Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche explores the law of karma through the Sun’s Radiance text, showing how even small negative actions accumulate catastrophically. A drop of poison causes illness; small water drops fill a vessel; calling someone a thief in anger creates a negative action that then doubles daily unless confessed. Confession with antidote practices—Vajrasattva recitation—can reverse such actions entirely, prevent escalation, or stop the doubling effect. He presents four principles: results are infallible, actions augment exponentially, uncommitted actions bear no fruit, and committed actions never vanish. Anger alone destroys positive actions. The practical conclusion: confess negative actions each evening, protect positive actions from anger, and recognize that even one ethically-kept day of precepts can exponentially multiply toward enlightenment. Pitched at practitioners already engaged in Buddhist practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-08-08 – 3A – Sun's Radiance of – KR.mp3
UUID: 30e817b5-fc02-4fc0-b358-5db297c27301
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1989-08-08
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,895
So we should try to adjust our motivation such that we are going to listen to this profound teaching of the great vehicle with the with the precious motivation of the enlightenment attitude, the awakening heart. This is embodied in the thought that I must attain complete perfect unsurpassable enlightenment in order to establish all sentient beings in complete and perfect happiness and bliss. We’re listening within the teachings of the Dharma to the text of sun’s radiance of thought transformation and within the text the section on actions and the result, the law of cause and effect. And there is a quotation from the Buddha in which speaks of the types of karma or that is to say types of action as being both negative and positive. And that we may understand that great negativities will bring great negative results, but we shouldn’t think that small or insignificant negativities, it doesn’t matter that we create them, for in fact it does.
By creating a massive even insignificant negativities, we can expect a great result to arise. And this will be the consequences of such a type of way of acting is that in our future rebirth we will experience great suffering. And this is the meaning, and the example which is given with respect to this quotation is that even if we take a small bit of poison and we digest it, and once it’s in our stomach, that even that insignificant bit of poison can cause us a great deal of pain and sickness. So this is also to extend this example into the meaning that if we can understand easily that if we take a great deal of poison, then there’s no need to talk about the great results which are going to arise as a consequence of the great suffering and the great pain we’re going to undergo, and the sickness and the possibility of death. So to extend the meaning of this example that can, that definitely we can understand that causing, enacting great negativity, obviously we’re going to experience a great result.
But But we shouldn’t underestimate the power of even insignificant negativity to bring a great result. That it is as if even small drops of water can add up and fill a great vessel. And likewise, the accumulation of even insignificant negative action can result in a future great suffering and pain. So if we were to, you know, to engage in some type of destructive action. For example, if we were to motivate it by anger, we were to call someone a thief motivated by anger.
And even though the word thief is only one syllable, when that other person hears it and it hurts their mind, then we’ve created a negative action. What is today even such an insignificant action, the destructive action is calling someone a thief and causing them some mental grief is a negative action. And taking this simple negative action as an example, that if we were to not acknowledge it, that is to say if we were to call someone a thief in that evening, we were to if we were in fact to engage in some type of practice such as a confession where we acknowledge this action as negative with, I shouldn’t have done that, that was quite wrong. It was destructive, a way to act. And we apply some sort of antidote such as reciting the 100 syllable mantra of Vajrasattva, then if our acknowledgment and our regret is very strong, then we can completely reverse the action and there will be no result will be experienced at all.
If our acknowledgement, our way of confessing is of a middling variety, then we have removed the root of the consequences. But we are going to still experience some sort of negative consequence from that action. And if our application of antidote is only slight, then we have merely eliminated the increasing, the augmentative nature of actions. It will not increase in its power. So we take a look at the increasing or the augmentative nature of action.
If in fact we commit some type of negative action and we don’t acknowledge that, we don’t confess it, but we simply just let it go, we just leave it. What happens is that it’s in the same way that if we were to put money in a bank that we accrue some kind of interest. And likewise, every day that we leave a negative action it accrues, it begins to build up, it augments itself with respect to its result. If today we committed one negative action, then it would not be acknowledged, confessed, then the next day the result would have been doubled. The next day it will again double.
That means to say it’s now four times the power of the first action initially, and this doubling effect goes on four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, etcetera. So even from insignificant actions, great results can arise. So this is extremely important that if in the cases where we do commit some type of negative action that we understand it’s going to augment itself, it’s going to increase. So if we apply an antidote to acknowledging its mistaken nature, confessing it, then in the case of slight application of the antidote it will at least not be doubling. It won’t have this increasing effect.
And if we are able to apply the antidote with extreme power, then we can eliminate the necessity to experience the result altogether. Remember, Geshe-la was explaining a short verse, and it says the meaning of this short verse is that those who are expert, I’ll try to make the verse and then I’ll explain. The expert, even though heavy negativities, experience no results. The unlearned, even though creating light negativities, experience great results. Now, what this means is the expert, those who know how to apply well the antidotes to as a means for purifying negativities, even when they create very destructive types of actions, negative actions, through the skillful application of the antidotes, they can completely eliminate the necessity to experience any result.
On the other hand, those who are unlearned in the ways of karma or actions and do not make use of the methods for antidotes, even though they create even insignificant negativities because of its augmentative nature, they will eventually experience, necessarily experience great results, negative results. It would be, you know, extremely difficult for us to even think that we are not going create any types of negative actions. You know that we have been habituated to negative actions, and therefore it’s as if they arise almost automatically. So, there’s no great surprise. We shouldn’t be surprised that when we do create negativity these types actions.
But the point is that we have to make use of antidotes to eliminate having to experience the consequence of these negative actions. We should acknowledge them, that is to say confess them, and then they have to apply the opponent forces. If for example during the day, we create some negative action. Then before we go to sleep at night, we acknowledge the negativity that we create and we apply an antidote, for example, recitation of the 100 syllable mantra. But again, during the night we create negative action and or they arise in the next morning, again acknowledging that your negative actions and again applying the antidote.
And this having attained a perfect, a precious human life, then this type of this way of acting is called perfection of ethics or perfect ethics, pure ethics. And this leading such a way a type of life then we can be assured of a very fortunate type of rebirth in the future as human or God. So in discussion of actions, we’re discussing on the point of view of a fourfold division that is the four distinct modes of action. And the first was that the results of actions are infallible, the second that actions are highly augmentative, and then the third which reached now is that results of uncommitted actions are not experienced. Results of uncommitted actions are not experienced.
And that is to say that any type of negative or positive action which is not created, we will not experience the result. If we do not create an action, we will not experience the effect. If we do not create a negativity, we will not experience suffering. If If we do not create a positive action, we will not experience that result either. But in the case of combining it with the earlier explanation with regard to the application of antidote, if in the case of having created a negative action we are to acknowledge it, it is as if, acknowledge it, apply the antidote well, it is as if we didn’t create that action.
We will not experience the result. Likewise, with respect to the positive actions that we create, It operates the same that having create if we do not create a positive action, we will not experience that result. But on the other hand, if we do create a positive action even if it’s an insignificant constructive action and that constructive action is not destroyed by the force of anger, then we are going to experience the result. If we have, if we were to with a positive motivation, recite even once the mantra, then this is a positive action, constructive action. And if we dedicate that and there’s no intervening anger, then the effect will, as was previously explained, the next day the result will be double.
The power of that action will be double. The next day, will be quadrupled, then eight, sixteen, and so forth. If for example that we were to take the twenty four hour great vehicle precepts and that having having kept those vowels well for the twenty four hours and at in the evening that we made many heartfelt prayers of dedication, then there would occur this augmentative nature of actions that it would begin to increase in its force, and first doubling then four times, eight times, it would keep increasing. And then this, even this one action could have as its result taking rebirth as a human, and this is of course in itself is a happy rebirth. But, and taking this human life as a foundation, could additionally carry on a practice of Dharma, and this would have, this would bring about a really great meaning would be brought about from even this one action.
It’s in the same way that if we plant a crop and the crop arises, get a, we not only have a great harvest from that planting which we can eat, which we can, but we can make use of that crop, that harvest in many varied ways. We can clothe ourselves, we can give the crop, crop, we can give, we can sell it, we can give it away, we can use this result in various ways. Likewise, the result from even this one action, gaining a human rebirth practice in Dharma can bring about the ultimate welfare of liberation. We can develop an awakening heart. We can have a realization in emptiness.
So there’s all these varied possible results even from one action. So then the fourth of these modes of actions is that actions committed are not dissipated. If taking the example again of having taken the twenty four hour great vehicle precepts, and if there is no anger, if that positive action is not created by anger, then this can result in rebirth and a happy migration. You know, due to the increase, the augmentative nature of the positive action that we created. Can additionally attain human rebirth, we can develop an awakening heart.
All of the vast and varied results can arise from this even one positive action. The point here is is that this action is never going to be lost. That if there is no intervening anger of having created the action before it’s dedicated, then no matter how much time may intervene, the results will definitely be experienced. No matter whether it’s hundreds of years, there were definitely the action is not wasted, it’s not lost, it will definitely be experienced. Actions committed are not dissipated.
In other words, for dissipated is wasted. So the Buddha said that whatever action sentient beings may create, whether negative or positive, positive, they will definitely experience the result. And that is to say, to qualify that, if we have created a negative action and we don’t acknowledge it, that is to confess it, or on the other hand, we create a positive action and we don’t destroy it by anger, then whether, no matter how much time may intervene, it’s hundreds or thousands of years, that from that negative action, suffering will arise, and from that positive action, happiness will arise. So to review, by contemplating again and again the first two of these four distinct modes of actions, that is the results of actions are infallible and actions are highly augmentative, then we will understand the need to create, we would develop a determination to abandon negative action, determination to create positive actions and to avoid negative actions. We want to be happy and happiness arises out of positive actions.
Therefore, we determine I must create positive actions. We don’t want to suffer, Suffering arises infallibly from negative action. Therefore, I must try to avoid negative actions as much as possible. This would be the result of contemplating again and again well the first two of these four modes. And then contemplating again and again the latter, the second, The latter two of these four that is the results of uncommitted actions are not experienced, and actions committed are not dissipated.
We will develop the determination, that having seen that results, the results of actions are not lost, then we will understand that if we create a negative action it’s not going to go away. We have to eliminate and we can do that by acknowledging or confessing it and applying the antidotes in order to eliminate completely be rid of it. Otherwise we’re going to experience the result and that’s unhappiness which we do not want. On the other hand, we understand that having created a positive action that it can’t be lost, it can only be lost to the force of anger. So we determine not to allow our already created positive actions to be destroyed by anger.
We make this determination. So if we can, as a result of these contemplations, come to determination that whatever negative actions I accumulate, I’m going to acknowledge them, and whatever positive actions I may have accrued, gathered together, I’m not going to be allow them to be destroyed by anger, then we have reaped the harvest and the contemplation of the law of cause and effect. So this is a very wonderful thing. This law of cause and effect that the simple consequences of action producing a particular effect that from positive actions happiness arises, from negative actions suffering arises. Otherwise, you know, our life is, all our experiences simply arise haphazardly.
We have no method to work with. But if we come to understand it’s through the kindness of this very law itself that we can begin to gain control over the nature of future experiences. That if I create positive actions, I’m going to have happiness. If I create negative actions, I’m going to experience suffering. Then if we can accept this and abide by it, it’s a very wonderful way to conduct a life.
So, we can begin to cultivate the causes of happiness. We can begin to cultivate the states of benefit, states of benefiting others of caring, love. We can begin to knowingly, consciously abandon types of negative actions which bring about a negative result, you know, whether it’s anger, all the various negative states of mind. And this is a very wonderful rule to operate by. So through the beneficence of this quality of karma that simply by cultivating positive actions we can begin, we can increase greater and greater the types of positive action, constructive actions that we create until finally we create Buddhahood.
On the other hand, understanding the results of suffering from negative action, not only it in itself is a benefit to us because understanding the why suffering arises, it helps us to develop the determination to be free in renunciation. It also helps us to develop compassion, and helps us to abandon harming others. The essential view of the Buddha is dependent arising. That results arise in dependence upon the aggregation of specific causes and conditions. Applying this to the law of cause and effect that from negative actions suffering arises, from positive actions happiness arises.
But this works throughout throughout the whatever may arise, whatever phenomenon occurs. It occurs, we can begin to understand it even liberation is a dependent arising, dependent upon specific causes and conditions. And again, cyclic existence is a dependent arising, dependent upon specific causes and conditions that they, that they follow, that’s from certain causes follow certain effects, and this is extremely precious understanding to gain, this view of dependent arising.