Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 95-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche uses a car-factory analogy to introduce a precise four-part framework for understanding karma: every action requires a basis, an intention (itself comprising motivation, correct recognition, and an afflictive emotion), commission, and fulfillment. He applies this framework first to killing — walking through how a general who orders soldiers into battle, or a restaurant manager who directs slaughter while sleeping at home, both accrue the full karma of each death — then to stealing and sexual misconduct. Woven throughout is a three-level model of practitioners, from those curbing harmful acts to those uprooting afflictive emotions entirely. He closes by drawing a sharp distinction between passive non-engagement and genuine ethics, which requires actively seeing a fault and committing to abandon it. A pointed Q&A includes an exchange on whether rape is addressed within the category of sexual impropriety.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 LR 1991 04 06.mp3
UUID: b40e8201-5bd6-4a39-aeff-c2d11573a0eb
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-04-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 95.2 minutes
Words: ~5,750
Getting better. Adjusting your motivation, cultivating the awakening heart. So we have achieved a human life which is endowed with a clear and intelligent mind and it has a special capacity that whatever we strive for that we can achieve. And the quality of our human life is very much dependent upon the quality of our mind. If we develop our potential of mind and develop the excellent qualities, then our life will be extremely beneficial to ourselves and others.
On the other hand, we, the various faults in our mind remain, we simply will continue to harm ourselves and others. So the mind has this tremendous capacity whereby since we want happiness, we don’t want to suffer, it has the ability to help us to remove our suffering and achieve the happiness that we desire. So just as it’s in the nature of the world that making great efforts, great results are achieved, if we make great efforts in seeking to bring about happiness and eliminate our suffering, then we can expect a great result to arise. And what types of great efforts are we to make? It is in terms of developing healthy states of mind, healthy attitudes, and out of this enacting healthy conduct.
And in this way we can find complete happiness and eliminate all our various sufferings. And how are we to bring about this end by developing these healthy attitudes? The healthy attitude is embodied in the thought that for the sake of myself and all sentient beings, in order to eliminate their sufferings and to bring them complete happiness, that I must eliminate all my various faults and bring to consummation my excellent qualities. And so, for the next three minutes, cultivate the attitude which thinks in order to achieve this end of leading all sentient beings to happiness and alleviating their suffering that I must transform my own mind. Śāntideva says that the basis of practice is in terms of what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided, and this arises through the reflecting well upon actions and the results.
By reflecting well upon these, deciding, coming to an understanding that this is to be done and this is not to be done, then one will have the basis of practice. So we have these two components to our being that are body and mind, and of these two, the foundation and the root is the mind. The mind is extremely powerful, and we should try to understand its nature. So we can make the general categorization of states of mind into two. Those are the healthy states and unhealthy states, though there is a third category that are neutral states.
Neutral states of mind aren’t very powerful. It is the healthy and unhealthy states which are the more powerful of the three. And by unhealthy states, we mean the various afflictive emotions. So the afflictive emotions are in themselves unhealthy. They are in themselves harmful, but they also lead us into unhealthy types of actions which have as a result unhealthy types of results.
So that is to say we experience suffering. So all three levels of practice, those of the beings of small, middling and great capacity, their practices are connected with the afflictive emotions. In terms of the being of small capacity, one tries to eliminate the actions which flow forth from the afflictive emotions, try to bring about a cessation of the various conducts which flow forth from the afflictive emotions. The being of middling capacity seeks to eliminate the afflictive emotions themselves and the being of great capacity seeks to eliminate the very latencies or the predispositions to the afflictive emotions.
So the method employed by the being of small capacity is to bring about a cessation of the various types of unskillful actions which are brought about under the influence of the afflictive emotions. They do not presently have the capacity to cease the actual unhealthy states of mind, but they try to bring about a cessation of the unskillful actions which flow forth from these unskillful states of mind and in this way seek to cease their suffering results. The being of small capacity seeks to bring about the cessation of the actions flowing forth under the influence of the afflictive emotions, and these actions flow forth through what are termed the three doors. The doors of body, speech, and mind. Just as in the case of a room, in order to ingress from a room, come in and out, you have to pass through the door.
Likewise, all our various actions have as their passageway the three doors of our body, speech, and mind and seeking to control those three doors of body, speech and mind as a means to eliminate the unhealthy actions and result in suffering. So in talking in discussing these various actions which flow out from these three doors, Vasubandhu says that the types of unskillful actions and skillful actions are numerous in number, but if we were simply to categorize them in a very rough manner, they would be subsumed within the category of the ten unskillful actions and ten skillful actions. The ten unskillful actions being three of body, four of speech, and three of mind, and these ten unskillful actions are to be abandoned and the ten skillful actions are to be cultivated. So when various actions arise out of the afflictive emotions, we are to seek to bring about their cessation. In order to do this, we have to identify them.
If we aren’t able to identify the various qualities of our actions, then we will simply unconsciously engage in skillful and unskillful actions. We won’t know what is the difference. So it’s extremely important that we be able to identify what are unskillful actions so that we can work to abandon them and we are able to identify what are skillful actions so that we can purposely cultivate them. So just as in the case of if we wish to catch a thief, we have to be able to identify that thief. There’s no way that we can catch him.
If we want to stop a thief from coming into inside, then we have to know what the thief looks like in order to stop him. So, it becomes important in this analogy to identify what are the unskillful actions in order that we can cease them. Roughly speaking, there are ten unskillful actions. There are three physical unskillful actions. Those are killing, stealing, and sexual impropriety.
There are four verbal unskillful actions: lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and idle gossip. And three mental unskillful actions, those are covetousness, harmful intention, and wrong view. So within the Lamrim, or the Teachings on the Graduated Path, it’s that those who are seeking to practice the Dharma must begin with at least trying to stop killing. This is the basis that we can work with in our practice. So in using as a basis of illustration that of the unskillful action of killing, we should try to understand what a complete action is constituted of.
What are the components of a complete action? Just as in the case of when you’re building a car, in a car factory, first they begin with the basis of a frame and then they go on to add the various, to add the body and then the various interior parts and then the wheels, etc. And finally they assemble all the various parts together and they have a complete car and it’s ready to leave the factory. Likewise with respect to an action, a complete action has various components and we should try to understand what constitutes a complete action, what the components necessary that come together in order to create a complete action. So just as, you know, we want to try to understand what are the various components which constitute a complete action and we’re going to use as a base illustration that of killing.
And a complete action of killing would be constituted of four parts, and these four parts are first, there is a basis, then there is the intention, thirdly, is the conduct, and fourth, there is the fulfillment. There’s four parts. There’s basis, intention, conduct, and fulfillment. So in the graduated path of the teachings, within the teachings of the graduated path, it simply states that one should abandon the ten unskillful actions and cultivate the ten skillful actions. It doesn’t go into detail of the nature of each of the actions.
We’re going to be presenting a little more detail as to what actually is a complete type of action. So if we don’t present it in more detail, then it would become difficult for us to understand the nature of the action itself. Beginning with the first of these four parts of a complete action. The first was the base and the base is something other, someone is a thinking being other than oneself. If one commits suicide, this is not the actual killing which is being classified here.
Here it is in terms of other than oneself, whether it’s a, however small or large that being might be, for example an insect, it is anything which possesses life, that is to say a sentient being, that is the basis. And with respect to the second part, that of intention, it has again three parts to it. The three parts of the motivation, recognition, and the afflictive emotion. The motivation, recognition, and the afflictive emotion. So, beginning with motivation, that simply is directing one’s mind in such a way that one thinks that I am going to kill this being, Whatever the being might be, whether it’s a man or a woman, a monk, a sheep, a tiger, but simply thinking I am going to kill this being.
The intentional quality of the mind which is directing itself to killing any type of being. It’s the motivational component. So thinking I will kill is the motivation. So with respect to the second part of recognition, if one were when the thought arose in your mind, I’m going to kill Tashi, and Tashi is a Tibetan name. I’m going to go kill Tashi, and you go to actually implement that thought, and there are two possibilities with respect to recognition.
One could actually recognize the actual Tashi and say I’m going to kill this being, or one can make a mistake. One can maybe see an animal and think, ah, there’s Tashi, I’m going to kill that being, and one could be mistaken in one’s recognition or it could be factual recognition. So in the first case, one is motivated by the thought, I am going to kill Tashi, and one goes out and recognizes correctly Tashi and proceeds to kill Tashi. Then one fulfills through one has proper recognition and fulfills the action through by the force of one’s motivation to kill. On the other hand, if one were to be mistaken in what you did kill, you wanted to kill, you thought to kill Tashi, that was your motivation, but you killed something, you you mistakenly recognized someone other than Tashi and you killed this being.
This would not be in accordance with your initial motivation. Therefore, this would not be an actual killing, would not be a full fledged killing because there was a mistake in recognition.
So, in order that it would be a full fledged action of killing, if the being killed must be recognized properly in accordance with one’s motivation. If there’s misrecognition, then one does not kill in accordance with one’s motivation and there’s not a full fledged action of killing. So there must be a non mistaken recognition in accordance with one’s motivation for it to be a full fledged action of killing. So with respect to this third part, that of afflictive emotions, one could commit an action of killing out of desire, out of hatred, and out of obscuration. Beginning by way of example, the first afflictive emotion, that of desire, one thinks how delicious meat is, and out of this desire, one’s attachment to delicious meat goes out and kills a sheep.
Then this would be the action of killing motivated by attachment or desire. Then one motivated by hatred, that is that someone harms you and you conceive of this individual as an enemy and out of one’s anger at being harmed, one kills. This would be the action of killing motivated by hatred. And then an action motivated out of the particular afflictive emotion of obscuration would be, for example, there are some religious traditions which have the belief that in for example that if one they have the practice that if one’s mother or father were to die, then they would go out and slaughter, for example, a sheep or a goat, any type of animal, and they would offer this to their particular god as a means of achieving a happy rebirth for their parent. And this is a mistaken conception.
It comes about through an obscuration, not knowing the reality of the situation, the actual way in which the cause and effect operate. This doesn’t have anything to do with dharma and one is obscured due to its a matter of ignorance. Therefore, this killing of this sacrifice of this animal would come about motivated by obscuration. There are special times of the year when they have some of these various Indian religious traditions kill many, many animals and the blood flows like water. Just the blood flows just like when it rains, flows in streams and then at these ceremonies, the blood is flowing just in streams.
So this is killing out of obscuration. So, this component of intention has these three parts. The first one has the motivation that I am going to kill, and then there is a proper recognition of the object that one is going to kill, and then this act of this intention to kill is assisted by one of the three afflictive emotions that are either desirous attachment, hatred, or obscuration. And the third component is that of the conduct, and that is that one actually engages in the action itself, in this case killing, and however one kills with a knife or gun, some type of weapon, or even with a mantra, one actually engages, commits the conduct of killing. So some out of a harmful intention actually recite mantra in order to kill others.
Even reciting mantra is the unskillful action of killing. So we’ve been talking in terms of the killing with respect to conduct as if oneself kills, but this also can refer to when you request or order another person to kill, you know saying that I will pay you to kill for whatever reason. Or you know that making effort to implement some method whereby to bring them, causing someone else to kill. In such a situation, not only are you yourself committing an unhealthy action, but you’re also causing this other person to commit an unhealthy action. So in fact there are two unhealthy actions being created.
So, to exemplify, in the case of war, a general gives an order to his soldiers. Today I want you to kill as many enemy as possible. And they go out and say that they kill one hundred people. So each of the soldiers creates a negative action for each of the individuals that they kill. But the general, through having given that order, creates the negative karma, the action of killing one hundred people.
So though the general did not kill anyone directly, having given the order, he takes upon himself the karma for everyone that has been killed. So, say someone, in the case of a manager of a big hotel, a restaurant, and every day he’s saying, well we’ve got to prepare a lot of delicious food, so we need this much meat and we need fish. And he gives orders that all these various animals are to be slaughtered in order to make preparation for the restaurant. And he goes home and he’s sleeping while the restaurant is operating, for example, but he’s given orders. So even while he’s sleeping, these beings are being killed.
So even while he’s sleeping, he is creating the negative action of killing. So you know when I sometimes, from time to time when I go into a restaurant, I think about all the negativity that manager is creating, and I can’t eat as well when I don’t think like that. So then the fourth component is that of fulfillment, and this is in the case of killing that the life force of the other being ceases before one’s own, before oneself dies that the being is actually killed. This is the fulfillment of the action. In the third component of conduct, and with respect to the fourth, if you die before the other being dies or if you die simultaneously, then it’s not a full fledged action.
The other being has to die before oneself in order for it to be a full fledged action. So, there are four components of a complete action. The first component was the base and that was the basis must be some being other than oneself. The second was in terms of the intention, there must be a motivation, there must be a proper recognition, and there must be assisted by one of the three afflictive emotions. The third component was that of commission or the actual, yeah I think commission is a good word, the actual doing of the action.
And then the fourth is that there must be the being must die before oneself and this would be the fulfillment of the action. If all of these four components are present, then one has a complete action of killing and it’s extremely powerful and has a great deal of great potency. So these are the causes of action. Just as in the case of the growing of a plant, we have to plant, we have to have the cause of the seed, but additionally it meets the various conditions of water, earth, etc. Then these are the various causes.
Then these taken together are the causes of a particular action, and once these causes aggregate, the second moment then the action has been constituted. It has been established. So likewise, these same four components apply to stealing. This applies to all of the ten unskillful actions, that there must be these complete four components in order for it to be a complete action and thereby create a full fledged karma. So with respect to the four components of the action of stealing, the basis is as follows.
The basis must be property which is owned by someone else. For example, sometimes we shared property. In the case of a small child and its parents and say its mother, small child and its mother, then everything that they have shared property. Therefore, the child took something from the mother, it would not be stealing. It would not be full fledged stealing.
It must be unshared property which someone else is the owner of, other than it cannot be shared, it must be owned by someone else. This becomes the basis of stealing. So, one cannot steal from oneself. Whatever property that one has is under one’s own control, and here the basis of stealing must be property which is under the control of other than oneself. So, property which is owned by another, if it were to be given to you freely, then it’s quite proper to accept it, then there’s no fault, it doesn’t constitute in any way stealing.
But if it were not to be given freely and it was owned by another and you were to take it without it being given, then this would constitute stealing. So, the basis of stealing is property belonging to another. So with respect to the second component, that of intention, with motivation, this is the thought that, you know, I need to get this and to think I’m going to take that. This thought, I’m going to take that, is the motivation. So there must be unmistaken recognition.
If one had the motivation, I’m going to steal Kimbel’s property, and ended up stealing Dale’s property, then there would be a mistake in recognizing the object and therefore this would not constitute the part of intention would not be complete. The part of recognition, it would be improper recognition. So there must be a proper recognition in terms of one’s initial motivation. And then again in terms of afflictive emotions, is stealing out of desirous attachment, stealing out of hatred and obscuration. So thinking, for example, Kimbel’s got something really good and I really want that.
I have to have that. That is to say, then, you know, however one goes about it, implementing some method or stealth or being sneaky and trying to steal whatever article it is, this would be stealing out of desirous attachment. And then there could be the stealing out of, motivated out of hatred, wanting to deny your enemy a possession, thinking I want this person my enemy and I don’t want them to have that, I’m going to get that. And maybe you sneak up and you hit your enemy on the head or something, and you take whatever it is they have. Then with respect to the third afflictive emotion: previously there was a non-Buddhist sect which held that to steal was a very skillful action, and therefore the stealing was motivated out of obscuration.
Then the third component of the commission, and this could be various ways. One could go about this. One could simply sneak into someone’s house and take whatever it was, or they could actually hit someone and steal whatever it was. Or it could be even that you previously borrowed something and a long time went by and you held on to whatever it is that you borrowed and you begin to try to figure out if this person has forgotten that you borrowed it. Finally you think, Ah, now they’ve forgotten that I ever borrowed it, now it’s mine.
So this would also be the commission of stealing. And also the taking of bribes by an official for example. If something normally would cost ten dollars you force the person to pay twenty dollars for example, extortion, extortion. Or if it’s twenty dollars you force them to pay thirty dollars that you have some power over the situation, then this would be stealing. Again, with respect to commission, one could order someone else to steal for you, and once that stealing has been completed, then there would be two acts of stealing having taken place.
Oneself would accrue the action of having stolen, and the person who you ordered to steal would also accrue that same action of stealing. And then the fulfillment would be when having gotten the article, the thought arises in one’s mind, now I’ve gotten it, now it’s mine. So when these four components are completed, the moment after that, the second moment, the action of stealing is constituted. So, if one of these components is not complete, if there’s something missing, one can it’s still an action of stealing, but it’s not a complete action of stealing. It doesn’t have the power of a complete action if one of the components is missing, but it’s still stealing.
So then the third unskillful action is that of sexual impropriety, and here sexual impropriety, there’s another Tibetan word that’s being used, which it’s being distinguished from, and I think it’s to be distinguished from adultery. I’ll just have to say that for now. Sexual impropriety here and adultery are distinguished from one from another, but maybe I’ll have to change that. So rather than adultery, it’s just sexual relationships in general. So we have to distinguish between sexual impropriety and just general sexual relationships.
The ethics which is involved in abandonment of the ten unskillful actions is different than ethics in general. That one can, for example, have can have sexual relationships with one’s spouse, they can have sexual relationships with other people who are not in a committed relationship. This would not in any way be sexual impropriety. So, for example, if one were not in a committed relationship, one could have sexual relationships with another uncommitted person and this would not be sexual impropriety. But on the other hand, if one was in a committed relationship, one had a wife but went outside of that relationship and had sexual relationship with someone other than one’s wife or one who had a husband and had relationships with someone other than one’s husband, then this would be sexual impropriety.
So, the basis is having So the basis would be for a male, someone other than one’s having sexual relationships with someone other than one’s wife. For a female, having sexual relationship with someone other than one’s husband as the basis. And then with regard to the intention, then there is the desire, longing to, the thought to have relationship, a sexual relationship, then there has to be of course the proper recognition, and then this can be also motivated by either of the three afflictive emotions. And then there’s the commission and then when bliss of sexual contact arises, then it’s fulfilled. But additionally, there are times when even between a couple one can commit sexual impropriety.
This would be for example when the woman is in an advanced state of pregnancy, this would constitute sexual impropriety to have sexual relationship, or if either of the partners had taken the twenty-four hour great vigil precepts which enjoin abstaining from sexual relationship. And also incest is sexual impropriety. So, you know, we’ve completed the three physical unskillful actions, and we should It’s important that we understand them, how they’re constituted, and if we understand their various faults, then we’ll seek to abandon them, and this is what we’re trying to achieve, to abandon these unskillful actions. So we can, by abandoning these, each of these three physical and skillful actions, those of killing, stealing, and sexual impropriety, We achieve the right conduct in terms of our actions of killing, stealing, and sexual relationships. We create the proper ethical basis of right conduct in terms of these three physical actions.
So, and in dependence upon having created the ethics of right conduct with respect to each of these three abandonments of these physical unskillful actions of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. We achieve the complete all the components of the complete happiness constituted out of their abandonments in terms of humans. That we will achieve the human, all the complete components of happiness of a human which come about through the abandonment of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Each of these has their particular complete components of happiness As humans, we will achieve out of having abandoned each of these three unskillful actions. So each of these abandonments, each of the ten unskillful actions has a resultant component happiness which we will experience in the future.
So we should try to create all of the complete set of happinesses in the future coming out of all of these ten abandonments. But even if we can’t do that, even if we can’t observe all ten, we should try to do as many as possible because each of them has a particular component of happiness which they will bring to us in the future. There is a component of happiness which is peculiar, particular to each one of them. And we should not only, so we should try to observe what we can as far as each of them, if we can’t observe all ten of them, and we should also try to observe them each day because each day that we observe them then that will create an even greater result of this component of happiness which each of them will bring in the future. So each day we should try to observe them and each of them in particular we should try to observe.
So we should try to understand the faults of each of these unskillful actions, and having abandoned them, we practice the ethics of the abandonment of these unskillful actions. The moment that we recognize the faults and we think now from today on I’m going to try to abandon this action, then we are practicing ethics. So, if we see the faults of these unskillful actions and seeing the faults we seek to abandon these unskillful actions. At that very moment, we begin to practice ethics. So, is constituted out of seeing the faults and committing oneself to abandon the action.
In the case of someone who simply does not engage in killing, they haven’t really seen its faults nor do they commit themselves to not killing, though in fact they aren’t creating the negativity of killing; they are not practicing ethics. Ethics necessarily involves an active scene of the fault and active committing oneself to abandon that particular action. So, ethics is active rather than simply passive, passively not killing in this example. Oh yeah, that’s the reason it’s okay. So we’ll stop there, but if you have some questions.
So, were one thinking, if you thought, I want to steal Kimbel’s car, and this force of this motivation has a particular power, this way of thinking. The intentional quality of mind has a certain power. And if you end up stealing Dale’s car, it is stealing, but it’s not the complete act of stealing in that the power of the intention has not been fulfilled. So there is some diminishment of the force of the action because power of the original thought has not flown through to actual completion of the action. The actual, the power of the intentional, the mind which actually had a certain power was intending to steal, and it hasn’t completely flown through to actual completion.
There’s been an interruption because you didn’t steal the object that you wanted. So there’s stealing, but it’s not the complete act of stealing. Even if the mother it was the mother’s choice to have sex, it would bring difficulty in advanced state of pregnancy, difficulty both to her and to the fetus. There’s no problem, it’s okay. Does the rest of the Australian public suffer the current consequences of that?
So soldiers who went and served and killed, they are creating negative action. Those who sent them actively created a negative action of killing. But the general population hasn’t committed a negative action unless they, upon hearing the results of the fighting, they say, Oh, that’s really great. We killed a lot of the enemy. That’s wonderful.
Then they would create, that would be a negative action. This rejoicing in the killing would be a negative action, but in general the general population is not creating negative action. Yes. So there’s some negativity involved in eating meat, especially if you eat it out of attachment, But the fact is, it’s not the we haven’t killed the animal ourselves nor did we order the animal killed, that the animal was killed already, but still when we eat the meat we are creating some negativity, but not the So we’re not creating the action of an eating meat. We’re not creating the action of killing.
We didn’t kill the animal ourselves nor did we order it to be killed. So that’s right, I mean if there wasn’t anybody eating meat then there wouldn’t be these animals being killed, but it’s not a matter of one individual responsibility, but there is a general responsibility and that animals are killed for the sake of eating meat. But we also have to consider the fact that even when we eat something like rice, that again many sentient beings are being killed in the production of rice. And there are many people out there who in growing rice kill many sentient beings, and we are involved in that just as well. Can I ask another question about sexual impropriety which comes from, it comes so late because I’m not really thinking very fast today, but it’s just dawned on me that Rinpoche had said even if it were the woman’s choice in late pregnancy and that brings up something that she hasn’t mentioned which I think is probably vital which is the question of manipulation or force of another into sexual activity through the fulfillment of one’s own desire, I think that that’s possibly something that’s more relevant to us than the term questions of charity?
So did you want to put in a final question? Well, yes, I no, no, perhaps he will understand what I mean when you if you explain it to him as I have, that because of his choice of words because of his choice of words as being even if it were the woman’s choice, that immediately throws up a question for me, but but surely sexual activity must be the choice of each individual who is engaging in it without that choice. Individual who is engaging in it. Without that choice, surely every sexual act is a sexual impropriety. In discussing sexual impropriety.
We’re only discussing it from the point of view of who and with who and where and when it is improper to have sexual relationship. That’s all that constitutes sexual impropriety. We’re not discussing it in terms of whether sexual impropriety is not, here is not being discussed in terms of whether it’s a choice, whether one desires to have sexual relationship or not in this context. I don’t understand that. I mean why go to such an extent of discussing discussing killing to the point where if one person dies before the other person dies, then then the then the full power of it will not be realized when in the question of sexual impropriety the addressing the question which is which is a major question in our society which is that of rape is not being addressed.
I don’t understand. It seems inconsistent. Are these three things not singled out by the Buddha as all being equally important, or is it that some of them better not to be discussed?