Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of a stick wielded by a wrathful hand — we blame the person holding it, not the stick, yet the person is equally under the control of anger — opens Ven Jampa Gendun’s 45-minute commentary on chapter six of Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra. He uses that analogy to frame a teaching on karma and tolerance, drawing on a Dalai Lama passage to explain karma as the law of cause and effect internal to sentient beings, distinct from external dependent arising. He then shows how karmic residues on the mind shape how we label experience — illustrated by a bird trapped indoors, seeing a rescuer as a threat. Śāntideva’s verse “his weapon and my body are both causes for the pain” leads to the session’s hardest claim: in a profound sense we are never blameless in our suffering, a point handled carefully to prevent misapplication to survivors of abuse.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 Bod 1997 03 31.mp3
UUID: eca6c54d-08dd-486b-8e9b-5c2b54d78c2a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Bodicaryavatara (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-03-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~6,024
Can we actually form a belief that this is in fact the case? Can we validate that idea and make it a part of our belief structure? And can we see that we may be holding a type of belief which this is in contradiction to this. That in fact, we are you know, we we for example, the the way that some of the examples, the illustrations that we’re working with is that the person is you know, there’s a factor of mind. An afflictive emotion arises.
They didn’t choose that the afflictive emotion arose. They didn’t will it to come into existence. Certain causes and conditions aggregated a particular emotion arose. Now we’re not to say that they shouldn’t take responsibility for that once has arisen. You know we’re not condoning it.
We’re saying that need to take responsibility and not act it out. But the situation is such that they have. And what do you do with it? What’s your response? That’s your part in this situation in the development of tolerance.
So you have a sense that the person is the afflicted emotion. That they are really choosing to be angry. I mean these beliefs are irrational, illogical, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have them. It means that they are susceptible to rational intervention. That we can refute them.
We can perform some kind of cognitive therapy around them. And this will begin to weaken them. So we have an assumption, an unthinking belief that somehow they have chosen to become angry, that they know what they’re doing, that they know the effects that this is having upon me. You know that more or less they are Buddhas and chosen to hurt me. It sounds like it’s probably a contradiction in terms isn’t it?
Anyway, we don’t. He’s not very nice. Attribute a great deal to them which in fact isn’t the case. And out of that we get angry at the person. Which I think is, you know, there’s an internal logic to If someone, if they were in complete control, if they did choose to become angry, if they knew they were hurting me in full awareness, and they freely chose that, maybe we could say that a person is to be held, is to be blamed.
But it’s not the case. Śāntideva has, we talked about in the illustration he uses with the stick. Know, someone hits us with the stick. But we don’t get angry at the stick even though that’s the immediate source of pain. We get angry with the person.
Why? Because we quite legitimately say, use the rationale, that the stick is controlled by the person. Makes sense. So if you’re going to use that same type of logic, it’s simply taking it a step further in this analysis and saying likewise, why get angry at the person because the person is under the control of the mental afflicted emotion of anger. Just in an analogous fashion to the stick being under the control of the person, the person is in turn.
It’s under the control of the particular emotion. So if we’re going to get angry at anything, if we’re not, let’s get angry at the anger and not the person. I don’t condone that state, that type of, that action. But this is, you know, I’m not going to hold it. I’m not going to get distressed around you as a person.
So the idea of overpowered. That people can become overcome by the causes of anger. That anger is neither in the nature of the person. If it was, then there’s no reason why we should be angry at them because they didn’t freely choose to become angry. It’s in their very nature.
How can you hold them responsible for it? How can you hold fire responsible for being burning even though hurts you if it’s in its very nature. Or in the case of if it’s only occasional, when it’s adventitious it just arises from time to time, how can we hold, how can we become distressed around the person, blaming the person as it were, because the smoke irritates our eyes and holding the space responsible because it allowed for the smoke to arise. It created the conditions for smoke to arise which irritated my eyes. Therefore I’m going to get angry at this space.
It’s a nauseous situation. There’s a very important area which I touched upon in our meditation this morning. And I think it’s a difficult one but it’s a very necessary one because it is emphasized a great deal. It permeates all of Buddhism. The idea of dependent arising in general permeates all of Buddhism.
We’ve already worked with the idea of other powered. The coming together causes and conditions. But the idea of dependent origination describes the law of cause and effect in general. And within the law of, so the process of change of external phenomena around us, you know, the seeds grow into sprouts and sprouts into saplings and saplings into trees. And trees, after they grow and they grow and they bud and leaves form.
Then the leaves slowly die off and the leaves fall off and the tree grows and branches grow old and eventually the tree dies. So this is the process of dependent arising or law of cause and effect with regard to external phenomena. But there’s another area of the law of cause and effect which exists in relationship to the continuum of human beings, which is internal to human beings or sentient beings. And this is simply called the law, this is called karma. It’s simply another aspect of the law of cause and effect.
But here it is the area in which human beings, just use the word human beings but just take it from me, living beings, play a part in terms of their experience, in terms of their action. That this is part of this chain of events in terms of causes giving rise to effects and they in turn giving rise to further effects, acting as causes, giving rise to further results. So the law of cause and effect internal to living beings is what we mean by karma. So this comes in the area, in terms of these three ways of developing tolerance, in the area of non retaliation. When undesirable situations arise, contemplating our own faults.
Contemplating our own faults. Maybe that’s not a very maybe that needs to be a little bit reframed a little bit. Contemplating our own thoughts. Contemplating that that we ultimately play have played a part in whatever we experience no matter what it be. You know, if a limb falls down from a tree, that can be explained in terms of the general law of cause and effect external to ourselves.
Processes of nature. If I was standing under that tree when that limb fell, that then is explained in terms of karma because a living being has been brought into this chain reaction causes and results, causes and results. So therefore, it it is explained in terms of the law of cause and effect internal to human beings. That somehow my volition, my actions have played a part in my in that situation arising. That there is that I have to take some responsibility in that area.
Śāntideva says in our text, Previously I too so the tolerance of non retaliation in terms of contemplating our own faults. Okay, we’re trying to gain some kind of perspective, some way in which we can evaluate the situation where we won’t get distressed around it, around this harm which is being brought to ourselves. Previously, I too have caused similar harm to someone else. Hence, is right that I who have injured others should now be hurt in return. So I’ll read you.
And so this requires some conviction in the law of cause and effect. As I mentioned in the meditation this morning, it’s not, you know, I guess in the Christian tradition it’s simply and the law of cause and effect or karma or ethical causality can be explained in vast detail. And it’s useful to go into in detail to see how thoroughgoing it is and thereby to develop a real, some conviction and an understanding, a healthy understanding. Because it can be misinterpreted quite readily I think. Or it can misapplied and misused.
I’m going to read an explanation by the Dalai Lama. So we’re just getting a feeling for this idea. And as I mentioned, in the Christian terms it’s simply explained as this is one area of the law of cause and effect, the area of karma. As you sow, so shall you reap. The idea that whatever actions that we do create a set into motion a process, the end result of which we ourselves as agents of those actions will undergo some kind of experience in terms of a felt experience in terms of pleasure pain.
So the loop might take might be quite immediate. It might take eons to complete. But the notion is that we as the initiators of a particular action will or will, won’t qualify it for the Buddhist say we will, experience an end result in terms of an experience of pleasure and pain. It’s not readily obvious to ourselves, is it? We only see a segment of the loop.
We only see in most well, we can if we are aware enough to see perhaps some of our actions actually coming back to ourselves. But most generally, most of our actions we only see a segment of the loop. We only see the action and its immediate effect in our environment and the people we do it to. But we don’t see the ultimate repercussions and how they come back to ourselves. This is something which is hidden.
You know, the various levels of phenomena. By hidden, means there’s no design. No one’s trying to hide it from us. It’s just that it’s not obvious to ourselves. It takes a great deal of analytic thinking to penetrate into this.
It’s not obvious to ourselves in terms of the short term gains that we get from our actions are more obvious to ourselves. And therefore we think that this isn’t the case. This is the case. That there are payoffs. The immediate payoffs are the result of our actions.
They in fact may be, but there is a deeper payoff which isn’t so obvious to ourselves, which the karma is trying to explain and help us to calibrate our actions accordingly. So how do you how do you get so the question is given to his holiness, the Dalai Lama. How do we gain conviction in karma? Does it function only if we believe in it? His holiness.
I think there are two ways. First, Buddhists don’t accept the creator. If you accept the creator as fully compassionate, all knowing, omnipotent, then that creator is ultimate reality, ultimate truth. A creator is something independent. From the Buddhist viewpoint, this presents some logical contradictions.
So a creator isn’t easy to accept. There’s no almighty creator. At the same time, we have to accept that things are changing all the time. We have to find out the causes and conditions for that. From that perspective comes the discussion of karma.
So karma, karma simply means action. It’s not some mystical word. Sanskrit word means work, action, to do something. Mental, physical, verbal action. So and then the notion of karma is that these actions have some kind of results.
Actions act as causes, bringing about results. So that’s what we mean by karma essentially. This is one way I think. Another way is this. Even our food and clothes, shelter and daily life experiences depend upon causes or actions, mainly the actions of sentient beings, those who have minds and experience.
Their daily experiences happen due to their own actions, which they did with certain motivations. Due to various motivations, different actions come and bring their results. That’s our daily experience. The events of tomorrow depend a great deal on today’s actions. In other words, some of today’s actions may produce results immediately.
Some actions will bring their results after ten days, or one hundred days, or one thousand days. This is the usual way things function. karma means action. For example, due to my verbal, physical, and mental actions during the audience, through all three, certain results immediately come. Also, due to today’s actions, some results may develop after some time, in some cases after a few years.
That’s the way. That’s the law of karma or action. Since Buddhists accept the continuity of mind, we believe in many lives, infinite lives. Therefore, some results from today’s action may happen after ten thousand years or one hundred thousand years in different lives. This level of karma is one presentation we can talk about and think about.
On another more complicated or deeper level, we have to accept universal law. Take the plants for example. Of course, due to certain causes and conditions they arose. The plants themselves do not have consciousness. We do not believe that they are sentient beings.
However, the plants happen due to karma, due to action. karma is created by someone who has motivation, who has experience, and who acts. The seed grew into the plant. But I don’t think there is any karmic connection between the seed and the plant. At the same time, we have to accept that the whole universe arose due to sentient beings’ karma.
Therefore, the whole universe, the planet, happened because there are sentient beings who will utilize that planet. Take the example of a building. There are human beings who will use that construction. The person planned and then began to build it. At that time, the person who planned or constructed that building didn’t necessarily live there.
But because of that person, the construction happened. Similarly, when the planet formed, there were no sentient beings on it. But there were definitely sentient beings who would take birth on that particular planet. Due to their karma, that planet happened. This is our belief.
From the Buddhist viewpoint, karma is a natural process. It doesn’t depend upon whether or not one believes in it. Whether one accepts this natural process or not, it is there. So all things whatsoever arise in dependence upon causes and conditions. They do not arise from no cause nor do they arise haphazardly.
So happiness and suffering are products. They are experiences which arise dependent upon specific causes. They do not arise from no cause nor from haphazard causes. You know, just any old cause creates happiness. Not any old cause could create this building.
It took very specific causes and applied in a very specific manner. So the main cause of our experiences, the main cause of our experiences, that is to say our pleasures and pains that we experience, are our previous actions. That is to say, our previous ways of thinking, our previous ways of believing, our previous ways of viewing things. So the the our minds are not blank slates. We we you know, if you I don’t know if you noticed that we there is an assumption.
We come to situations and we presuppose unthinking. Else comes to a situation as if their minds were blank slates. And there is simply I mean this is an unthinking assumption that we’re making. I mean again, it’s not rational. So sometimes these irrational assumptions that we make, it’s hard to get our mind around them because they seem so irrational when we think about them rationally.
We can’t quite put ourselves in their place. But so you have to really kind of bend your mind to get into that place. It is we come it is if all that we think and do, what we say, how we react, is is being newly invented for the first time out of nowhere quite. You know? It’s not as it were arising out of condition factors within the mind.
Mind. The mind is seen almost like a blank and out of this blankness comes various reactions and various viewpoints and we talk out of this blankness and we act out of this blankness. But we don’t say it is all of what we say, these reactions, ways of thinking and ways of viewing and believing, are the discernible outcomes of specific variables. The conditioned factors within our own mind. Those factors which are laid down, which are the residues of our past actions, of our experiences in the womb, of our genetic coding, of our social conditioning, of our cultural conditioning, that our minds are the sum total of our past conditioning.
Whatever comes whatever arises out of that is a product, is an expression of our past conditioning. In conjunction with the fluctuating cooperative conditions. You know, the people that we meet, the situations that we live in, the world that we inhabit. That we aren’t independent of that. So there are both cooperative conditions.
You know, we’ve talked about this permeates all of Buddhism, this notion. The soil and the seed. That we don’t exist in independence from the people about us, the world about us. That whatever arises for us in terms of experience comes about through a conjunction of both my past conditioning factors which I brought to the situation in terms of what residues in my mind and the fluctuating external conditions, the people, the situations, where I live, all of that. These together bring about a happening.
My I am a happening. It’s like a flash of instant of of experience, a physical experience, a feeling experience, a relational experience. You know, back in remember in the sixties in California, this you know, let’s have it happening. People would dress up in costumes, get a bucket of LSD and Kool Aid and paint paint their faces and have a happening. They’d bring all these conditions together and this strange happening would could come forth.
We we are a happening where brief moments of experience flashing in space. The what the the the quality of these flashings of of whatever we are is is conditioned by many fluctuating variables which are shaping who we are. We are continually being there are forces at work who make us what we are and what we think and what we experience. The substantial force, the main conditioning factor is within our own mind. These are referred to as karmic latencies.
The residues, the traces of our past actions which have been laid down on our mind. Thinking is an action. If you you think a hateful thought, you may express it. You may verbally and physically. But even the hating is itself an action.
It leaves a residue on the mind. It leaves a certain potency. Potency has the notion of an ability to bring about an effect. Just like a seed, a seed has a certain, is characterized primarily by a potency, an ability to bring about a specific type of effect. When it meets a quick condition, due to the aggregation of causes and conditions, a result arises, a flower arises.
There’s simply this process occurring, being unfolded. Buddhism is saying that there is a similarity between the types of actions and the types of experience which are the end result of the action in terms of ourselves as agents of those actions. I mean, yeah, as I said, this is quite a detailed We could go into tremendous detail. To put it most simply, negative actions bring about negative results. By negative actions, I mean actions which are motivated by the afflictive emotions, actions which are motivated hatred and jealousy and pride and attachment.
They bring about a negative result. And by negative result, I simply mean a a level of suffering, a greater or lesser degree. There’s a correspondence. We this this is this operates in the external world of cause and effect. You know, from the planting of that wheat seed, you get a wheat crop as a result.
You don’t get corn. You don’t get automobile tires. You get get wheat. I mean, this there is a relationship between the nature the type of cause and the type of effect. There’s a similarity of type.
Likewise, this holds not only to the external world of cause and effect but the internal process of karma within sentient beings. If you create a positive cause, and by positive causes that would be a type of action motivated by a positive state, be it love, compassion, faith, generosity, there’s lots of them, you’re going to experience a positive result. By positive result, simply mean some type of pleasure, some type of happiness in some form or other. And this is one area of the type. There’s four types of results, but this is one type of result which we can concern ourselves with here.
Know? That is it. There’s no one overseeing the process. There’s no one meeting up, you know, giving gifts for being good and giving punishment for being bad. It is the discernible outcome of specific variables, conditioning factors within our mind in conjunction with the fluctuating environment, Causes happenings to arise.
So given that, I mean if this process is actually working, other people act as the cooperative conditions for the arising of various experiences for ourselves. The internal conditioning factors within our mind come in contact with the external objective activating condition, an experience arises. A feeling arises, for example, of pain or pleasure depending upon the nature of these conditions and the cause. So the very you know, for example, in terms of what we’re looking at here, someone hurts us, someone harms us. The very fact the very fact that we conceive of someone as harming ourselves is in terms of what is called the situational patterning.
That is to say, our habitual ways our habitual reactive patterns by means of which we try to make sense of our world. You know? There you know, it’s interesting. You know, this is how an understanding of karma and an understanding of emptiness complement one another, reinforce one another. You know, why that things are dependent upon our mind due to our way of, you know, organizing.
You know, we’re trying to make sense out of the world. And we we we follow certain rules by by means of which we we we evaluate our experience, this data which is more or less being sent to ourselves, how we organize it. We organize this data along specific lines, creating constructs, we create our world. What is it that causes this where do we get our rules from? What what’s the rule book that we’re using?
How we’re how we’re going to go about making sense? That’s our karma. That’s the, you know, due to the conditioning factors within our mind, we are organizing our reality in very specific ways. We are organizing our reality in very specific ways. Now the very very fact that you see someone harming you, you say, he’s causing me problems.
There’s not an objective fact coming from his side. Nothing yet. It’s a way of evaluating a particular experience. And why and where is that what is the prime instigator of how we’re evaluating? Our karma.
You know, like like, it’s interesting. I was thinking of an example. You know, a bird that have you have you ever had a bird fly into a window in your house? And and they just go berserk, aren’t they? You know, it’s quite they’re tremendous you know, what’s what’s going through their mind.
Tremendous. You know, they’ve never been in a confined space like this. And they go fly and they go flying against their window and they hit the window and they drop and then they go flying and hit the window. And and maybe you get the, I don’t know, a box or something. And you have the you have the most compassionate intent.
And all they see is a threat coming at them. You know, they they they don’t have the how are they organized? You know, you from from from your side, all you all you want to do is help them. You know, shoo them out the window. Open all the windows.
Get out. Get out. You know? But they just see I I don’t know. I’m I’m just projecting my own ideas if I’m a bird.
Maybe it’s not the case. Maybe it’s not fair. I have just by way of an example. But they they see you as a threat. Someone is actually trying to help them.
They they they see as a threat. That’s their karma. That’s the way they’re organizing this experience of this thing coming near them and going, doing this, all the you know, this is a terrible, frightening experience. You know, it’s just like a paranoia. A paranoia.
There’s no there’s no rationale. They just are labeling everything, interpreting everything, evaluating all everything that we do for them, to them as in some way that you’re trying to get something from them. You’re after them. You’re trying to hurt them. And they have tremendous they very sharp little logic.
They can they can spin out a great scenario just to explain how how you what your ulterior motives really are. Maybe you aren’t even aware of them. You know? That’s their karma, isn’t it? The way they’re evaluating their experience.
So so the the very fact that this we conceive of this person trying to harm harm us. Now it’s not to say that in our conventional reality, we would not we we would agree that this is harmful if someone pulls a gun on us and points it and shoots us. We would generally say this person is trying to harm me. But it’s not objectively so. That’s what we mean by conventional truth.
Sort of come to some sort of agreements around certain types of behavior. It is very much a part of our karma. Even the fact that this agreement is part of our collective karma. If we can see, so there’s two ways of looking at this, aren’t there? One of them is that you know, what the person does to us and how we experience it is very much a part a a product of our karma in terms of how we’re labeling it, what we’re going to call it.
What we call it, what we label it is determined by our past karma. But also the very fact that we’ve been put in this position, the fact that we’re human beings is part of our karma. The fact that that we’re in this particular situation with this these particular values that we’ve come to this point in our life and this particular space and relationship with this particular person. All these I mean, it’s a tremendous I mean, you know, the Buddha said, you know, don’t think about karma too much. You go crazy.
He didn’t say that. I mean, the the intricacy of the web of events which is brought about this particular happening at this instant or, you know, we I don’t think all the computer banks in the world could hold that information and calculate it. The variables which have gone into this one instant, that would take so much for granted. But we could trace and it’s conceivable that they could be traced back to bring it to to and then maybe that’s why, you know, sometimes they talk about a a Buddha being omniscient. You know, maybe if you were this is a very mechan mechanistic way to look at omniscience.
But if you were able to see all the variables, you could and you would how they’re relating, then it’s quite easy to see how how what what the next step would be, isn’t it? Next step. The next step. And, you know, all the all the various possible permutations of those. Anyway, that’s side.
So the notion is anything negative that happens to us, any pain that we experience, the main cause is coming from our own past actions. The wheel reference has come full circle. And this person is simply a cooperative condition for the for my for my pain, for what for the the the suffering that I’m experiencing. The main cause was myself. Main the response you know, obviously, we have to be careful here.
You know, we have to take responsibility. But we also have to understand that this person is a cooperative condition. If they are not there, I don’t experience this suffering even though I have the main cause, even though I created the main cause. So this this doesn’t give to say, you know, the most the most cruel way that I can imagine that this would be misapplied would be to a woman who’s just been raped and say, what happened was your responsibility? And, you know, that would that would be a total perversion.
It would be it would be at best terribly unskillful because this person is a cooperative condition. Then this this woman may have created the substantial cause. But it’s not to say that we allow people to act as cooperative conditions to ripen that cause. No. We don’t allow this.
We hold we deem it we deem it wrong to act as the soil to activate that particular seed. And we would be quite justified to say, put you to put you in prison if you’re going to continue. And I think that’s the way we have to look at it. But in terms of ourselves, Once the once the karma is experienced, there’s nothing that can be done. You know?
Do you hear what I’m saying? And it a a perspective on it which fits the facts facts by means of which we will no longer, might help us not to become distressed at the person is to realize that we ourselves are the main instigators. That we ourselves have created the main cause of our own suffering, you know, taking that level of responsibility. And that, you know, perhaps that can help us, that belief in evaluating this situation which has just arisen in terms of someone harming us or appearing to harm us can help us to remain undistressed. So Śāntideva.
In the Dhammapada it says, in this world, hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible. And and Śāntideva goes on to okay. You know, these are difficult concepts to, I think, to get get a handle but maybe I think it’s worth hearing about.
You know, the the part that we play, that we aren’t innocent. There’s again, it’s difficult to say because it has to understood in the proper context. But there is no there are no innocent victims. So in this context of what I’ve been talking about, maybe it can be properly understood. Out of context, obviously, you know, a a an abused child To say that they aren’t innocent is a perversion of what we’re talking about.
It’s misapplying. It’s misinterpreting. So Śāntideva goes on to say, his weapon and my body are both causes for the pain. You know, somebody hits you with a stick. His weapon and my body are both causes for the pain.
He grabs the weapon and I grabbed the body. So with whom should I be angry? That’s difficult, but the logic applies even though it might have to begin to stretch our understanding. We didn’t assume this body out of choice. We were forced to by karma.
This particular embodiment was quite appropriate to the types of actions that we’ve created in the past. We assume this body. We we we, you know, to this happening of this of this situation, I I brought my part, my own body. And this and the and the other person, the perpetrator, has done is doing their part. But I don’t get mad at myself for bring it for, you know, for my part in in the in the pain which arises.
Why get mad at why get distressed around him for the part he’s playing? You know, I should just I should get distressed around myself also for grasping this body. You know? You know, if if neither were if if we hadn’t if we both weren’t playing our parts, if one of us backed out, then the pain wouldn’t, the situation would never have risen. Know, if I hadn’t taken this body, then I wouldn’t be experiencing this harm of being hurt by the stick which he’s hitting you with.
So I’m playing my part in this situation. I’m not blameless in this situation. In a very profound sense, I’m not blameless. Blinded by craving, it is I who acquired this painful human form, which, like a boil, cannot bear to be touched. Toward whom should I be angry when it is hurt?
You know, this is you know, when and no one chose for this situation to arise. For most of us, we are forced into the various situations. In this situation where you’re being beaten, each is playing their part and they are under the control of common afflictive emotions. This law is very much a determined determined situation. Although we, childish people, do not want to suffer, we are greedy for the causes of suffering.
So why be resentful to others when this harm is no fault but our own? Śāntideva goes on to say, it is just like the protectors of hell in the forest of razor sharp leaves. It is the product of our very own actions. To what then should we direct our anger? In the in the introduction of this translation that that that you were given, the sixth chapter.
And it’s it was a translation done by Stephen Batchelor. It just has its initials there. Maybe I should mention that. It’s a prose translation. The the actual text is written in verse, but he I think it’s quite good because he actually kind of rather than being very terse and just making direct word for word translation in verse form, he’s actually not not put it on not put in ideas, but just kinda filled out the sentences so it reads much more much more easy.
And he says in talking about Śāntideva in in in its verse which he just mentioned. The author’s use of the concept hell must likewise be seen in the light of conditionality and emptiness. For no matter how real a hellish state may seem to those undergoing it, it comes into being solely on account of the self destructive elements within one’s own psyche. And Śāntideva himself in his fifth fifth chapter says, who intentionally forged constructed the burning iron floors? The Buddha taught that all such things arise from an evil mind, you know, from from from destructive factors within our own mind.
Now what we mean by negative karma in a way in in terms of this one area of result is the conditioning factors which predisposes to organize our reality in such ways that it is interpreted as painful. And that, you know, if the the the painful pain and pleasure are not a byproduct of things in themselves. They are very much determined by how we’re organizing our response to them. But we we associate the pain and pleasure in the objects themselves because we experience pleasure in association with them. We we we begin to think that somehow that pleasure is inherent in the object itself.
It’s not coming from our side, but it’s somehow coming from the object side itself. From that that internal that from that logic, the next step is attachment, desire. You know? It makes sense. If if