Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid story about Geshe Ben Gungyal — a reformed robber who each evening sorted his day’s actions into piles of white and black stones, then praised or scolded himself accordingly — anchors this 98-minute commentary by Khensur Rinpoche on karma and its results. Drawing on Nāgārjuna, Rinpoche defines the three root afflictions (desire, hatred, and delusion) and unpacks the Tibetan etymology of “hatred” to show why it so forcibly disturbs the mind, then maps out three categories of karmic result — ripening effect, effect similar to the cause, and environmental effect — illustrated through killing and stealing. He turns next to positive actions, explaining how intention, execution, and completion together determine an action’s full karmic weight, and connects the ten virtuous actions to the three principal aspects of the path. A short Q&A closes with whether belief in past lives is necessary for Dharma practice, and whether flowers can be reborn.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 Eye of A 1988 12 06.mp3
UUID: b5d688a7-913d-4a9f-9de7-e8d156a85f32
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Opening the Eye of Awareness 1988-1989 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1988-12-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 98.0 minutes
Words: ~4,976
So please try to adjust your motivation to develop the kind heart which is seeking to attain purest, complete, unequaled enlightenment for the sake of all mother sentient beings equal to the vastness of space. Nāgārjuna has said that any action, any type of karma that we create motivated by any of the three negative states of mind, that is the three non-virtues of covetousness which is motivated by desire, harmful intention motivated by hatred, and wrong view motivated by ignorance. Such types of actions motivated by these negative states of mind are non virtuous, or unskillful karma. And he went on to say that any type of action motivated by the opposite of these three negative states, that is the opposite of desire or non attachment, the opposite of non hatred, or the opposite of delusion that is wisdom, understanding, selflessness, the meditative equipoise on the two truths, the wisdom, understanding, emptiness. That any type of actions of body, speech, and mind motivated by such positive states of mind create skillful types of karma.
The general meaning of desire is a secondary mental factor which observing a contaminated thing due to being obscured, not knowing the mode of abidance, the correct way in which the object actually exists exaggerates the nature of the object in such a way that it desires not to be separated, that it wishes not to be separated from that object. This is the general meaning of the mental factor of desire. So the meaning of hatred or anger. In Tibetan the word for hatred is zhe sdang. And the word zhe sdang means to the depth, like very deeply.
Very deeply. Like deep in your heart, in the depth of your heart. And tong means to arise, to rise up. So what we have in the word shetong or hatred is when confronted with undesirable object such as when someone calls you a bad name, uses harsh words, calls you a thief for example, then the mind is unable to abide at peace. It’s unable to remain at rest and the mind is forced to rise up from its very depth.
Therefore the peace of the mind is disturbed. And then the third of these root afflictive emotions is delusion. And this is by analogy that someone coming into a completely darkened room, though there are many articles, things about the room due to the obscuration of the darkness, you don’t know what is in the room. You’re not able to see with your eye the articles in the room. Likewise, due to the obscuration, the darkness of delusion, we’re obscured from seeing the actual mode of abidance, the way things actually exist, the reality of the real nature of objects, and this is termed delusion.
This inability, the obscuration of this darkness of unable to see the actual mode of abidance, the reality of reality of objects phenomena. So any type of action that we engage in motivated by any either of these three afflictive emotions, that is desire, hatred, delusion, whether it’s of the body, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct of speech, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle gossip, mind, covetousness, harmful intention, or wrong view, it’s always a negative unskillful action. So it’s extremely important that we develop an understanding able to recognize or distinguish between negative and positive types of karma. What is positive, what is negative, what is skillful and what is unskillful. Without such a type of understanding, we aren’t going to able to understand what is dharma and what is not dharma.
What actions should be engaged in, what actions should be forgone, what should be adopted and what should be rejected. We should understand the advantages of positive types of action, the disadvantages of negative types of actions. And coming to a deeper understanding of this topic, then we will naturally begin to generate faith in our practice, in the Dharma. We’ll make effort in our practice, and we’ll develop a lot of joy in what we’re doing. So we’ve discussed the nature of non virtue, that is to say negative actions, from the point of view of the three types of basic motivations which act as the cause for all types of negative actions.
Now we’re going to discuss some of the results from these negative actions. Then Nāgārjuna goes on to talk about the fact that all suffering, all dissatisfaction, and all bad migrations arise from negative actions. So not only are the various negative actions such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct and the various unskillful actions of speech and mind unskillful in themselves, that is dissatisfactory in themselves having a nature of suffering, but they also produce a dissatisfactory result. It is said that all suffering that we experience arises from only this, that is negative actions that we create. Mainly we’re talking about here, sufferings of the body.
So, we can talk about all, when Nāgārjuna says that all bad migrations, in general there are six levels of migrations, but there are three included in bad migrations. That is, hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals. And these all arise through negative karma or negative actions. Of effects of actions or results, we can classify them into three categories. There is the ripening effect, the effect which is similar to the cause, and the environmental effect.
So in discussing these three negative, these three effects of negative karma, we can talk about them first with respect to ripening effect. There are three levels of ripening effect according to the nature of the severity, the heaviness of the karma created. The effect of the greatest or heavier types of negative karma would be being reborn as a hell being. There is a middling negativity, ripening effect would be being reborn as a hungry ghost and the lesser or lightest type of negative karma would be to be reborn as an animal. So we’re discussing this from taking as a basis killing by way of example.
The heaviest type of negative karma created through killing would be brought about by killing one’s spiritual teacher, by killing one’s parents, and killing a person, human beings in general. Middling types of negativity would be killing large animals. And lighter types of negativity would be brought about through killing small animals and insects, things of this nature. This would bring a corresponding great suffering, middling suffering, and light suffering. So, with respect to killing, have these three effects which we’ve been speaking of.
The ripening effect, the effect which is similar to the cause, and the environmental effect. So with respect to his ripening effect, as the various types of bad migrations which can result through killing, none of us perhaps have seen hell. So we doubt whether it exists or not. Perhaps some of us have seen hungry ghosts. When we talk about hungry ghosts, we’re talking about maybe some of you have seen some kind of apparition, some kind of we call commonly in the west a ghost.
These are hungry ghosts probably. And so some people have seen these, but we all have seen animals. So when we are talking about the suffering consequences which result in these various types of birth. Mainly we’re talking about the types of bodies which these particular types of embodiments which each of these are forced to take through their negative karma which they created, which predisposes them to certain types of feelings due to the type of body that they possess. And with the heavier types of negative karma, they will express greater suffering feelings and the lesser types of embodiments according corresponding lesser karmic embodiments that they are forced to take, they will experience lesser feelings of suffering.
Now if we return to the second type of effect, the effect which is similar to the cause. By way of example, the cat. Cats have a natural inclination trying to kill birds, small animals, mice, things like that. And this is an effect which is similar to the cause. And then with respect to the environmental effect, there are probably most animals, most animals live in the ocean.
So this ocean along with the various types of environments such as deserts, forests, all these different types of environments are what we mean by an environmental effect. Whether it’s the ocean, living in a forest, living in desert, these are what are the environmental effects. So these are the three types of effects, ripening effect, effective similar to the cause, environmental effect with respect to the bad migrations, the three types. The same holds true for the happy migrations. By happy migrations we mean the realms of the human, demigod, and gods.
If we take it as an example, again, killing, then due to the negative consequences of having killed, if it was a heavy type of killing, take me birthed in hell. This would be the ripening effect of having of the negative karma of killing. When the ripening effect was finally exhausted, we would die from that hell. In the case of if we were to be reborn as a human being, then we would experience the effect which is similar to the cause. And this would be that we would the possible effects would be that we would die young and that we would have a liking for killing, a natural inclination to kill.
Taking as the basis stealing, due to the negative consequences of stealing, we would initially be born as a ripening effect in a bad migration. When this ripening effect had been exhausted, taking rebirth as a human, we would be reborn very poor and we would have a natural inclination to steal. We’d be thieves. So in the case of stealing, having exhausted the ripening effect, taking new birth as a human, effect similar to the cause would be that having being poor, liking to steal. Then there would be the environmental effect.
That would be living in a very dirty place where there were thorns, very rough place, lots of rubbish garbage like Delhi or Calcutta. In places like this, it would be a very filthy environment. This would be the environmental effect of having stolen in the past. These are some of the possible effects of negative action, but anything that we experience, headaches, toothaches, all the various aches and pains that we experience all the time, every one of these is the effect of a negative action that we’ve created in the past. So again, there is general types of effects of negative actions, being able to accomplish what we set out to do, not gaining the happiness that we desire, meeting with various undesirable objects.
These are all our general types of effects from negative actions. So we should try to see for ourselves the qualities of negative actions from the point of view of their cause, their nature, and that they’re completely no good. That the results are no good. They’re only bad. They’re only dissatisfactory.
They only bring suffering. Being able to understand this very deeply, that they only bring us unhappiness, that all the various negative actions that we create can only result in dissatisfaction and suffering in the future. Through seeing this, developing the determination and decision that the best one can every day as a way of practice diminish the frequency of a negative action, the power of our negative actions. And in this way we will experience more and more happiness. So there was a great Geshe Ben Gungyal.
He used to reflect upon the various actions he engaged in during the course of his day. And sitting there, he would think about the course of his day and he would think, oh, I did this and then I did this. And if it was a positive action, he’d put a white stone over here. And if it was negative action, he’d put a black stone over there. He would go through reflecting and reflecting and then he would look and see which power was bigger.
The power of black stones or the power of white stones. If the power of black stones was bigger, he would slap himself and he’d say, Oh, you’re good for nothing. Geshe, you think you try to pretend like you’re practicing but in fact you’re not really practicing. He said, I’m not going to give you any food tomorrow. He would scold himself like this.
If he opened his eyes and the white pile was larger, he said, You — he would shake his own hand. He said, I’m really glad to be with you. I think you’re a fine person, Geshe, and we’re really progressing in our practice. And this is the way he would carry on his practice. So, this Geshe Ben Gungyal, in his youth he was a robber, he was a thief.
He used to go around in the mountains robbing people, stealing. He would go around stealing at night. He used to exert all his energy and all his time and really wear himself out and tire himself. But still, he never had enough to eat. And he went through so much trouble, still he lived a very rough life and never had enough to eat.
And now, said, Look at myself now. He said, Before, said, I expended so much energy and I couldn’t get any food in my mouth. Now I don’t do anything and the food, I can’t keep it out of my mouth. Now that I’m practicing Dharma, I have no problem getting food.
So, we’ve discussed various aspects of negative actions from the point of view of cause, nature, result. And I hope very much that you’ve come to some understanding of it, that you have some feeling for it. Let’s come to a firm understanding, a firm recognition of the suffering quality, the completely disadvantageous quality of negative actions. And each day, understanding that I see that negative actions are completely worthless. They’re only going to cause me problems and suffering and therefore I’m not going to, and making a promise, I’m not going to, as best as you are able, I’m not going to engage in negative actions today, then automatically our mind is going to turn toward positive states and positive types of actions.
So when we talk about the mind turning to positive actions, we can talk about the ten positive actions. But in general, as was spoken about before, the very basis of positive actions are the three non attachment, non hatred, and the various wisdoms understanding emptiness, selflessness, etc. When we talk about these three positive states, motivating forces, By non attachment, we’re talking about the mental factor of non desire, which is essentially what we mean when we say renunciation. That within the three principal aspects of the path, the first being renunciation or determination to be free, the second being the awakening of the heart, bodhicitta, and then the correct view. And here non attachment is equal to renunciation.
Then the second of these two positive motivating forces is non hatred. And this is equal to the second of these three principal aspects, that is awakening heart. Essentially, we’re talking about the development of compassion and love and ultimately the awakening heart. And then the third positive motivating force is non delusion. And this corresponds to the third of the three principal aspects of the path, the seeing deeply into the nature of reality or the correct view.
This is synonymous with coming to an understanding of emptiness, coming to an understanding of the dependent arising, removing the obscuration which prevents us from seeing the suchness of reality. So whatever we do by way of body, speech, mind, if it’s motivated by either of these three positive motivating forces states, then it’s a positive action. So we’re talking about the ten virtuous actions or the ten positive actions which are simply the opposite of the ten negative actions. That the inverse, abandoning, for example killing, that each of these ten abandonments, that is the positive actions, has also the various limbs or parts that as we spoke of in respect to negative actions such as the intention, the execution, and the completion. If we take the example of killing, the positive action of abandonment of killing would be first there would be the intention.
And this would be understanding that first there would arise the desire to kill. But one would have the intention, the motivation. One would motivate it by thinking, Ah, if I did that, that would really hurt this being. I would cause it suffering. This wish to not cause suffering, this wish not to hurt, harm, would be the motivation which would be carried through to the execution that is making effort and restraining oneself mentally from allowing the thought to kill to increase in its force, restraining the mind from the thought to kill, understanding that it would bring harm.
And then the completion, making a firm decision in one’s mind, I’m not going to hurt that animal, I’m not going to, or whatever being, I’m not going to cause it suffering. And that is to abandon the intention to kill. So this would be the positive action of abandoning killing. Likewise, we can apply this to the positive action of abandonment of stealing. Initially having the thinking to steal, then developing the motivation, understanding that to take someone else’s property brings harm to others, causes others difficulties, causes them to suffer.
Therefore, motivated by this thought, the execution would be restraining oneself, not allowing the thought to steal, to develop, but in fact in the completion, making the determination, I’m not going to take that other person’s property or in the case of stealing. When this has been completed, the thought arising in one’s mind not to steal, then this is the bodily positive action of non stealing or an abandonment of stealing. There’s a great difference between the positive quality between the two types of non killings whereby in the first case one simply does not kill through the course of that day. The occasion has not arisen. As opposed to the positive action of non killing.
That is, in the first case, one simply did not have the occasion to kill that day. But in the second case, one has gone through actually created the positive action of non killing by developing the motivation not to kill, understanding the harm, the suffering it would cause, restraining oneself from the actual developing the thought to kill, and coming to a firm decision, I’m not going to kill. Though in both cases, is simply the fact of not killing, but there’s a tremendous difference in the degree of positive potential of these two actions. The positive action of non killing would be similar to having a very expensive watch. It’s very useful to you at the present time and if need be, if you run out of money, you go broke, you can always sell it and it can be a real profit in the future.
So we can apply these three parts to various actions that we’ve just spoken about. That is the intention, the execution, the completion to everything that we do including what we’re doing now. That is listening to the Dharma, teaching. That initially we tried to develop some positive motivation for what we’re doing and that in the mean time, in the actual execution, that we should try to abide in that positive motivation. And then finally at the end, as a way of completion, that we dedicate.
And it’s through determining the quality of all our actions is dependent upon these three factors, the motivation, the way it’s executed, and finally it’s completion. In this way, it becomes a very priceless object of one having great results. So these three parts of actions are extremely important. The intention and the motivation, the execution, and the completion. If we have proper motivation but we don’t have proper execution or completion or if we have one or the other two, then we don’t have proper motivation but we have an execution and completion.
If one of these is missing then it’s like the property or something owned by a beggar. The beggar’s articles, in a way he can make use of them but they aren’t of that great of use to him in the sense that they don’t really meet his real needs. That they’re usually of very poor quality and they don’t work very well, but though they have in fact some use. And not only that, but if he wanted to sell them for some reason, he couldn’t get much for them. So any type of action which doesn’t have these complete three parts to it, intention, execution, and completion, Though it has some use, it’s not of that great of value to us in the present and it’s of very little value to us in the future.
Likewise, the three parts of an action intention, execution, and completion apply not only to the killing, the various physical positive actions, non killing, the various physical positive actions, but likewise to all the positive actions of speech and mind. So the cause is very positive. There are great advantages in the cause. The nature, such as non harming, is extremely worthwhile in itself. And also we will experience a positive result from positive actions.
So just as we spoke of in respect to negative actions, there’s also three types of results to positive actions. The effect, effect similar to cause, and environmental effect. By way of ripening result, ripening effect, the result of great positive actions is to be reborn as a god in the upper realms. The result of middling types of positive actions are the result is being reborn as a god in desire realm. And the result of light types of positive actions is being born as a human being.
So there are various ripening results corresponding to the degree of heaviness and lightness of the positive karma created, taking an embodiment as a god in the upper realm, an embodiment of a god in desire realm and a human body. These are all the ripening effects. Due to these various types of embodiments, we undergo experiences have happy feelings. Happy feelings or pleasant feelings are associated with these particular types of embodiments. The effects similar to the cause with respect to the positive action of abandoning killing would be that one would have a long life.
One would not like to kill, thinking, Oh, it’s not good to kill, and I would have some natural compassion. And then the environmental effect of positive actions would be that you would have pleasant surroundings, that you would have nice clothing, live in a nice home, have lots of pleasant articles. The environmental, the ripening effect of the positive action of non stealing, the strongest would be embodiment as the God in the upper realms, middling in the desire realm, the lesser heaviness of lightness. The lighter type of effect would be the human embodiment. The effect which is similar to the cause would be that one would be rich, have lots of property, and one would not have a liking to steal, would not like to steal.
Then the environmental effect of non-stealing would be that in the case of a farmer, that they would have good fields, that they would have rain, the proper amount of rain in the proper seasons, and therefore they would have a good crop yields. So these three types of effects apply similarly to all the latter types of positive actions such as abandonment of sexual misconduct, etcetera. So the master Vasubandhu said that in all the various things in the world, all those factors which bring happiness, are pleasant a pleasant body, pleasant house, pleasant food, pleasant clothing all are a result of positive actions. On the other hand, all those negative factors unpleasant houses, unpleasant food, unpleasant drinks, unpleasant embodiments are all a result of negative actions. So there are various assertions as to the creation what is the creator of the universe.
I think it’s the Sankhyas, one of the Indian schools, that asserts it to be the primal principle. Whereas in the Christianity, it’s asserted to be that God is the creator of the universe. In Buddhism, karma or actions are the creator of the universe. So everything has some sort of potential, some sort of power. Houses, tables, these have some potential, but they have very little power, very little potential.
Therefore, they’re called unspecified. That is to say, they do not bring about Since they have little potential, they do not bring about any of these three effects: ripening effect effect similar to cause, and environmental effect. Whereas negative and positive actions have a very powerful potential or power. Therefore, it is due to this that they are able to bring about these three types of effects. So when we talk about positive and negative actions, these are encompassed in the practice of cause and effect.
What we mean by practice is the practice of cause and effect. Those who carry on a practice, a very minimal type of practice of the law of cause and effect, we call those of a lesser capacity. Those who carry on a middling type of practice are called those of middling capacity. Those who carry on extensive practice of the law of cause and effect are those of great capacity. So, the capacity of the individual is determined by way of his motivation in practice.
When someone’s practice, that is, his implementation of the law of cause and effect is motivated by, mainly motivated by, for future life effects, then we say that he is a practitioner of small capacity or small scope sometimes. When he implements the law of cause and effect through the motivation of renunciation, then he is a practitioner of a middling capacity. When he is motivated, when he implements the law of cause and effect by way of awakening heart, bodhicitta, then he is a practitioner of the great capacity, a great scope. So whether one is a small, middling, or greater capacity is purely dependent upon motivation. So, the law of cause and effect is no small matter.
It’s extremely profound, extremely vast, it’s extremely subtle. It’s so subtle that actually it’s more subtle than emptiness. Now, bodhisattva superiors, ārya bodhisattvas, they understand emptiness, but only Buddhas understand the full workings of the law of cause and effect. So the great master, Je Tsongkhapa, in his teachings on the graduated path said that definite goodness and liberation arise solely through one’s conviction in the law of cause and effect. So I hope that you’ve come to some understanding of the law of cause and effect and its tremendous importance.
But the great spiritual master Atisha, when he went to Tibet, he was outstanding amongst all the various Indian panditas. He had one hundred and fifty spiritual masters himself. And when he went to Tibet to teach the Dharma, the very first thing that he taught was the law of cause and effect. And he thought it was of such great importance that he was given the nickname Lama Cause and Effect. So there’s no other practice than this, the law of cause and effect.
Whether we’re engaged in various types of meditations, it doesn’t matter if we don’t practice the law of cause and effect, if we want to be happy, if we want to find some peace. It comes about through the development, the production of positive states and positive karma and through the elimination, the rejection of negative states, negative karma. By eliminating, abandoning the ten negative actions and implementing the ten positive actions, we will find the peace that we want and the happiness. This is our practice of the Dharma. And thus, we can become like Geshe Ben Gungyal who first had that big pile of black stones with just a few white stones and eventually reversed the situation that day by day we can begin to lessen the force of negative actions and implement more and more positive actions.
And in this way we will be able to find complete happiness and fulfillment. So that finishes the time, but if you have some questions, we’ll try to get some answers. Yeah. So, in order to practice Dharma, it’s not necessary to believe in past and future lives. But by having conviction in existence of past and future lives, the force of our practice will be increased because we’ll understand that we’re creating we’re creating the type of future life that we will experience and therefore we’ll be more concerned about the law of cause and effect.
It’s like if someone walking down a path, you think you’re just going a short distance and there’s no necessity to carry much with you. But if you realize you’re setting out on a long journey, then you’re to make provisions for your journey And you’re going to take more care in how you actually journey along and how you set out. Likewise, if we have conviction in the law of cause and effect, that in itself will help us to practice Dharma. But having conviction in the existence of past and future lives will be more concerned with the law of cause and effect and therefore our practice of Dharma will be even stronger. I was just pointing out, asking if there was a possibility to be reborn as a flower.
No, it’s not possible. So whatever is taken as a rebirth must have a mind, must have consciousness? But still, it must have consciousness.