Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 41-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche establishes the law of cause and effect (karma) as the foundation of practice. He opens with a direct question: we want happiness and wish to avoid suffering—so how does this come about? Not through prayer, but through understanding the infallible correspondence between our actions and their results. Rinpoche presents the four Buddhist reasonings for developing conviction in karma: results are infallible (a mango seed produces mangoes, never lemons); actions are highly augmentative (even insignificant positive actions eventually produce vast results); uncommitted actions produce no results; and committed actions are never wasted. Through stories—an insect circling a stupa across lifetimes, monks reborn as animals from careless words—he illustrates how even minor actions bear disproportionate consequences. Suited for practitioners aiming to build conviction in karma.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-08-01 – 1B – Sun's Radiance of – KR.mp3
UUID: d9d66d51-0bce-4189-b93e-ac47b5b4b3fc
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1989-08-01
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,294
Gives stability. The wind allows for the growth and development. The fire element has a burning quality, and it’s necessary to have the water element. So in combination with these various elements, it will give rise to the different combinations of the fertility of a particular field. So it’s different to, it’s making, we are able to, through the use of making, through making use of the various potencies of the elements, we are able to, for example, go beneath the earth.
We can go on the earth very quickly. We can go in the sky. These are all making use of these various capacities of different elements. Just as the, that these various bases, external bases have various different degrees of power. Likewise, internally, the mind itself has different degrees of power.
So there is a quotation by Nāgārjuna in which he sets forth that saying that all actions are either positive or negative, and that since actions are a cause they have a result. All suffering arises as as its cause negative actions, and that is to say all sufferings of both body, physical suffering and mental suffering. Additionally, all bad migrations are the result of negative actions. On the other hand, all happiness, of this life, whether of future life, whether of liberation, or even Buddhahood is a result of positive actions, skillful actions. Also, all the happy migrations whether of human or a god, are the results of positive actions.
Says that there are only two types of actions, positive actions and negative actions, and that all the various combinations which we experience within the world, within our environment, and within our own internal life are a consequence of either of these two actions, that through the process of as a result of negative actions we experience a negative type of result both in our environment with our food, clothing. We experience different types of suffering within ourselves. We experience mental suffering, for example. Likewise, as a consequence of positive actions we experience a happy environment outside of ourselves and physical happiness, mental happiness within ourselves. Whatever arises is a consequence of activities, of action.
We all want happiness, none of us want to suffer. And if that’s what we want, then how is it going to be brought about? If we have to begin, if we want happiness, we have to cultivate the causes for happiness. Simply, you know, making prayers, Oh, please happiness come to me, please happiness come to me, is not going to bring us happiness. Then on the other hand, we don’t want to suffer.
And if we don’t create the causes of suffering, then even if we were to say, oh, I want to suffer, I want to suffer, we aren’t going to suffer because we haven’t created the cause. It’s all dependent upon the various activities that we engage in, what we experience. So, we have to develop conviction in this correspondence between the actions and the results that from positive happiness results, from negative actions suffering results. We don’t want to suffer. So, we have to gain conviction that if we begin to cease creating the causes of suffering, then we aren’t going to suffer.
Suffering doesn’t come about by itself. It doesn’t come about by its own power, but we bring it to ourselves. On the other hand, we want to be happy. Therefore, we have to understand that it’s not going to happen to us unless we create the causes of happiness, that is the skillful or positive types of action. That if we don’t create these skillful actions, even though we want to be happy, we aren’t going to be happy.
But then on the other hand, if we do create positive actions, then happiness is going to come automatically. It’s necessary that we begin to develop a conviction in the actions and the results if we are going to carry on a real practice of adopting and rejecting, Understanding that from from positive causes, from positive actions only happiness arises, suffering never arises. And from negative causes only suffering arises, happiness never arises. And therefore, understanding this, developing a real conviction in this, we’re going to engage, we’re going to cultivate positive actions and begin to abandon negative actions. As it says in the extensive explanation of the stages of the path, it says that all happiness and goodness arises dependent, has its foundation, a conviction in the results of actions or the law of cause and effect.
So the Buddha set forth four reasonings or methods whereby to develop a conviction in the law of cause and effect. These four are that the results of actions are infallible, the results of actions are infallible, actions are highly augmentative, or that is to say increasing, actions are highly augmentative. The third is the results of uncommitted actions are not experienced. The results of uncommitted actions are not experienced. And the fourth is actions committed are not dissipated or wasted or lost.
Actions committed are not dissipated. So there is a certainty between the and a correspondence between results, effects, and their cause. There is that the results of actions are infallible or certain. For example, if the root is of a sweet plant, then the plant which arises from that is sweet. If the roots are of a hot variety taste wise, then the plant which arises from that is in correspondence to that.
It will also have a hot nature. There is always a correspondence between effects and their cause. If we plant the seed of a lemon tree, then we aren’t going to get a sweet fruit. We only get a sour fruit. Likewise, if we plant a mango seed, then the fruit that arises from the seed will be sweet.
There is always a correspondence of the nature between an effect and its cause. There’s no variation. It’s an infallible correspondence. And then the second of these modes of actions is that actions are highly augmentative or increasing, that from insignificant actions great results can arise. And there is a story about one monk who, there were two monks who were walking along and one monk jumped who was quite agile, jumped over.
There was some water there and he jumped over the water. He was very athletic. And other one, oh, you like a monkey. And just a few words, and as a result of those few words, he took rebirth as a monkey 500 times. Another example, there were two monks, and one of the monks was reciting a text out loud. And this monk didn’t have a very particularly pleasing voice.
And the other monk said, oh, you sound like a howling dog. Due to that, he took rebirth as a dog 500 times. And another example, you know, just as in the case of planting a seed of a tree, you know, seed of a tree can extremely small. And there was one type of tree in ancient times which when it was planted, the tree which eventually grew from this was able to they were able to park 500 carts beneath the shade of this tree, beneath the branches in the shade of this tree. And it grew from just a small seed.
So, you know, from external physical phenomena that there can be such a significant increase result from such a small seed can rise such a big result, the mind is that much more powerful, and therefore there’s that much more possibility for a greater increase. Again, you know, if we plant a mango seed, mango seed is very small, but then by planting that one small seed after the tree grows and it begins to bear fruit, and how many mangoes eventually can grow from that one seed? How many mangoes can grow every year, every ten years during the course of the life of that tree? If we were to presently, you know, praise, you know, to make prayers of praise to the Buddha, to make various types of prayers, then if during the intervening period that action were not to be destroyed, then that action could result in Buddhahood. Once we attain Buddhahood, we were to look back and think, now where did I create the positive action to have attained Buddhahood?
We could look back and we could look back to where we were listening to the Dharma in Adelaide. Really? There’s a story of an old man who he was rather old and useless, and he was very his family rejected him because he couldn’t do anything and he was of no use to the family. They used to scold him, so he decided to renounce his family and he wanted to become a monk. And so he went to Śāriputra and Maudgalyayāna and the two chief disciples of the Buddha and he asked them to please give him vows of renunciation.
And they looked back into his life, past lifetimes and they saw that he had no roots of virtue to be able to attain liberation so they didn’t give him the vows of renunciation. And he became very despondent and he was beating himself on the head and the Buddha came along and said, you know, what’s wrong? He said, I wanted to take vows of renunciation but I do not have the roots of virtue and I’m going to kill myself. So the old man was very despondent indeed. He wanted to kill himself.
But the Buddha said, you know, don’t worry, he said, I will give you the vows of renunciation. And the reason that he was able that the Buddha was willing because he saw that he had a very subtle insignificant root of virtue which would act as a cause for his eventual liberation. And what the Buddha saw when he reviewed all his past lifetimes is that in one lifetime he had taken rebirth as an insect. And this insect was in the stool of a cow, what you call a cow patty. And this cow patty was floating in a gutter which went around a chorten or a stupa, a reliquary monument of the Buddha.
And due to the due to the positive karma, the positive action of circumambulating, I guess the word is circumambulating. Circling, circling this stupa, it created enough positive karma to eventually achieve liberation. Therefore, the Buddha gave him vows of renunciation. So the point is that from insignificant causes can come great results. If from our point of view, if we were to develop faith, if we were to engage in various types of meditation, make prayers, that is to say by making prayers to dedicate such that our positive actions are not destroyed by anger, then there is no doubt that it can have great results.
That simply reciting one mantra of Om Mani Padme Hum. If we dedicate that positive action that’s if it’s not destroyed, we can as a result of that one recitation we can achieve a human life, a life as a God, and even Buddhahood. So, you know, we obviously, you know, great positive actions, skillful actions that we engage in are going to have some really we are pretty sure they’re going to have some significant result. But over and above that, we shouldn’t disregard even insignificant types of positive action, that these too, if they’re dedicated, can have a very powerful result. Then on the other hand, we have to be very careful about our negative action, even insignificant negative actions because they too can have great results as was exemplified in the story about calling another person a monkey.
Just the simple words, you know, like a monkey had just that insignificant cause had the great result of taking rebirth 500 times as a monkey, that such insignificant negative actions can have a result of taking rebirth in hell, for example. So we have to seek to cultivate even insignificant positive actions and abandon even insignificant negative actions because they can have their respective greatly increased results. So obviously that we can decide that great actions will have great results, but the point is being made here with respect to actions are highly augmentative or increasing is that even insignificant positive and negative actions can have a vastly increased effect result. So these we’ve out of the four distinctive modes of actions, the reasoning behind developing a conviction in actions, we’ve talked about two. The first being that the results of actions are infallible, that from a positive action comes happiness, from negative action comes only suffering.
And this is the infallibility of actions or karma. The second is that actions are highly augmentative, that even from insignificant positive and negative actions a corresponding greatly increased effect or result will occur. And we will cover the remaining two next time. So we’ll spend about ten minutes with questions and answers. So if you have some questions.
So, in the great vehicle explanation, it depends upon the capacity of the person as to whether a particular action is positive or negative. For example, with respect to killing, for someone who is practicing as a yogi, practicing secret mantra who had attained great capacity or power through his practice, out of the force of his compassion, he may kill a person and this would be a positive action. If another person were to do that and didn’t have the same level of attainment, it would be a negative action. So it’s dependent we can’t say in general, it’s dependent upon the degree of the qualities and the capacity of the person who’s engaging in the action.