Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided meditation, Bhikśunī Thubten Chodron leads practitioners through contemplation of the ten destructive actions and their karmic results. She explains that each complete action produces four effects: the maturation result (the realm of rebirth), the experiential result (receiving what you’ve given), the habituation result (tendency to repeat the action), and the environmental result (the world you’re born into). Working through each destructive action—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle talk, coveting, malice, and wrong view—she shows how each generates specific chains of suffering in future lives and present circumstances. The meditation helps practitioners understand their current experiences as consequences of past actions, and builds motivation to abandon harmful conduct and purify negative karma. Suitable for both new students and established practitioners seeking to deepen understanding of karma’s mechanics.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 23 GM.mp3
UUID: 65ce5582-a461-4377-900f-bdbf9a2c8ac5
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~1,838
It’s very helpful to understand our life experiences through the perspective of karma. And every action we do that is complete with a motivation, the actual action, and the completion or conclusion of the action leaves a karmic seed or karmic imprint on our mind that influences what we experience. So now we’re going to meditate on the ten destructive actions through the perspective of what results they bring. And doing this helps us understand our own experience now because some of the things we’re experiencing now are those results. And then we can understand what causes we created in previous lives that we now have this experience.
And also, by meditating on this, we can see that the actions we do now will bring certain experiences. And then that helps us decide if it’s worthwhile to do these actions or not. Because sometimes some of the ten destructive actions seem very inviting. But when we think about their results, then it becomes very easy to stop doing them because we don’t want to experience the results. So although we’re meditating on the results of the ten destructive actions, remember that the ten constructive actions also have four results as do the ten destructive ones.
It’s only the results of the ten constructive ones are happiness, while the results of the ten destructive ones are misery. So each action, each complete action has four results. One is the maturation result. In other words, the body and mind that we take in our future lives, what realm or what life form we’re born into. The second is the result similar to the cause in terms of what we experience.
And here, we experience things that are similar to what we did to others in the past. The third result is the result similar to the cause in terms of our actions or habitual behaviors. And this is the tendency to do the same action again and again. And the fourth result is the effect on the environment and what kind of place that we live in. So before we meditated on killing, for example, and remembered times in our life when we engaged in taking the lives of other living beings.
And so reflect that that causes us to have an unfortunate rebirth in the future. That’s the maturation result. It also, that same action of killing, causes us to have a short life or a life filled with much sickness, and that’s a result similar to the cause in terms of our experience. And the action of killing also results in the results similar to the cause in terms of our habitual behavior, and that’s the tendency to kill again or to take delight in torturing or killing insects or harming others. And it also results in the environment that we’re reborn into.
So we may be reborn into a country where there’s a lot of warfare or the medical facilities are very poor or the food and the medicine are weak. They don’t sustain us and keep us alive. So when you contemplate these results, you can see how all four results are linked to that same action of killing. And when you do this, it helps you understand your present experience. It also gives you some energy to avoid killing in the future and to purify any acts of killing that you’ve done.
So think about how these causes and effects are linked and make some examples in your life. And the actions of stealing that we’ve done in the past also result in an unfortunate rebirth. And then even we’re born as a human being later, we’re born very poor or our things get stolen or forced to give up or share possessions. Or even we have things, we don’t have the power to use them. Stealing also results in us having the tendency to steal or to shoplift or to cheat.
So a lot of the habitual white collar crimes are a result of this. And the effect on our environment is that we’re born in a place where the harvests are very poor, where there’s floods and drought and hail. In other words, where we lack the things that we need. So you can see how all these actions are related to stealing. And through that, it helps us to determine not to do that.
When we engage in unwise sexual behavior, it also leads to an unfortunate rebirth. And then even when we’re born as humans, we get involved in relationships that don’t work out very well. Our spouse is unfaithful. The marriage results in divorce. Intimate friendships don’t last.
Another result of unwise sexual behavior is the habitual tendency to have extramarital affairs, again, creating the cause for more pain in relationships. And in addition, we’re born in very dirty and muddy, inconvenient places. So even though there might be nice places available, we don’t seem to be able to find them and wind up in quite an unpleasant habitat. Lying results in an unfavorable rebirth. And then even we’re born as human beings, people don’t trust our words, or they spread false stories behind our backs, or they accuse us of lying when we’re actually telling the truth, or others cheat and deceive us.
Our words don’t have any influence on others. So this is a result of lying. In addition, we have the tendency to lie again. We distort things when we speak. We exaggerate things.
It becomes a habit. And then the environment we’re born into is one where everybody is corrupt and dishonest. So there’s many societies like that. It’s a result of lying. Divisive speech creating disharmony amongst people results in a negative rebirth.
And even we’re born as human beings. We have very few friends. Our friends desert us. People don’t wanna be with us. We’re separated from our spiritual masters and our dharma friends.
We wind up with a bad reputation. We can’t get along with others. There’s always disharmony. In addition, we have the tendency again, to create disharmony, to cause trouble to others by giving unsought opinions, causing misunderstandings, stirring people up, inciting them into conflict. And our environment is one where it’s very rocky and uncomfortable, where there’s cliffs and uneven land, where things are very low or very high, so it’s quite dangerous.
When we speak harsh words, it results in a lower rebirth. And even when we’re human, people criticize us. They verbally abuse us for no apparent reason. We hear a lot of unpleasant news, or we live in very noisy places. Sometimes we say things with good intentions, but because of our karma, others misinterpret it, and they’re hurt.
And we always hear very painful words and criticism and blame from other people. Harsh words also create the habit to do it again. So we wind up having very uncontrolled speech, swearing a lot, criticizing others, hurting others’ feelings all the time. And the environment we’re born into is one where there’s a lot of thorns and sharp rocks and broken glass, where it’s very harsh and dry with little water, place where there’s a lot of scorpions. It’s a very harsh environment as a result of our harsh speech.
When we speak idly and gossip, it again leads us to unfortunate rebirths. And then later, we’re unable to keep others’ confidence. Other people gossip about us. They laugh at us. They don’t take us seriously or believe what we say.
And even when we try and communicate something serious, our words don’t carry any weight. People don’t pay attention to our speech. In addition, we have the habit of idle talk. And so we become a person who’s unable to stop talking. We constantly interrupt others.
We chatter whenever there’s the opportunity, whether other people wanna listen or not. And we’re born in a place where the harvest don’t come at the proper season, where the fruits are unstable and trees don’t flower and blossom, or where the parks and forests are very overcrowded and spoiled or the wells go dry. That’s all the result of idle talk and gossip. Similarly, coveting leads to unfortunate rebirth. And then as humans, we can’t complete projects.
We start one thing and stop it to do something else, so we can’t fulfill our wishes or our hopes. We’re continually longing for more than we have and never satisfied, and all our ventures fail. In addition, we have the tendency to covet again. So everywhere we go, we have to touch things. We have to try them on and ask their price.
We always check up what everybody else has or what they’re gonna buy. And then our environment is one in which our property and our belongings, our house, everything deteriorates very quickly. It breaks. We can’t use it. We’re born in isolated places where there’s a lot of poverty and experience constant misfortune.
Then malicious thought and ill will towards others leads to an unfortunate rebirth. Then also as human beings, we have a tendency to feel guilty or suspicious. We’re paranoid, frightened for no obvious reason. So you can see how this frightened mind is very much linked to having malicious thoughts. In addition, we take pleasure in planning to harm others and making mischief.
We think of how to tease others, and we become very obnoxious, having uncontrollable anger and wish to harm others without any reason. So as a result of having malicious thoughts, we become the kind of person that nobody wants to have around. And then our environment is one in which we’re caught in wars and calamities and epidemics. There’s lots of poisonous insects and snakes around, wild animals, very unpleasant food. And then wrong views makes us take a lower rebirth.
And, again, when we’re humans, our mind is very dull when we try and practice the Dharma, but very alert for worldly activities. So our mind is dull. It’s not so intelligent. We find it difficult to understand the Dharma, and it takes much time to generate realizations because the mind is very confused. In addition, we have the tendency again to have wrong views, to misunderstand the teachings, to follow the wrong path.
And in our environment, all the natural resources are exhausted. The springs go dry. The mines are empty. The environment is polluted and the society chaotic. So we could actually spend quite a long time meditating on this because we see these results in our own lives, in the lives of our friends and family, and in the world around us.
And so we can understand everything we experience in terms of the actions that we’ve done in the past. And when we do this, it helps us to be more attentive of the actions we’re doing now so that we don’t again create the cause for more suffering and misery. So generate this strong wish to avoid negative actions also have four very positive results.