Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 77-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche turns from refuge to karma in his Lam Rim series, explaining that the law of action is itself a core refuge precept. He locates the root of karma in mind — formless and invisible, yet the agent behind every act of body and speech — contrasting virtuous mental action (compassion arising at dawn) with non-virtuous (planning revenge). A farmer wishing for crops without planting serves as his central image for the futility of wanting happiness without cultivating its causes. He then walks through the four characteristics of karma: results are definite; small actions amplified by bodhicitta grow vast; no result arises without action; and performed actions are never wholly destroyed, though anger can shorten or weaken their ripening. A short Q&A closes on whether a listener benefits from hearing mantras they do not understand.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 LR 1999 08 03.mp3
UUID: 41b1e596-1bdb-4872-b4b6-babf0ea58776
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1999-08-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 77.2 minutes
Words: ~4,590
So we are still under the path which accords with the initial capacity or person of small scope. So the main practices of the small scopes are the taking refuge and training the law of action in their result and we finished with the first part which is about the refuge, taking refuge. Now we are onto the law of action and their result and it has three main categories which are thinking thinking about action and their effects in general and thinking about actions and their result in particular and third one is having thought about this, what to do and what to stop doing and for the first one, thinking about action and the ethics in general it has two subdivisions which are thinking about actual subject matter in general and thinking about actual subject matter in terms of individual classification. So what the reason of teaching the law of action and the result after taking refuge is because there is a huge connection between these two practices because the Buddhist teachings start by taking refuge and by taking refuge one one receives the refuge precepts and by taking refuge one need to train in the refuge precepts and about the refuge and so the practice of training in the law of the action, action and their result is one of the main practices of the refuge precepts now.
And “le” or “le” in Tibetan is karma, the action. So action here is the one that establishes the subject which does work towards the object, here in the sense of the doer or the creator. So the karma, “le,” is the action. It’s action and generally we can use like work. The person who does, for example, someone’s writing a letter, the the way of his doing, the writing is the action and what and the person who sews, the sewing, and the wood chopper or cutter who cuts the wood so which means it actually is the is the karma is the work or or labor.
So here the karma or action is being referred to the action performed by the body and the speech and the way the action of the body and speech has been classified into two, the bad, the positive and the negative action and negative actions are the one action performs through performs through the body and speech because which causes harms towards the both towards both ones and others out of action or the negative action and the positive actions are the one which brings benefits or help for both oneself and others. So for here, the great master has stated that through or from action comes the different forms like the different from action comes the different cyclic existence which here in the terms of refers to individual person who like through their action they get received the body shape of the body and their colors and so forth. So it says that from from action comes the different and the various or varieties of cyclic existence. And the general cyclic existence or saṃsāra, has two types of saṃsāra which means the contain and the container or the inhabitant and inhabitants. Means here the containers are the cyclic existence of container which refers to sentient beings within the saṃsāra and the the the and contained container which is the cyclic existence externally like the the buildings and environments.
And as for the contain the contain in the cyclic existence there are six types of beings which or six realms, six types of beings and six realms and three are called the good migration and the three bad migrations. So the beings of the Bad migrations have varieties of shapes in their body and their colors and so all these have numbers of different shapes and colors which comes through the action or karma. And also the beings in the good migration they have different shapes shapes and different colors and it is also stated that they come by the karma. But both beings both beings in the good and and bad migrations are are the products and because it is a product it should have been comes by the collections of or a collection of the causes and conditions and because, because without there is no such productions which comes or which is the result, which is not a result of the collection of the causes and conditions. For example, the colors of the sunbirds are very varied — sunbirds have many colors on their feathers like like a stripe, like white, red and so forth and each of the colors are the results are the products of the condition collection of condition and causes now.
And even within the sentient human beings there are the difference in the heart of the human beings and their shapes and their appearances and the difference in the financial status. Some are rich, are poor and some people they have and they get sick all the time. Some are fine and some has I mean always something going something wrong and some always very successful so all these things are comes of this differences comes by the through the through the different through the different karmas they have cultivated in the previous lives. So as all these differences comes through the different karma, first one has to know that how karma is being created or done. And so about karma, the way the karma comes, it comes from the three doors which are body, speech and mind.
So the actions performed through the three doors, body, speech and mind and those the action of body and speech has been activated or done through the influence or it’s been influenced by the mind. So the root of the karma or how the karma is performed is mainly the karma is mainly performed through the mind. So mind is the main one which performs to create the karma. So as it is like it comes the creation of the karma, the root of the karma comes towards the mind. So once you examine it is so here it becomes very crucial or important to examine how the karma being created or performed through mind.
So the mind is not a form or it’s not a visible thing which we can, it’s not a, it has no, it it has it hasn’t got any form so that so we can’t touch or we can’t see the mind. So the mind is it’s a formless. We can’t one one cannot see or touch. So but we say that there is a mind. So one cannot see the mind and so if we ask, so what is mind or which is mind?
Then roughly speaking, we can say while one is, so one can check or one can examine within oneself that while one was sitting there is a certain, there is an agent which thinks that I should be doing this and I should not do this. So such a thought or such the agent is the mind and this is just if you are truly, I mean, when we speak, roughly speaking about mind, agent is a mind. And if if you go through more details and research about the mind than they are, it is very, very intense. So it is the only mind which thinks that one should do this or that and not not the body because big body can’t think about performing things, performing actions. So do you see, I mean, one examines or check within oneself that is there any thought or one one thing, certain agent which thinks, I’ve done this yesterday, and and I’m doing this today, and I will I will do such things tomorrow.
So do you find something like that within yourself? So you should recognize that as a mind. So such thing is can be recognized as a mind and that mind has been has so that mind has good and bad in the originally it has three qualities or three divisions the bad state of mind and the bad mind or bad mind, positive mind, good mind the neutral mind which is neither bad nor good. So the mind which goes or which things, the positive things are the good karma and is also the good action and which brings help and gives one happiness. And And we also have a mind or a state of mind which thinks narrowly and have negative intentions and such a mind is a bad karma or bad state of mind which produces produces the suffering.
Such a mind is called the non virtuous mind. And there is a state of mind which is neither good nor bad and that mind is called a neutral state of mind which has not capability of giving neither the good result nor the bad result. So when our minds conjunctions with a bad intention or a bad thought then such a mind sorry, when our mind conjuns with the good intention then that mind becomes a virtuous mind. It is like for example, if one wake up early in the morning and then suddenly thinks that there are many people undergoing through huge sufferings and I should practice the generosity towards those suffering people and suffering beings. Developing and conjoining such a mind with such intention becomes the virtuous mind.
So just by just by arousing or developing a thought. So just by developing a thought of helping, thought within one’s mind, the thinking that I should help those sentient suffering, I should help others and just by developing such a thought it becomes a positive action which is one have cultivated the action called the mental action or the mind. It’s called the mental action or mental karma. And so that is the mental action or mental karma. And so having developed and performed the mental action then which and sentence that mental action and and then through such a such action one, say one gives a biscuit or or or orange in the person’s hand and and so that becomes the the action like body action.
So by doing this one performs both the mental physical and mental action and through this one tells with compassionate mind telling the person saying you should meditate and maintain kind heartedness so forth and by telling this one performs the the speech action. Action of speech. So by doing this one performs the good action of all body, speech and mind. Performing such action it temporarily it brings benefit to the others. And the result of benefiting or helping others, as for the result of helping or benefiting others, one will have happiness in the futures.
In future. So if one wants the happiness then one should bring happiness and benefit towards others. The bodhisattva way of cultivating happiness is by bringing help and happiness towards others. And the bad the bad action the bad the bad actions are the bad or the bad action is that say, example, like, a one wake up in the morning and then suddenly develop a thought that the yesterday and such as, I mean the person harmed me and today I should go to him and and returned or bring and cause harm to him and such a thought is the action, such the action thought is the action of or is the mental action and then which is the non virtuous mental karma or action? And by developing such a mental action or karma and one goes towards the person and say one hits the sword or hits a sword or stone or one just got beat the person and doing such this one performs the negative action, non virtuous action of physical bad action.
And along with such action, one uses the harsh words like “you are a thief and a robber” or use any words which really hurts the person and doing such one cultivates the negative action of speech. So through such actions actions of body, speech and mind and by depending on that action it brings the person got harmed or get received huge sufferings. So at this stage one has caused harm in suffering to that person by performing such actions and as a result of performing such actions one will have the harm and sufferings in future. So as for this, the Buddha Śākyamūni has said that whatever action is performed or done, will correspond to its result. What it means is that the, any harm, whatever harm one cause to, one brings to others and the similar one will have the same similar type of suffering in future as a result.
So it is like, so before one has cultivated a good intention and good thought and through this one give practice the generosity to others and give good advice of maintaining the kind heartedness and so forth. By doing this one brings benefit and harm, benefit and and happiness to the person and as a result of that one will have happiness and one will receive the happiness and benefits in future from that person. It is long. It is for example, if we sow a seed of the chili or a hot tasting something, I mean, which tastes very hot and the reason for that one will have a fruit which has hot and which tastes very hot. And likewise, if I sow a seed of sweet sweet sweet foods like grapes and so forth.
And for the reason one would have sweet foods. So it is like if one grows the barley, one sow a barley seed one will have result for that one will have the barley and if one grow a wheat one will have the result will be wheat now. So at this stage, we face or go through certain problems and difficulties and it is the result, I mean, we said before, these are, I mean, problems and sufferings which we are undergoing through at this stage is all the result of causing harm and problems to others in the previous lives. And we also have happy moments like we have in certain times we have all happiness and have enough good foods foods foods to eat and then have good clothes and have good companies or friendship, friends. So and these are the result of bringing help or helping others in the, I mean these are the ripening results of helping others in the previous lives now.
So for here, great master Nāgārjuna has said it that the the good migrations and the good migrations and happiness all comes from comes by helping sentient beings. It’s also the bad migrations and the sufferings also comes by harming or causing harm towards sentient beings. So if one wants to lead a proper and pure practice one should always, one should not bring harm towards harm to sentient beings at all the time and it would be good if one should, it would be good if one can bring help to sentient beings and one should try to bring help help as much help to others as much as one can and if one fails to bring help to to others but should not at least bring harm to others and this by doing this it is a very important practice. Buddha Śākyamūni and the Buddhas and so forth — they never brought even the tiniest amount of harm to sentient beings and plus bring always always bring help to help to others by doing this they’ve been able to be able to abandon all the the faults or negativities and attained ultimate or good qualities.
And for the practitioner of the lower vehicles, Hīnayāna’s lower vehicles, what they do, they they can’t bring much help towards others but what they do is they don’t, but they can’t bring much help to others but they never cause or bring harm to others and by doing this, they attain liberation, attain the state of an arhat. So what we do is we hardly bring help to others and always harm or bring harm towards the other beings and due to that, well we hardly have any, we hardly have a moment which is free from the suffering. If if one ask that when will you be free from suffering, then we can it’s very hard to judge or say the right answer. So as we dislike these sufferings one should one should try to try to stop the sufferings. Method of stopping the wisdom the method and wisdom of stopping stopping the suffering is only done through practice through teachings or the Dharma.
So, so you, once you try to stop the, stop the suffering through practicing the teachings or the Dharma. By practicing Dharma, one should train in the parts of three scopes, the small, middle and the great scopes. First, should train in the parts of person of initial stage and by practicing taking refuge and should not and tries to stop bringing harm towards other sentient beings. And by doing this one by stopping or minimizing the harm towards sentient beings and it automatically it does the brings that minimize the causes of the suffering and with so by reducing the causes of suffering one will not have, one lessens the result of the suffering because the results are comes from the cause without the, so result are the effects of the causes. So without the cause there is no effect.
So, so for here the Buddha Śākyamūni stated to maintain a proper and pure practice one should think about the, think about the, think about action and the result. And the way of thinking about the action are being classified into four subdivisions which are the actions are divided into four types of actions which are the how actions are definite and the increasing nature of action and if you have not performed an action you will not experience the result and the fourth one is an action performed will not go to waste. But through thinking on about the four different types of action actions one should meditate upon it and then through this one will recognize the faults of the bad state of mind or the bad mind and the qualities of the good state of mind. And through doing such through performing such a meditation one will have developed a understanding or faith of the action of the law of action and the result. So they said that the actions are definite and why it is called definite is because for example as we had mentioned earlier about the positive actions of body, speech and mind, that early morning developing an intention or thought of helping someone and then through such intention one physically performs the act of giving and then verbally or through speech one gives the good advice of maintaining a kind heartedness and so forth.
Those are the good actions and also good actions have the body, speech and mind and are called the definite and becomes definite action which definite here means is that one has performed a good positive action and it is definite means that it is definite that it will bring happiness and benefits for oneself, for one in future. So this is the sense that by the definition means that by performing a leading or creating a good positive action, the result will be positive or happiness. So it is like, say one performs the act of giving and say giving, but with that act of giving is being activated or done along with the bodhicitta or altruistic intention and through such one gives practice the act of giving. Say one gives a piece of biscuit and the biscuit by its nature or just by itself it’s a very, very small amount, just a piece of biscuit. But the result of giving and doing such a practice, act of giving is, will be very huge and innumerate that one can use that result in future experience this result until the attainment of enlightenment and also the result of that practice is called inexhaustible because the amount of the biscuit by itself is very small but the motivation of the bodhicitta is very powerful and due to that the result will be inexhaustible, limitless.
So it’s like the first one, actions are definite or definite actions which is that one by giving the practicing performing a positive action, good action, one the result will be definite to have a good okay will be appealing or a good result, the happiness. The second one is increasing nature of action which means that the so one has practiced the generosity, the act of giving, and one gives a small, just just a single biscuit to others and that action is done through the bodhicitta or the through the development of altruistic intention and due to that it becomes very powerful. The act of giving itself is very, very small but the result of doing it is great because of that bodhicitta and is its result becomes increasing, means its result will be very huge and one can experience it until the attainment of enlightenment. So that is called the second, the karma which is the increasing nature of karma. And the third one is the, if one will not say, if you have not performed the action you will not experience the result.
One has, it is here that one has developed an intention or motivation of practicing an act of giving and one had developed said motivation or intention but one eventually one didn’t practice the act of giving, one didn’t give the piece of biscuit to others. So that means the action is not performed and the result, so one will not have a result of that because in the future because the action is not done. And so one will have a positive or good result in the future by performing a good action but there is a saying of that the anger, for example, anger can distort one’s virtues which in the sense here means that one can, one performs a good action and say the result of that doing such action will be, will, one is huge and that one can experience it for a long time, for a long term and by doing this so by developing anger it is not that anger will completely destroy all the results or good results that one is likely to experience. What it is the anger is obstacles which cause destructions towards that result, the positive result that if one has, if one is going to, if one can experience the good result for a long time, the anger will act as an obstacle to shorten the result, and also if there is a powerful one, it makes it weaken.
So, such that the action or the action performed will not go to waste, means it will not go to waste which means that the example of anger which shortens but it will never completely destroy. So these are the four actions and different types of actions and as we always wishes or want happiness and by knowing that oneself wishes happiness one should always to have the happiness and the good happiness and so which means that one should cultivate cultivate the causes because the the happiness are the result or effect of something, effect of its causes, so one should cultivate the one should cultivate the causes for the happiness. So wishing wishing a good result of happiness and and not cultivating not cultivating a causes for the causes for the happiness are opposite or contradictory to each other. It is like the Australian farmers, they wish to have a good crops and but not really cultivating the crops or a field. That means it becomes that such a thought to different thoughts becomes I mean, such becomes contradictory to each other.
They’re not working, they’re not cultivating crops, but they wish a good crops. The crop, there’s no sprout or any won’t won’t grow any because they don’t cultivate it. So one wishes happiness and one should cultivate the causes for happiness and if one cultivates the causes like and cultivate the causes then the result will be great. Say one performs a very small amount of course like the So a small amount of the causes will lead, will bring a huge result, will give a great result or huge result. For example, if one recites the Om Mani Padme hum mantra along with the generation of bodhicitta and develop the compassion and love towards sentient beings and also saying the refuge prayers like Namo Dharmayaya and Namo Buddhaya and Namo Sanghaya.
By doing this one, the result of doing such will be great or huge. So say, if one says the refuge prayers through the altruistic intention bodhicitta and also recites with sincerity. So one recites the refuge prayers with great faith and belief or faith and respects in the refuge objects through by knowing their qualities. And doing such, the result of performing, reciting such a Refuge prayers will be great and huge because, because, because it has the great powerful collections of great powerful causes and conditions like the that one develops a faith and respect towards the refuge objects like the Buddha and the basis, the object or the basis of such a practice are very powerful and the conditions are very powerful as well like the bodhicitta altruistic intention and then by knowing the not only just simply going refuge, one is going taking refuge by knowing the qualities of the refuge objects and through and by having collecting all these conditions and costs and conditions then the action, the result of such action is very, will be very powerful and huge and just without remembering all those qualities of the refuge and the bodhicitta so forth and just simply reciting as you recite the refuge and it is there is not much help.
So by cultivating, performing such positive actions and then one dedicates that virtues or that merit of doing such a practice and remember and one recall the view of emptiness, of realizing emptiness and so forth and by doing this, actions, the result will be very powerful and great and even by one gets anger, the anger will not become very, I mean too or will not become very bad obstacle towards that. May able to distract certain amount of the virtues but will not, I mean, harmed very forcefully. So as as as you you are very enthusiastic and sharp faculty of disciples, and I don’t think you you I mean, you I mean, I don’t think you will mind keeping a five minute for the the discussion for the question and answers. Yeah. It it would it would be better if the person knows the meaning or your granddad knows the meaning of what you’re reciting.
But if he doesn’t know the meaning of the mantras which you recite, but by hearing the mantra, the mantra itself is very pure and powerful. And by hearing the words of the mantra and then the refuge, Namo Buddhaya and Namo Sanghaya, it leaves certain imprints in in his mind stream and which will help him to have a better rebirth as well. Yeah. Okay.