. Because at least we need to use this human rebirth to avoid falling into the lower realms so that we can actually have another human rebirth so that we hopefully, we can continue to practice the Dharma, purify our mind more and more, and have better and better rebirth and eventually get out of cyclic existence altogether and eventually achieve enlightenment so that we can help everyone to get out of saṃsāra and achieve enlightenment.
Okay? And, also, the Buddha taught these, one could say, because we are capable of avoiding these nonvirtues. We need to avoid them, and we can do it. But also the sad thing is it’s extremely easy to engage in these acts. Most many people engage in them every day, at least one of them, if not several of them, with no idea that these are negative.
And the point is these are what are called naturally negative actions. There are there’s a another kind of negative action, which is negative because you make a vow. They’re not naturally negative. So monks and nuns have a whole lot of vows about you know, vowing not to do this. And some of the things they vow not to do or many of the things they vow not to do in themselves are not negative, but by vowing not to do it, by breaking that vow, it becomes negative.
But these are these 10 virtues, the non virtues, are understood to be naturally negative, that if anyone does them at any time in any place, whether you know they’re negative or not, they are. Because they can only be done with a negative mind. You know, they they can only be done under the control of ignorance and self-cherishing, basically, and they bring suffering. So that’s why the Buddha said, you know, avoid these. If you if you don’t want suffering now and especially in the future, because if we engage in these actions in this life, we’re likely to experience some suffering.
But even if we don’t, when the the karmic imprint from them ripens, whamo, that’s when we really get the result. So if we’re not one doesn’t want that suffering, then we need to avoid these actions. And so the avoiding the conscious avoiding of these non virtues, understanding, believing that they they actually will bring these suffering results, the conscious avoiding of them becomes a virtuous action generates, has positive results in his life. Note that will have results in this life, but generates these karmic imprints that will have far greater positive results in the future. Alright?
Because, basically, the cause of the lower realms is non virtue, and the cause of the upper realms to being have a good rebirth is virtue. No non virtuous action can ever become a cause in eve even in a tiny way to to have some kind of human rebirth. Alright. Okay. So the first of the non 10 non virtues so there’s the three of of body, non virtuous actions of body, which are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct.
So with killing, the basis is a living being, a sentient being other than oneself. So for us, you know, we can’t kill we can only kill human beings or animals. We can’t kill hungry ghosts and hell beings and gods because they’re in another realm. They’re in the desire realm, but there are different levels of the desire realm, so we can’t see these beings or harm them. But so, anyway, a sentient being other than oneself, so you have to have the basis.
Then there’s the intention. So you have to, you know, so you have to have the intention to kill a particular person. You have to have that conscious intention. If you accidentally kill a, you know, a being that’s that’s not the you know, you there is some negative karma, but it’s not the full negative karma of killing. So you have to, you know, have that unmistaken recognition of the object, the person or being you wanna kill.
You have you have to have the conscious motivation to kill them, not just hurt them or upset them or bruise them. You have to have the conscious intention. I’m going to I want to. I want this person to die. I want to kill them.
Right? And and then there’s the motive going with that. You have to have one of the disturbing thoughts. So it can be, just simple ignorance, like, you know, people kill in our culture, you know, go out hunting and hunting and fishing and shooting because this is, you know, good stuff, good fun, manly stuff. You know, shooting bunnies is really manly.
I lived in France, you know, and everyone gets dressed up. You know, you have to in France, you have to get dressed up for everything. There’s so people would get dressed up to go shooting, and they’ve got every all their shooting equipment, and then they would go out and shoot these pathetic little rabbits and pheasants. And I don’t if you’ve ever seen pheasants in the wild. You know, anyone could shoot a pheasant.
They are hopeless, and they have to breed them because there’s hardly any left. Anyway, sorry. I’m getting carried away here. Yeah. So you can think of, you know, because of, you know, they have no feelings.
They’re nothing. There’s there’s nothing wrong with killing, and it’s it’s good to kill animals and blah blah blah. It’s beneficial. And so one could kill out the out of just pure ignorance or or one kills out of attachment for the food or you kill someone out of attachment, not not to them, but you’re attached to, you know, the partner of that person or something, or this person is blocking you from, you know, your great love. In some way, they’re blocking you, so you kill them out of attachment or you kill them out of hatred.
Alright. And sort of depending on how strong those delusions are, that’s how strong the imprint and therefore how big how great the result will be. What about them?
Hey. Look. I’m not gonna answer that question because I wanna make this point. I don’t I don’t mean to really rude, and I’m not trying to get out of the question. Maybe I will try and answer it later.
But one of the points I think we need to understand why we study this is that because what whatever you you know, when peep when we go through the 10 non virtues, everyone at the end says, well, what about this and what about that? And the answer to that the all of those what abouts is that the Buddha is telling us, this is what I understand, not just intellectually. This is what I know. This is what I see unmistakenly. You know?
I see that this if you do this, this happens, and it’s horrible. Right? If you if you kill, you know, or if you do any of these 10 non virtuous actions, there is horrible results. Of course, you harm others, but there are horrible results to you. So you can do these actions, but you have to understand what’s gonna happen.
So you decide. You decide. Are you going to do this? You know? For example, the, you know, the the the the ant is running across your kitchen bench or a cockroach.
Now you can kill it because, you know, you’re chopping up lunch and you can’t you don’t have we don’t have the patience to wait for it to just walk past or you we have the concept that somehow ants, in this is my kitchen. This is my home. This ant has no right to be in my kitchen. Or the concept, it’s dirty. It’s gonna destroy my food, and therefore, to be happy, I will kill it.
So if you want that worldly happiness, then you have to buy it by killing the ant or cockroach, but you have to understand that in the next life, you burn in hell for a very long time possibly. Sorry. It’s your choice. We haven’t got to there, but the abstention I can’t explain abstention. Where is where does it say that?
Well, I’m not talking about that, am I? I can’t do everything at once. But even the Buddha, I don’t think, can say every well, he can, but people can’t understand it all at once. So I can only do bits bits of well, I I like I said, I won’t be able to this is something about karma, some of the essential things. You we’re on page 21.
Yeah. We’re going through the 10 non virtues. Yeah. Sorry. Okay.
So the point is to study these things in real and see all the factors involved, and and we just have to make our and sometimes the decisions are very, very difficult to make because there’s things like oh, I haven’t even taught the subject and then we’re we’re all the implications. There’s all these things like cane toads in Australia and feral cats. Should we kill feral cats because they’re destroying, you know, all the native animals and everything associated with cane toads and blah blah. It’s very difficult to say what to do. I mean, very, you know, very strictly, you say no because all killing is harmful and and whatever.
And, and then what some people would argue, but and put up very good arguments. But but, what we also have to understand is because, you know, some people kind of, say, well, this is not fair. You know? I we should be able to kill some things because they’re doing bad things, but that’s the whole point. We’re in saṃsāra where there’s all sorts of crummy things going on and where life is very and just living, we kill as we walk.
You know? It’s almost inevitable not in saṃsāra, that’s the that is the very nature of being in saṃsāra that we cause suffering to ourself and others. And sometimes it’s our karma to be born in a place or or to or to at least experience place or situation for some time where there’s all sorts of horrible things going on, where the easy answer would be just to wipe it all out. And then, you know, there’s all sorts of wonderful medical discoveries that save human lives, but it’s done by torturing animals, thousands and thousands and thousands of animals. Yeah.
And you can say, but there are only animals. But what does that mean? From that, you know, only an animal. You know, we’re only an animal. And an animal isn’t always an animal, just like we’re not always a human being.
It’s very difficult, you know, but this is this is saṃsāra, and this is what’s karma is all about. It’s so easy, you know, to try you know, we’re all trying to be happy, but like the Buddha was telling us, most of the much of what we do to be happy is actually creating the cause of suffering. It’s negative karma. It’s negative actions. It doesn’t look like it.
Our society and culture doesn’t tell us that it is. They say it’s good. You know? You know? But it’s all very strange.
They tell you if you smoke marijuana, this is evil. But if you if you down bottles of booze, this is perfectly okay. You know, all the upper classes, the rich, the judges who send people smoking one marijuana cigarette to jail, you know, the the the house is full of booze. That’s okay. That’s perfectly moral and high class and everything.
And it’s it’s very elegant and sophisticated. You know? And people learn how to, you know, drink wine. Sorry. But, you know, it yeah.
So we’re told all this stuff is good, and we even try to. You know? I tried to become a a wine expert, you know, because I’d be cultured and, you know, elegant. It didn’t work. Horrible stuff.
But, yeah. And we’re told, you know, killing animals is good, makes you manly or whatever. Going out shooting and blah blah blah blah. You know, the royal family do do it, so that’s really good. Yeah.
Nothing wrong. Terrific. Dad did it. So but, anyway, I’m getting carried away. I’m sorry.
Yeah. So saṃsāra really stinks. It’s very complicated. It’s very, very complicated. And what what keeps it going is all this non virtue.
So the Buddha said these 10 things, you know, if, you know, at least avoid these, at least these, you know, as much as you pass as we possibly can by understanding the results and understanding what’s involved. Because, you know, it says to take a life, you know, there has to be a really negative mind to sever another being’s life, to take the life of another being. Because if you check every every being for them, no matter every being’s life to them is precious. Our life, my life is precious to me. And no no matter how miserable one is, one’s life is still precious.
You you some people do commit suicide. Of course, lots of people commit suicide. But you think about I don’t know how much you’ve read about, you know, what happened to people in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. The absolute unbelievable horror. But most of those people didn’t try and commit suicide.
Their life was hell, but that life was precious, is still precious. Yeah. So it it takes a very negative mind to take that away somehow. So there can’t be any good result for oneself. So then there’s the can we extend this for about six hours or more?
No. No. So then there’s the the act itself. You you know, you you do it yourself, you know, and, you know, by by, like, a weapon or poison. Of course, old Tibetan Buddhism mentions things like black magic.
But you can also so one can do it directly one oneself in all sorts of ways, but also if you you can get another person or persons to do it and you get the karma. It’s not like there’s some karma hanging out that someone doles out, but, you know, you pay someone or encourage someone to kill because you want that person to die. So they kill and they get the karma of killing. Oneself creates the karma of killing. A general who sends out a thousand soldiers in an in a war and they all kill someone, he gets the karma.
He has created a killing of 10, you know, of 10,000 killing 10,000 people. And, also, the easiest way to engage a negative art karma is to rejoice. Someone you hear someone’s died, has been killed, and you think, oh, I’m so glad that person was killed. Terrific. You know, Bin Laden, Mao Zedong, Hitler, someone, oh, terrific, wonderful, great, then that’s really quite heavy karma.
If you rejoice in something good, Terrific. Good karma. And the final yeah. And and then there’s the completion of the karma, of the action. So the the person has to die, and the the real completion is you’re happy that they’ve they’ve died.
You’re you’re happy that you’ve killed them. That is you’ve done what you intended. So that makes it complete and completely negative. That’s a total throwing karma that can only can only bring a lower rebirth. It has the power.
It will ripen at at some time at not necessarily in the life when you’ve killed the person, but at at some in some life, that karma will ripen at at the end of a life. It’s a throwing karma, and it can only bring it can it has the power to influence an an an entire life. And so it can’t bring a good human rebirth. It can only bring a nonhuman suffering rebirth. This is what the Buddha says.
I can’t prove it. You you can check. Think about it. So then just there won’t be time to go through all of these. I’ll just give you some idea because it’s all set out there.
The homework was to read this and think about it. And but then there’s stealing. Again, you take something belonging to another person. Again, this becomes very tricky. What what something of value.
And, because something can have, very little monetary value, but a person can really treasure that thing. It’s very important to them because another aspect of the it’s not mentioned here so much, but another aspect of the potency of the imprint relates to the amount of suffering you bring, yeah, to the you know, whomever you’ve directed the negative action to. So you steal from someone, and if they suffer a lot as a result of not having that thing, that makes the imprint stronger. That’s why the lamas say, if if if if something is stolen from us, we should try not to be too upset and actually think, oh, okay. The person can have it.
Because by doing that, the person doesn’t create so much negative karma. But if one one is really miserable by having something stolen, then the person is creating, they’ve created a negative action and the potency they’re generating in their mind is becomes much stronger. So then you have to have the intention to steal, and you have attention to steal a specific thing. And there you know, you have to have one of the three poisonous minds. You steal out of either ignorance because you don’t think there’s nothing wrong with stealing or there’s nothing wrong with stealing from this person.
You know? Or you can it’s okay to steal from someone very rich because they’re very rich. They don’t they won’t notice that they’re so rich. They don’t need it, so it’s okay. Or they’re rich because they must they must have, you know, done something terrible to be rich.
So stealing from the rich is good. It’s not bad. It’s actually good to steal from the rich and so on. So that’s all ignorance. Or one can steal out, obviously, out of attachment or out of anger.
You don’t actually want it, but you want to upset the person. You know they like this thing and you hate that person. So I’ll take this thing that they most treasure to make them as miserable as possible. Right? So they’re all negative minds.
And then and then you actually take it or, you know, get it by stealth somehow. You get someone else to steal it or you, you know, also one can rejoice in other people stealing. Well, rejoicing is is not the full karma, but I’m just making the point that that that also is negative. But the full karma can be done by, like, of killing and stealing by doing it oneself in all sorts of ways or encouraging someone to do it for you. Encouraging them, you know, deluding them to do it for some know, thinking that, you know, you trick them into doing it or you pay them to do it or whatever.
No. No. Well, if you give it back yeah. It it’s it’s yeah. It’s okay.
It’s better. Depends how quickly you give it back. It’s very tricky. And, again, the stealing is when you you get the object and and you think now it’s mine. Because, of course, you know, you could take things by accident from someone, you you and and and you think it’s yours.
So that’s not stealing. But here, you you have to, you know there has to be the unmistaken object. You know this belongs to another person, and you have the wish I want that for, you know, for whatever reason. So you take it, and then you think, oh, yes. I’ve got it.
I’m glad I got it. I’m glad I’ve taken it, stolen it from this person. Of course, you don’t have to think those words, you know, clunk, clunk, clunk. You know what it means. You know?
You have that kind of sense. I’m happy. Yeah. So sexual misconduct. This is a very tricky one.
Very complicated. Can cause lots of discussion. Maybe we’ll try to avoid it. So, anyway, the basis is, well, the simplest version, of course, of sexual misconduct is infidelity that you you engage in sex with a with an if if you have a person have a partner, it doesn’t you don’t have to be married because marriage in in Buddhism is not any big deal at all. It’s just a social convention from it’s not like in Christianity.
It’s a sacrament or something. It’s just a just a worldly convention in Buddhism. It’s no big deal whatsoever. It’s just something that’s you know, it just happens. So so there’s no you know so if you have a partner married not, but there’s like a, you know, a normal relationship, and then you have sex with another person, then that becomes sexual misconduct or you’re single and you have sex with someone who has a partner, that is sexual misconduct or, you know, infidelity.
So that’s the main one. But, of course, there are many sub sub subsections to it, such as I will quickly try to avoid some of them. So, I was mentioning them. So, the basis is, for example, the improper orifices, which are anything the improper orifices are anything other than the sexual organ. So I’ll leave it to you to work that out.
The improper times, which I think some of that, I must admit, is is cultural. But one they say, which is improper is, when a woman is pregnant, because this can harm the child. An improper place like having sex where there are holy images, so you shouldn’t have images and statues of Buddhas and so on in your bedroom. This is not a good idea.
Or improper time can also mean if you’ve taken there are some of you may know there are lay vows that can be taken for one day where one voids one one of the vows is to be celibate for twenty four hours. So in that case, you know, any kind of sexual activity when you have that vow becomes sexual misconduct because then it becomes you you’re breaking a vow. Right? Improper partner. So, yes, improper partner I’ve mentioned, but that also can be, of course, anyone like a a a miner, someone who Sorry.
I thought you read a miner. A coal miner. Also, that would that would be an improper object. Also, improper person would also be someone who is under the protection of someone. Yeah.
I think that’s about it, roughly speaking. So, of course, for someone who’s ordained, they have the vow of complete celibacy. So any any that any sexual activity becomes sexual misconduct. But for a layperson, it’s these these things. So then there has to be the actual intention, the recognition.
There has to be the motive and the delusion. One acts you know, the obvious one is attachment, but it could be done out of ignorance sort of thinking some of these things well, here as it says, thinking it’s cool or whatever, or thinking certain things which are kind of harmful, which, of course, it doesn’t mention here, but any any even with a consenting partner, oh, no, not necessarily consenting, but whether you if you have any kind of sexual activity with your partner that is actually physically harmful, you know, of course, that sexual misconduct or you have it with you have some sexual even non harm normally non harmful sexual behavior with a partner, but your partner, even if they’re married, doesn’t consent to it. You know, maybe they’ve done it before, but this time they don’t want it and you force them, then that becomes sexual misconduct. And that force can be not just physical force, think, because there’s many levels of this. Right?
So it could be physical force or it could just be kind of constant, you know, yeah, but harassment. Yes. Yes. And, of course, it could be done out of anger because a lot, you know, a lot of rape, of course, isn’t done out of actual sexual desire. It’s actually sort of a lot of it is done out of some kind of, you know, hate and so on and anger and, know, frustration and not sexual frustration, just kind of a whole lot of other stuff.
Like, you know yeah. Which is it’s used in war a lot, unfortunately, that women are raped as a way to demoralize everyone and, you know, it just it’s just truly horrible. So it says the deed is the act is in is when the two organs come into contact. Well, that’s not strictly true because, sexual I don’t have to go into the details, but it’s not necessarily two organs contacting. It can be an organ and something else coming in contact.
And the the completion is when you experience the bliss of orgasm or something like it. Dear. I’ll suggest very quickly that there were the four non virtues of speech, is is lying. So, yeah, this has to be done with someone who can understand what you’re saying, who can speak. And when you lie, you you yourself have to know that what you’re saying is not true.
You know, if you say something that you think is true, but it’s not true, this is not lying. You know, if if you think Adelaide is the capital of Australia and you tell someone Adelaide is the capital of Australia, this is not lying. Right? But if you tell them that, you know, to make fun of them or, know, for some reason and you know it’s not the capital of Australia, then that is lying. Yeah.
Yes. I’m not yes. I don’t know. I’m not I’m not sure on that myself. It it I’ve seen this before.
Yes. But I it’s true. I it it doesn’t seem to make that much sense why they need to be able to speak. But the main thing is they need to understand, yeah, that they understand what you’re saying. So, you know, again, one can do it out of, attachment to get something out of anger to upset them or just out of ignorance thinking lying is, you know, it’s not doesn’t matter if you lie or not, and it’s perfectly okay.
And but one thing here to understand in the act of lying, although it goes under the category of actual speech, to lie, you don’t actually have to speak. You can just by you know, someone asks you something like, are are you highly realized? And you just don’t say anything. But the way you don’t say anything is designed to carry give the impression that they think you’re highly realized. Yeah.
And once they believe it, then that’s it. You’ve you’ve lied. Or, you know, you you just do some bodily gesture to convey an untruth, you know, that, again, often with people asking you something and you just kind of, you know, to, you know, give some movement or anything, which is designed and you know that the person will then you you intend for the person to get the wrong idea, which yeah. And that becomes lying. But, of course, you can actually consciously say something that is a lie and so on or get someone to lie for you.
I of course, also writing things and so on. And then the the completion of that is that when the person you you’ve you’ve actually said or, you know, acted out the thing. But then when the person believes you, then that’s when it’s completed, you know, because they may may not believe you. So if they don’t believe you, you you know, try to tell a lie, but if they don’t believe you, you haven’t committed the full negativity. It’s still negativity in this results, but here we’re talking about how one creates a full, throwing karma, which is what we really need to avoid.
We need to avoid all negativities, but we especially want to, you know, avoid the really complete negative stuff. That’s possible. That’s possible. Okay. We’ll take a break.
I’d may just be before we do, one or two questions? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. May yeah.
It doesn’t mean that they actually say yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Yes. Yeah.
It does mean they’re able to speak. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. That that gets very complicated because some things which would be considered legal in some countries would still be from a Buddhist point of view considered naturally negative. Yeah. Just because something is legal. Yeah.
Because in the case of killing, I mean, some kind of abortion is legal, but abortion is killing a sentient being. So, yeah, I mean, in some yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s is kind of tricky. In in some cases, a legal argument would would work here that would fit in with what was naturally negative, but in some cases, it wouldn’t.
Yeah. Robert, that yeah. But it’s not yeah. Still yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s a good question. Well, in the tradition, in the Tibetan tradition, the lamas give this example always give this example that if, for example, an animal realms past you, a wild animal runs past you, and a few minutes later, some hunters come by and say, you know, which direction did the deer go?
That the the advice is you can’t lie and or, you know, and or they ask you, did you see the deer and where did it go? They say, strictly speaking, you can’t lie even to you know? So you just act dumb. You just kind of, you know, change the subject. And this isn’t a lovely day.
But, of course, in reality, that wouldn’t work in most maybe in Tibet in the fifteenth century, it would. But people are much nastier these days. And like if like a guy came along, he wouldn’t be fooled by that answer. So, Yeah. Yeah.
But, anyway, why the lamas make this point of you shouldn’t lie even in is is fair enough. It’s very extreme. But because you lie, you you have the you then you will have the habit. Even though you’re lying in something good, you start the habit, and it becomes easier to lie more and more and more. So I think that’s the point.
But it seems to me, and this is just my personal opinion, that if you look I I oh, sorry. I’ve got to say this. I’ve I have I talked about self-cherishing in this course at all? No. No.
Self well, in the previous course I have. And in in the other class, self-cherishing is a very important concept to understand, which I don’t have time to explain now, but but it’s a very negative state of mind. But if you check, once you know what self cherish self-cherishing is, one can see that the motivating force behind all of the 10 non virtues is the self-cherishing thought. Right? And but like in the case of but but not well, if for other people, if you’re you if you lie to save the life of another person, this isn’t self-cherishing.
In my opinion, it’s not self-cherishing. And and and so I I don’t see that this is a negative karma, but I may be wrong, but this is my personal, thing. But, again, you have to be very tricky careful with these things because it can become easier to lie about this, and it starts to become, you know, very gray and and, you know, whatever. But, I I think the main point in all of these, what makes these non virtuous actions is there is the self-cherishing thought that that is putting me. I am the most important being in the world and everything I want is right.
And that’s why, you know, a little insect lands on me and, you know, I’ve I’ve got this, oh, you know, this mosquito is actually, you know, this unbelievable pain from a mosquito, which is rubbish. So you you take its life. You know, the pain of a mosquito is not unbearable or and also even if it is, you can go flick, you know, but people go whack. So this is the self-cherishing thought that this this tiny short lived bit of discomfort is more important than the life of a sentient being. That is the self-cherishing thought.
And that, you know, you engage in sexual misconduct because me, this is my pleasure now. Doesn’t matter what all the effects for the other person or in my future because the self-cherishing only thought thinks about now. It’s just me right now. If it feels good right now for me, it is good. It’s perfect.
And so I have to have it. Right? So this is the most disastrous mind possible. Yeah. So all of all all the 10 non virtues are motivated by that.
But I think when you lie to protect someone in a in a in a very sick you know, not because they’ve done something wrong, but you’re protecting a really you know, they’re saving a person’s life or something. This is not self-cherishing thought. I don’t think it is, you know, the negative karma of lying. Right? So divisive speech is where you, you know, you use your speech to cause conflict between people who aren’t in conflict or they’re in conflict and you your speech you use your speech to continue the conflict or to make it worse.
Right? And what you say can be true or it can be untrue, but you say it with the with the wish, the hope, and design that by saying this true thing, it’ll make a bad you know, a good situation bad or a bad situation worse, or you say something false with the hope it’ll make a good situation bad, worse, or yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay.
And then there’s, just quickly, idle gossip, which is, they say, the least negative, but the greatest waste of time. Okay. Tea break. Thank you very much. So just in the last few minutes, is is there any one couple of questions coming from the discussion group I could answer try to answer?
Any big issues, small issues? Okay. So has everyone got the homework sheet? Please encourage the people who are not doing the homework to do the homework and hand it in. There’s no passing or failing.
It’s just good to do. So if the homework is over here to collect so the the homework is for each day to go through each of the different nonvirtues and just reflect on that. So tomorrow is just to reflect on the the four aspects of killing, what’s involved, and, also to think about may how you may have engaged in this act in this life. Hopefully, not with human beings, but with animals and or even how you may have thought of killing someone and and and the the different factors there. But, also, my teacher, says that when when meditating on the non the 10 non virtues oh, no.
No. This is more oh, okay. Forget it. No. That’s when we come to the results of the 10 non virtues.
No. It’s okay. Yeah. So just to do the little bit of the the the the breathing exercise, It’s really good to do the white and and black light or the white light and the black smoke. Imagine you’re breathing out all your negative, imprints from past lives.
You’re breathing all all the negative thoughts and feelings and agitation right now. You breathe all of that in. Imagine this white light coming in. This is actually a very effective meditation to do or can be a very effective, useful med simple, but very useful. Yes.
No. No. This is the nine round breathing exercise.
Which is the very basic thing which is in your student material. That’s another meditation. The nine round breathing exercise where with each in breath, you can breathe in white light, which you you imagine is coming from the Buddha, and that brings great calmness and clarity. You imagine this brings calmness and clarity into your mind, which are qualities of your mind anyway, but you imagine it awakens, though it helps to awaken those qualities and so on. And then you imagine with each out breath of the cycle that all all, you know, your negative thoughts, feelings, negative imprints, all of that rubbish, you just breathe out in black smoke.
It just totally disappears. So at the end, you imagine that you you your whole being is this white light. Calm, clear, kind and compassionate, patient, persevering. Right? And then you do this little meditation.
Just go through each one. And so so on the Monday, you’ve got three things to meditate on, covetousness, malice, and wrong views. And and then on on Tuesday, there’s to go back to think about throwing karma and completing karma. You know, the two throwing karma is the when you is a complete karma that throws you into, you know, determines what kind of rebirth you have, and the completing karmas are the the the lesser karmas that ripen within a lifetime. So one can think about that and how one is creating these day by day.
Even if we don’t create, like, hopefully, too many negative throwing karmas during the day or week, it’s very easy to create some of the completing karmas, especially with one speech. In one of the sutras, it says something like the Buddha said, What was it? Every person is born with an axe in his mouth, and every time they speak, they chop themselves to pieces. Okay. So that’s it.
No final questions? Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Well, I tried to say in one from one point of view, you can say it’s it’s subjective. But if if one accepts the Buddhist view that there is mind and mind has a particular quality, the true nature has this quality of this Buddha quality, then anything that obscures that is negative, and it brings suffering. And and anything that doesn’t obscure it or deobscures it, if there’s such a word, which you get the meaning, that is something good because it brings happiness. So wrong views you know, if if something is true you know, this is one of the things.
You know, in our modern world, because of deconstructionism, philosophy, and all sorts of things, people tend to, you know, say there’s who knows what’s true and, you know, is if there’s any tree thing true. Well, well, fortunately or unfortunately, from a Buddhist point of view, there are things that are true, that are real, that and yeah. So if there are things that are valid and true and we deny them, then this is going to bring suffering. I mean, this is actually the, you know, the with the four noble truths. This is this is Buddha’s insight that all suffering comes from ignorance of not not knowing not in the sense of, you know, not having a piece of information, but not experiencing things correctly.
We don’t experience ourself properly as we actually are. We don’t expect we don’t experience other people as they actually are. We don’t experience anything as it actually is. And because of that and only because because of that, all suffering comes. All the delusions arise.
Karma comes. Suffering comes. So wrong views, you know, holding wrong views, re holding them, not just having a wrong view, but really the the point about the now you’ve got me going. Sorry. The point about the three non virtues of mind is, like, covetousness is not just attachment.
It’s mainly related to attachment, but it can come from ignorance and hatred. But it’s a very, very it’s a you know, coveting something in a really nasty way. It’s not just simply, oh, this is a nice cup. I’d like this cup. I want this cup.
But it’s like the mind that, oh, this is a beautiful object. Therefore, I this this should be mine. No one else deserves this me. Me. I am the most wonderful person in the world.
So no you know, you don’t deserve this. I should have this. This is my right. I’ve gotta have this. And I any way I can get it is okay because this should this should be mine.
No one, you know, deserves it. This is mine. This should be mine. And, you know, that’s the covetousness. Just, oh, that’s a nice cup.
I’d like that. That’s a little bit of craving or something. But covetousness is like, I’m gonna get that and, you know, don’t no matter what, I’m gonna get it because, you know, it should be mine. And ill will, you know, it’s just not yeah. It’s, really super nasty mind, like, with a sense of revenge.
And so wrong views is not just having a wrong view because every you know? It’s it’s really holding onto them and thinking, you know, I I’m I’m never going to consider any other possibility. Right? Because I don’t believe it. I don’t understand it, so it’s wrong.
If I don’t understand it and I can’t believe it, I can’t understand it, and no one’s ever told me this before, then it’s wrong, and I’m never ever going to it’s that kind of mentality. It’s not just someone who, you know, doesn’t believe Buddhist things, but it’s someone who absolutely, totally won’t ever just because, you know, just because. It’s that kind of you know, a really that’s even more, like, really nasty mind. Like, because, you know, it does follow that if something is true and one refuses to believe it’s true, one’s going to suffer. You know, if, you know, if if smoking is bad for you, but no.
Don’t believe it. Don’t believe anything. Oh, you know? No. All the doctors are lying.
You know? All that all that, you know, research rubbish. Nah. Not true. You know?
No. No way. Not me anyway. No. It won’t hurt me.
Nah. Why? Nah. No reason. Because I’m me.
Nothing’s gonna hurt me. Yeah. So that that that kind of that’s not a particularly immoral view, but it it’s gonna bring suffering. But when there’s something that is really significant, you know, like, in the whole spiritual scheme of ultimate well-being and you just nah. Nah.
Then what’s gonna suffer? If karma is true, if the law of cause and effect is true and we refuse to believe it, we’re gonna really suffer. That does make sense, doesn’t it? Okay. Thank you very much.
So we can so we’ve done we have created some good karma tonight. Some yes. Well, created some good karmas, actually. We have we have we have acted well means we’ve that’s good karma. We’ve done some we’ve done a good action of coming here, studying the dharma with a good mind, good motivation, keeping awake, enthusiastic, happy.
We’re we’re finished. We’re glad with with not that it’s finished, but we’re glad that we did it. We completed the the the the class. So this is best karmic imprint possible. So now to protect it from getting anger and other delusions until other delusions, we dedicate it.
Because just very quickly, the Buddha said, once the once upon a time when the Buddha’s explaining karma to a lot of monks and how easy it is to create negative karma, they all got totally depressed and said, we’re doomed. We’ll never get anywhere. So along those lines, you took them to a different version of the what the anyway, so the Buddha said, you know, relax. Don’t get so upset because, you know, one does create good karma, and, you know, if you if you dedicate it, it won’t be destroyed. And the Buddha himself gave the analogy along the lines that if you take a drop of water and you put it on a on a hot rock on a hot day, it will instantly evaporate.
One poor little drop of water on all by itself on a rock, it’ll just evaporate. But if you put that drop of water in the ocean, it stays there. Right? Don’t get too scientific with the analogy, please. Not not you know, you get the general idea.
Right? So the Buddha said in the same way, when if you don’t you know, if you do something virtuous, but you don’t dedicate it, it’s left all by itself, so it’s easily harmed, destroyed. But if you dedicate that thought, that virtuous action with the same thought of the all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which is to benefit all sentient beings because that’s the only thought all Buddhas have, then you put that thought, that that energy into the ocean of the Buddhist mind, and it’s protected. Right? So like that.
So that’s what the purpose of dedication is. You you kind of conjoin it in a sense with the universal thought of love and compassion, of enlightened love and compassion. So that protects it. And then the the other aspect of dedication is that a positive imprint can you know, it ripens as some kind of good experience, but we don’t, you know, we we don’t want any just good experience like some pleasure or winning the lottery of $10,000,000,000. We don’t want that.
No. We don’t want that. What we want our good karma to ripen as is in a dharmic way that leads not just to some worldly pleasure, but ultimate happiness. So we dedicate to enlightenment. But in the meantime, by dedicating to the highest, it covers everything else, including winning lotteries, but and all that stuff.
But, you know, just ultimate goals of good health and so on so that one can continue to practice, etcetera. So that’s why we dedicate to enlightenment. So if you’d like to join in and or at least in your own way, dedicate whatever good understanding you’ve developed tonight and positive imprints. The traditional prayer is on page, 12. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a guru, Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state.
May the precious bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. K. Thank you very much. [final sentence truncated at end of recording/transcript]