Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A question anchors this 45-minute session: when our mistaken beliefs rub against reality, which path does the mind take — toward illusion or toward honest inquiry? Ven Jampa Gendun builds the whole talk around this fork, drawing on Robert Frost’s “two roads” image to argue that every small daily choice either deepens habitual patterns or charts a new course toward awakening. He then connects the framework to karma as practical cause and effect, working through three of the Four Distinct Modes: that actions produce invariable results, that even minor actions can amplify into major ones (the butterfly-effect analogy), and that uncommitted causes produce no experience at all. The session closes with guided nine-round breathing and a love-and-compassion cultivation meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 HMA 1996 10 23.mp3
UUID: 46be0905-b579-44e4-a458-05cce4a3ef8f
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-10-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~6,567
As we always do in terms of adjusting our motivation, reorientating, reprioritizing what is important to each of ourselves, kind of getting back in touch. You know, I think this is very much fundamental to to Buddhism, necessarily to Buddhism but just to leading kind of a sane life. We often lose track of what is important to each of ourselves, you know, what what we have found to be meaningful, creating some kind of purpose in our life, something which transcends the craziness of our life, its everyday ups and downs of our life, something that we can believe in, something that has meaning and purpose for ourselves. You know, this reorientation, I I think you know, the the Buddha said when he was passing away, when he was dying, to be a light unto yourself and to work out your own salvation with diligence. And I think it’s and I was just thinking over today the the the fact that if our happiness primarily lies is dependent upon something outside of ourselves, some person or situation, some business business or status or money or whatever, then we we have problems.
We’re in trouble. There’s very little that you can depend upon outside of our own minds, outside of our own selves. You know, people the ups and downs of our relationships, the ups and downs of the world about us isn’t very dependable. It’s not it’s not something that we can take an ultimate refuge in, you might say. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a woods, and I I took the one less traveled by, and that that has made all the difference. You know, when whenever some of our misconceptions, some of our our wrong beliefs, our mistaken ideas about the world, about the reality of this world, about us, the situation about us, kind of rubs up against that reality, and there we experience within our mind some kind of tension, some kind of anxiety, some some sort of inner conflict, a dis ease of mind. And our minds instinctively will move towards self correction, a way of releasing the mind from that tension, that inner conflict, that dissonance, that experience of inner conflict or disharmony. And it’s going to take either of one of two variations, two different divergent paths. Either it’s going to one path proceeds in the direction of ignoring or evading, denying, shrinking down and withdrawing of the scope of our awareness, and absorbing and losing ourself in some kind of projected fantasy of the mind.
In other words, that we lose ourselves, that we the mind takes the path of illusion, a neurotic distorting of reality in some way. You know, we’re we’re not crazy, but we are in some way distorting the world about us to to ease the tension, to to make life a little more bearable, to to hold on to our beliefs and our our preconceptions, which they weren’t working. We we haven’t found a way to be able to give up. We’re as as if addicted. The alternative path is a direction of confrontation and inquiry, some kind of an extending and expanding of the scope of our awareness, exploring and challenging these the superimposed fantasies, these images that we’re that we are projecting on reality, and transforming our perception of the world to bring it in accordance with the way things are.
And in a way, we have no choice in the matter if we’re going to live our life sanely, if we’re ever going to find any peace in our lives. We have to begin to reconcile, become aware of and reconcile so complex of mistaken ideas and wrong assumptions about the world without us with the way things actually are if we’re ever going to find any harmony, if we’re ever going to find any peace within our mind. There’s no choice in the matter. So, you know, the the path of illusion leads in the direction of of neurosis, of of some type of ill being one way or another. You know, we we narrow down our life’s possibilities.
You know, we we endlessly repeat the same mistaken patterns. The same mistakes occur again and again over the course of our lives. The same problems, the same outcomes are again and again an experience in one form or another. The path of what? Disillusionment, where we go beyond our mistaken conceptions, wrong ideas, these erroneous premises that we’re working on the basis of, we begin to there’s an expanding of possibilities.
There’s there’s some kind of learning takes place, some kind of a a correcting of life’s mistakes, and thereby coming to find some some kind of final resolution of some of the fundamental problems of our life. You know, in in spite of all the blood, sweat, and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our life, you know, we have to look and ask ourselves, where has it got us? You know, all the money that we’ve earned and all the relationships that we’ve put our energies in, all of the material possessions that we’ve gathered about us over the course of our lives, and they’ve come and gone in one way or another. And what are we left with in terms of the quality of our lives, in terms of the coherence, adequacy, the livability of our lives? You know, have we actually learned anything?
Have we actually gotten anywhere in the journey of our life, along this path of our life? You know, I think most now we’re we’re always making decisions in one way or another, which of these two paths our lives are going to take, the path of illusion whereby we’re going to repeat very much the same mistakes, these reoccurring compulsive patterns which very much constitute our lives, you know, just like a drama where the where the the actors and the and the the costumes and the scenery and the props change, but the plot remains very much the same. Nothing much changes in the course of our life. It’s just the just the appearances in one way or another, whether there’s going to be some fundamental shift in the way that we approach our life, you know, the dysfunctional approach that we are now making use of in the course of our life, and that we’re always making some kind of choice of which of these two paths, even in even in the seemingly mundane, seemingly insignificant choices that we make every day of our life. You know, one path leads you know, one path leads on to another.
One open one door and it closes another, and that door opens on to two other possibilities. And going through one door, we preclude to go on another path. And over the course of it all, we we map out a lifetime in some way or another, the course of our journey and almost a destiny of who we’re going to be. You know, plotting out in one way another the course of an entire lifetime by the these seemingly insignificant choices that we’re continually making, constantly making every day of our lives. And the quality of our lives are not separate from these seemingly insignificant choices that we’re continually making.
You know, our lives are these choices. You know, our choices with our choices, we make our world. We make ourselves. And even when we try to to avoid choosing, you know, trying by one strategy or another, by by one means or another, we avoid making up our minds, taking a position, you know, determining making a stand, deciding what it is that I want and what it is that I don’t want in my life, still we are choosing. You know?
And we can’t escape it. Even to avoid choosing is to make a choice of more of the same in your life. So I think that, you know, the really significant choice for us is whether to to freely and consciously begin to choose the correction, the direction of our lives or not. And if we don’t, by default, to choose, you know, the well worn path, the path of least resistance, and in doing that, to sanctify life’s mistakes and to experience only more of the same, you know, this this going which goes nowhere, this this senseless circular motion of our minds and lives. You know, maybe in one sense, the real tragedy of human existence, of our lives, is not to choose, not to freely and consciously choose what it is we want, who it is that we want to be, you know, five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now, a lifetime from now.
Not not own or possess or control, but who you want to be. And I think the the greatest reward for what we do in all our work, all our struggles, all this blood and sweat and tears that we expend, all the worrying and frustration, all the energy that we put out in one way or another, in one form or another, the greatest reward that we can get for that is who we become by it. You know, who as a person who we are as a person for having done it, not what we’ve gained in terms of materials or control or power, not what we own, but who we are. And coming back to oneself as a person and centering oneself in that as a way of leading one’s life and finding a more functional approach to existence. You know, the tragedy of our lives is not to freely and consciously choose.
You know, we are what we do, and we we can do what we choose. We are in the many paths that we choose, that we have chosen. You know, the the who we are now is is you know, we’re talking about karma, aren’t we? The the process of actions as causes and their effects, their results. And we are a product of everything that we’ve done up to now, the various choices that we made, paths that we followed down.
It’s appropriate. There couldn’t be any other way. It fits according to the many choices we have made in the past. We know who we are now, and we experience what we now experience. It makes sense.
Nothing has happened by chance has gone awry in some way or another. It all fits together. So, you know, it’s not so beginning to consciously choose, you know, taking control of of our life, that we’d no longer allow ourselves remain victims. You know, this, as I mentioned, is the message of karma, that we we we can exercise an influence over the nature of our experience and who we become if we are aware and if we have the ability to choose and we make that choice, and we we can become aware, we have the ability to choose, and we have to begin to exercise our freedom. You know, if to say, you know, I’m such and such a kind of person is maybe you’re stating a fact but but not a destiny.
You know, to to say, and that’s the way I am, you know, I’ve always been that way. I’m always going to be that way. I’m I should just go ahead and accept it, is to begin to is to abdicate our freedom to change, and to begin again new, to begin to to to rewrite the story of our life, to exploit what we have been as a means of of avoiding taking responsibility for who we we can become, just to make ourselves prisoners to myths and forces of which we have no control. The the greatest gift that we have as human beings, which makes us you know, we’ve tried to emphasize this over in in our looking at the three principal aspects of the path, is our unique and precious what makes us unique and precious among all the infinite light forms of this universe is our capacity for free and conscious choice and our potential to to transcend the past. And no matter what has happened, even up to one moment ago, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve been, no matter what your inherit your heredity might be, your environment might be, your your particular history may have been, we have the capacity as human beings to transcend all that to some degree and some manner to begin another reinvent another version of who we want to be and not to lose sight of this gift that we all possess.
You know, we as human beings are the nexus, joining, the meeting together of determinism and freedom. You know, we are free to begin begin again if we so choose. You know, but nothing guarantees our freedom. You know, if you if you you deny it often enough, and it will be gone, and you will not know where it went. So it’s it’s going to be you know, which in the course of our talks together, you know, in outlining the Three Principal Aspects of the path, we’re trying to present possible alternatives, you know, as some aid, some some means to help us to perhaps make preferable choices, to become aware to to of other possibilities.
But we have to actually take a stand. We have to actually take the less worn path, and the inevitable anxiety, inevitable suffering that goes along with that, you know, the path less taken. You know, it’s it’s our consistent choice of this path, a path which which Buddhism conceives of as an awakening a heart of to all other living beings and our mind to the ultimate nature of reality, the path of awakening, which which in ages hence, which maybe even only in a matter of years hence will have made all the difference, which, you know, will have brought you know, what is it that is really of value? You know, I talked about this process of reorientation. And what makes a difference in our life?
You know, what are what are the real values which makes our life worth living, which lead to a fulfillment of this experience? You know, like values of a sense of dignity, a love, a measure of joy, some kind of a vision in our life, some kind of meaning and purpose in our life. You know, some looking for some kind of fundamental solution to what it means to be the ordinary human being that we all are. You know, some some going beyond this human dilemma in which we all find ourselves. So, you know, it’s perhaps taking that that perspective and as best we can, keeping that in mind, keeping being maintaining that awareness.
And within that awareness, awareness in the context of our ability to choose making choices in your life. So in terms of our choice, in in the more traditional sense, we choose to become a Buddha. Now this is our kind of our ultimate orientation. This you know, what more could we ask of our of our life than to be that, to be a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, someone who experiences unremitting peace with inside themselves and out of their compassion and fearlessly and skillfully works with others in order to help them to experience the same. So this is kind of the direction that we keep coming back to, the choice in which we are seeking to consistently make, making this consistent choice of the path of awakening, you know, with even within the context of the seemingly insignificant choices that we make every day of our mundane life, and there plotting out a destiny for ourselves, a destiny which can assure ourselves, which we can which we can believe in, is going to begin to they’re going will bring about some kind of resolution, that there’s going to be some movement, that there’s going to be go there’s going there’s going to be a going beyond and not simply more of the same, that there will be some positive change in our life.
And then and then the means, what we do in practice, in fact, is implement the the methods, the techniques of becoming that, that is the Dharma. The the the actual work that needs to be done in bringing about Buddhahood and actually changing our minds and the fact of actually choosing the path in our spiritual journey. And this occurs within the social context of a spiritual community, those who assist us, help us to make the right choices, who inspire us to make the right choices, who act as examples for ourselves, who teach us and guide us. You know, it’s a it’s a very much a cooperative effort, the journey of the path. And try and within this process, raising the level of our motivation such that we’re not doing it just for ourselves.
And it’s a fact that everyone in this room is is suffering in one way or another in some way, is experiencing some degree of disappointment or frustration, some dissatisfaction. And, you know, this is this is the quality of a way of life, of a particular approach to life. And as long as we abide within that way of life, in that particular in that particular dysfunctional approach side, we’re all going to experience the same. So there’s there’s like a connection between us, isn’t there, in a sense, that we’re that we’re all very much connected as in the basic feeling quality, the tone of our lives. The the the outward appearances are just that.
They’re rather superficial. At a deeper level, we all share in the in the common, experience of the human dilemma, which is very much a quality of dissatisfaction, of dukkha, of suffering, that, you know, of a wheel that grinds on its axle. And so it’s a part of our problem is keeping our heart open to others. Part of our of being aware of and allowing ourselves to feel this connection and this quality of what it means to be an ordinary human being trying the best we can to to get some happiness out of life, and oftentimes being terribly confused about how to go about it and making many mistakes the wrong way. And in the context of that sharing and that openness, you know, doing whatever we can in both in developing ourselves to be of greater benefit both to ourselves and others, but in a very direct and material sense to be of benefit to others, and they’re doing whatever making use of whatever resources that you have in in helping others in whatever way they need help.
So, you know, I think this is a way that we can begin to alter our approach to life, that we can begin to choose a path away which is going to lead us to some kind of kind of peace, some kind of ultimate fulfillment, a better life for ourselves. So in this process, the focus of our life becomes Buddha, the Buddha within, inside of ourselves, which we try to actualize by means of the Dharma within the context of the spiritual community. And again and again, just trying to have as a why behind all of this a love, some kind of compassion, a sense of altruism, wanting to benefit others in the process. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, and mind, and present clouds of every type of offering, those actual and imagined.
I disclose all my disturbed acts accumulated since time without beginning. I rejoice in the skillful actions in the holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until cyclic existence has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great enlightenment. So we’re gonna meditate together.
What Westerners assume meditation to be. It’s more of a of a fixed, concentrated meditation. Whereas in fact meditation, at least within the Buddhist tradition, encompasses both the stabilizing meditation, a a fixed type of meditation where we simply hold on to an object, but also analytic meditation or a type of meditation which uses thought in which we try to penetrate the nature of the object or we try to induce particular states of mind and become the quality or the object of our meditation. For example, in cultivating love and meditating on love, it’s not so much that we simply fixate on on an object of love, that we try to transform the entity of our own minds into a loving mind or a compassionate mind. Or in the case of other types of meditation, for example, on impermanence or emptiness and whatever, it’s necessary to actually use an analytic process to actually analyze, to penetrate, and come to some kind of conclusion.
Having come to some kind of insight or understanding, then holding that insight, that understanding within your mind, holding it using physical fixative or stabilizing meditation. So quite often meditation is is a alternates between these two types of meditation, analytic or a type of meditation which might use thought and thinking process in some way, logic perhaps, but also a type of meditation which simply fixates, which tries to simply hold onto the object with without trying to understand its nature. So the mindfulness of breathing is very much a type of stabilizing meditation. We’re simply watching the breath. But then we’re going to meditate on a type of meditation in which, I guess, in the western tradition of meditation, it might turn more contemplative meditation.
We actually think about a subject and we’re going to think about using our imagination and putting ourselves in various roles. And helping ourselves to perhaps break down this limiting self conception that we have about ourselves, this particular version of ourselves that we hold so tightly to, perhaps exploring other possible versions of who we might be. It’s very much fundamental to Buddhism that one of our greatest difficulties is the self limiting self conception that we have, And a great deal of the path is very much concerned with how to break through this self oppressive, self subjugating self identity that we hold on to so tightly about ourselves and holding ourselves as limited in some way as being of poor quality, being of a c grade person, if you like. And this becomes a great obstacle to actual change, to to to go beyond that conception. So in this meditation, we’re simply going to explore other possibilities.
So it’s a matter of imagination. You know, another fundamental premise of Buddhism is that the world begins with imagination. You know, the world about us is very much a product of our of our own thinking, of our beliefs, our views about it. You change your thinking, you change your world, and thereby your experience of the world. So working with perhaps beginning to see ourselves in a different way by using our imagination in a different way, exploring other versions of who we could be, who in fact we are, we we might be.
We’re going to do the nine round breathing meditation. So I’ve explained that again last week simply breathing in this brilliant white light coming in through the right nostril. If you wish to actually physically you can block your left nostril coming down around, breathing out all your negativities, obstructions, and all the heaviness. Whatever you feel may be wrong physically and mentally goes out in the form of thick black smoke going off into the distance and disappearing, and again breathing this brilliant white light, and conceiving in spite whatever is a meaningful way to you, whatever is worthwhile, whatever is, you know, the blessings of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, whatever the positive energy of the universe, however you want to conceive of it, whatever is a positive positive significance to you. Imagine that that you’re actually drawing that into yourself in the form of of a brilliant white light, and then breathing out whatever is negative to yourself.
Breathing that way three times and blocking the right nostril, breathing in again. The white light going down, and black smoke coming out through the right nostril and out again, and then three times through both. And as a way of adjusting our motivation again, we’re going to work in the cultivation of love and compassion. And we’ve been going we’re working through a spectrum of different individuals. So, again, just as a as an easier object, choose someone that you love, someone that you have a a naturally caring for, and that, you know, that you could feel a sense of closeness quite readily toward them.
You know, imagine that individual in front of you and just working with these feelings, with these thoughts in order to induce the feelings using this particular person as an object of your meditation. So would you like to stand up for a minute, and then we’ll meditate? Okay. So we’re looking at karma. karma meaning action.
Actions as causes which bring about a type of result internal to ourselves, internal to sentient beings, terms of our experience, in terms of our feelings. And we’re looking at the what is called the four distinct modes of karma. You know, the there’s the theory of karma, but then how are we going to actually what kind of ramifications is it going to have in our life on a very practical level? Hopefully it will. I mean, as I’ve said, you know, that we labor under various misconceptions, some of our wrong beliefs.
And, you know, it’s hard to validate perhaps karma in terms of a deeper significance, but we can we can begin to get a feel for it and perhaps begin to adjust our beliefs in some way to approach the way that we live our lives in a in a in a more in a deeper manner rather than living, you know, on the surface, looking at it from a superficial point of view, you know, to begin to have have these ideas operate upon ourselves, where where they actually begin to change the way we think and the way we we behave. We actually begin to do things a little bit differently. You know, we we see the necessity for generosity. We see the necessity for ethics. We see the necessity for developing tolerance.
They they are no longer ideas, abstract notions, but they begin to have some implications in our everyday life on how we feel and how we experience. We have to change. Otherwise, there’s simply going to be more of the same. If we can change our you know, our mind is our refuge. There’s no other refuge that we can go to other than that.
And we have to begin to work on creating that refuge within our own mind. And these are like some kind of systematic means, some plan, some method that we can work with in creating what the Christians might say the the kingdom of god within, and the Buddhists would say that nirvana or the passage beyond sorrow. But it all comes down to our own mind and working with it. So the four distinct modes of karma, we talked about the first of these last week. The effects of actions are invariable.
The effects of actions are invariable. It simply is getting at the notion that there is an invariable relationship between the quality of the action, which brings about as its product, as its result, every a felt experience, some type of experience, some quality of life. That’s you know, this is this is a notion that we use every day of our life, a relationship between cause and effect, essentially. If you’re if you’re sick, you you look for the cause. You use you go to a doctor and they will diagnose and they’ll say the cause of this illness with the illness being an effect, the result, the product, is a particular virus, is a particular whatever.
And they try to remove the cause. They try to work with the cause so it no longer produces this particular variety of effect which you don’t want. If you want a particular type of effect, then you have to create the cause. So the idea of cause and effect is very much a part of the fabric of our of our thinking, of our everyday life. This is simply taking that notion and taking it to its logical conclusion in terms of our felt experiences.
Our felt experiences, like all things in nature, are products. Products arise in dependence upon causes. There is an invariable relationship between the quality of the cause and the quality of the effect. If you want to if a particular variety of causes will produce a particular variety of effect in terms of our felt experience, the quality of our life, etcetera, That’s all this first distinct mode of karma is trying to get at. It’s something to think about, something to to churn over in your mind to see if it actually operates in your everyday life, to try to validate it within your own actual experience.
The effective actions are invariable. Positive actions, constructive actions, skillful actions, what we call virtue, merit, whatever, produce an invariable effect of some type of pleasure, some type of well-being, something desirable, something constructive comes out of those types of particular varieties of actions, those types of actions. On the other hand, destructive actions, negative actions, unskillful actions, with whatever term we want to use, non virtuous, produce a particular invariable type of result, a type of result which is experienced as suffering, dissatisfaction, unfavorable, negative, undesirable. That there is this, you know, trying to to validate. You can look within nature and then seeing that this operates within the external law of cause and effect, simply begin to extend that to the processes which are occurring within you and your own experience of life.
You know, we can begin to validate in that way. The first distinct mode of karma, that the effects of actions are invariable. The second is that the effects of actions increase. As we’ve discussed, you know, karma, having committed an action, there is a residue left in the mind, some kind of imprint, some kind of a latency is left in the mind, which when activated is going to produce a particular experience in some way or another. But additionally additional to that, the magnitude of that result can be increased over time.
Even minor unskillful and skillful actions can produce major positive negative and positive results. So, you know, this is perhaps a difficult notion to to to in some way. And the best I’ve been able to come up with it was a was an analogy, and that’s quite often the way this is presented in terms of analogy. For example, the traditional analogy is that from planting I think they use mango seed. A single mango seed can produce a huge you know, if you’ve ever been to India, mango trees can be quite big, which may bear a great deal of fruit and thousands of mangoes on one tree.
So from one seed can come can come increased highly increased results, highly increased fruits, products. Maybe in a more contemporary analogy, it’s called the the butterfly effect. And this is the this comes from the the science of meteorology where there is a notion that perhaps accurate long range weather forecasting is inherently not possible. And the reason that they give for this is that that even minor variables can, over a period of time, augment themselves to have unpredictable effects. And they and they use this specific example of a butterfly, that the motion of a butterfly’s wings in France, that is to say the currents of air set up by a simple movement of a butterfly’s wings, could over time, the augmented could propagate such that it would produce a tornado in Texas in the United States one month later, that there is this this increasing possibility over time.
And so, you know, there’s so many insignificant variables that which could increase over time that it becomes unpredictable. I guess this comes from the theory of chaos. Anyway, we’re trying to reduce chaos to some kind of order here. Just the notion that the significance of this particular distinct mode of karma is the practical implication is that even from minor, insignificant, positive and negative actions, major positive and negative results can occur. So, you know, if if one gains a conviction in this notion of the increasing nature of actions, then one will naturally begin to adopt even minor actions and begin to avoid even negative ones.
And that’s the thing that we’re trying to arrive at. Now we can approach our practice from perhaps at there’s a certain artificiality which is part of it initially, maybe a major part of it initially. But if we use if we use our experience and we use our wisdom, then that that artificial component can can become less and less. Our practice becomes more a part of our own nature, having organically grown out of our own understanding, out of our own experience. It becomes an expression of our own own of our our own insight.
It becomes a natural part of ourselves. It does it’s not something that we have to lay upon ourselves as it were. Perhaps initially, there there’s an there is you know, for example, maybe initially it’s necessary to to restrain ourselves, for example, in not to kill. You don’t quite understand why it’s it’s it’s necessary not to kill. You don’t have any insight into perhaps all the the possible the possible reasons why it might be more skillful, more compassionate not to take the life of others.
But you, out of for one reason or another, you you adopt this mode of behavior. And so there’s a certain artificiality in a great deal of of our practice initially. But after a while we begin to see every living being wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer equally, whosoever. That fish that I used to go, you know, fishing for for pleasure, it doesn’t want to suffer just like me. And what’s so important about me that I can bring it suffering just for my own pleasure?
Nothing. And and moreover, that that action of killing is going to bring about some kind of negative result for myself, which I don’t want. So for a variety of reasons, we can begin to our adoption of ways of being in the world can be an expression of our own wisdom, expression of our own understanding, expressions of our own compassion, which have originated from our ourselves organically. And we it no longer has a sense of superficiality or a sense of artificiality about it. It’s a part it organically develops all of ourselves.
It’s a natural part of ourselves. We’ve changed. Having gained some conviction in this second mode of distinct mode of karma that even from insignificant actions, highly increased effects can occur, then naturally, we’re going to there there will be a natural change in the way that we behave and the way that we think. You know, this is what we’re getting at. We’re not trying to impose.
We we’ve had enough self oppression committed to ourselves in one way or another. Yeah. We’re we have to be we’re trying to develop an authentic way of being, but we want that to be in terms of our intelligence, in terms of our wisdom, in terms of what is positive, and in terms of compassion. And so we’re trying to exercise all of these qualities and help them to find expression. So, you know, these are these are, I think, guidelines that we can begin to to follow.
But we have to at some point, it’s quite you know, if we’re going to see this through, if we’re going to consistently make this path our choice, to exercise, look into them, analyze them, to challenge, to confront, explore these ideas, and to to bring to bear our own innate sanity, our brilliant wisdom, and and check them out for ourselves as to their validity for ourselves at some point along the path so that they become that they become not just prescriptions for living, but something which is an organic expression of our own insight, of who we are as a person. They become part of our being, quite natural to ourselves. The second distinct mode of karma, the the effects of actions increase. And the third is that the effects of an uncommitted action are not experienced. The effects of an uncommitted action are not experienced.
You know, this is it’s really kind of a simple minded notion that maybe is something that we have overlooked and it’s necessary to perhaps begin to see a significance. All products whatsoever are the results of causes. You know, our experiences are products, whether it’s a good experience or a bad experience, a pleasurable experience, unpleasurable experience, happy or sad, whatever, all of these various experiences that we go go through in the course of our life are products. Therefore, they are the result of specific causes. If you do not create the cause, you will not experience the result.
You will not experience the result and experience. If we want to experience a particular result, if we want to go through have have a particular experience in our life, we have to systematically create that cause in order to bring it about. Our happiness, our long life, our prosperity, our wisdom, love, anything and everything that that we feel to be positive, to be that we value, that we that we think is desirable. You know, we have to do something more than fantasize about them, about these things that we want for ourselves, all the, you know, all the goodies of life, the good life in some way. They are all products, and therefore their their existence for us directly depends upon ourselves creating their causes.
If we don’t create those causes, we’re not going to experience