Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using an image of five-thousand-year-old wheat seeds from Egyptian pyramids that still sprouted when planted, Ven Jampa Gendun illustrates a key principle in this 25-minute talk: karmic imprints retain their potency indefinitely, ripening whenever they meet the right conditions. He first anchors karma in daily life — long life requires respecting life, prosperity requires generosity, wisdom requires actively using the mind — then turns to what can undermine positive actions: anger (a verse warns that one fit of anger destroys merit accumulated over a thousand aeons) and misguided regret, illustrated by the everyday example of donating goods and later wishing you hadn’t. He explains how dedicating merit toward Buddhahood for all beings protects it from both, and closes by previewing the four opponent powers for purifying negative karma, to be taken up the following week.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 HMA 1996 10 23.mp3
UUID: 2c43c700-f639-4de8-853c-752949ba0c31
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: 25.1 minutes
Words: ~3,501
No matter how much we may pray for them, no matter how much we may fantasize about them, how much we might desire that they come about, we have to actually in the in the actuality of the world and our activities, in terms of thinking and behaving, create the causes, actually do, create the actions, create the karma to bring about those results. Our suffering, our short life, poverty, lack of wisdom, lack of love, anything and everything that we feel to be negative in value, anything which is undesirable that we don’t want for ourselves, they too are all products, and therefore their existence for ourselves directly depends upon ourselves creating those causes in terms of our actions. So that is committing the respective unskillful action, which is their cause. For example, if you want a long life, then we must respect life. We need to save life rather than destroy it.
If we desire prosperity, then we have to be generous and open with whatever it is that we have, however much we might have, rather than being selfish. Selfishness will bring about the opposite result. You know, there’s a cause and effect relationship between these two. Generosity will bring about the prosperity that you want if that’s what you want. If we want wisdom, then we have to use our mind.
We have to use our awareness. We have to use our intelligence rather than turning off our minds, numbing our minds. If we want to be loved, it’s not difficult to see that in acts of caring for others, you know, showing kindness toward others, affection toward us predisposes others to act kindly and caringly and affectionately toward ourselves to love ourselves. You know, if you through gaining a conviction, you know, maybe mulling this over within your mind, contemplating, seeing it, trying to validate it even with an own limited experience in our mind, then having gaining some kind of conviction, then that the karmic causal nature of our experiences, then whenever the desire for a particular experience arises in ourselves, we will be motivated to create the causes at which that experience is the result. And adversely, other side, whenever the wish not to experience something, and there’s a lot of that, isn’t there, whenever that desire arises in mind, we’re going to be motivated not to create the cause of that type of experience that we don’t want because it’s a relationship.
If we don’t create the cause, we will not experience the result, both in a negative and a positive fashion. So that, you know, this is the application. Then finally, the fourth mode of karma. An action once committed is not dissipated. An action once committed is not dissipated.
Or sometimes they use the word rather than dissipated, wasted or lost. So the idea which has gotten at here is no matter how long a time may elapse between having committed an action and actions are causes, that’s the point that we’re trying to get at here, no matter how long a time may have elapsed between having committed an action, that that is to say having implanted a karmic latency within our mind, that when that latency encounters the appropriate conditions, a particular result will be experienced, whether it be happiness or suffering, depending upon the quality of the karma, depending upon the quality of the action. That is to say that somehow these our actions don’t go to waste. They aren’t lost over time. That our actions are going to have reactions even though the the the resultant experience is not immediate.
You know, generally, we we in our in our lack of wisdom, in our lack of understanding, we only look to the short term results of what we do. And, you know, we don’t see you know, there may be some immediate gain, but we don’t see that in terms of a longer view, in terms of the of the of the karma of the situation, we may be actually creating great suffering for ourselves. We don’t have that wisdom which sees the underlying causal nature of our experiences in more profound sense. So, you know, a simple a simple analogy in terms of the fact that these karmic imprints aren’t wasted, they aren’t lost over time, and that actions are not don’t dissipate over time, is like the wheat seeds in which have been found in the pyramids of Egypt. And this is simply analogy to help us to understand this notion that these wheat seeds, which are, you know, like, perhaps literally five or six thousand years old, when when they were placed in soil and watered, they actually sprouted and grew wheat plants.
So even over that long period of time, they maintained their potency. They were still viable seeds. When they met with the quick cooperative conditions, a result arose and the plant grew. Likewise with these various, what we might term, karmic seeds within our own mind. However long a time may have elapsed between having committed the action which implanted those seeds and And when the appropriate cooperative condition is met with, some type of experience is going to result.
You know, the the it may be in this life. It may be in the immediate next life. It may be in some far distant life, depending upon the type of karma. So in beginning to, I guess, appreciate that what we do is going to have an effect over and above what the superficial immediate effect that we see, that there is a deeper law operating here, that there is a chain of reaction which we are setting into motion, the effect of which may not be experienced for into a distant time to come, but it’s still going to be experienced. It’s not going to be lost.
And then maybe developing a more cosmic vision of the consequences of what we do. So, you know, in the karmic potencies retain their capacity to produce an effect. But there’s one, and it’s important, qualification which needs to be made. Unless they are acted upon by an outside agent, unless they are destroyed by some force. So this is this is terribly important.
Karmic seeds, that is to say the the actions, the latencies of the actions that we commit, which are implanted in the mind, these actions leave some kind of impression, some kind of residue within our minds, that they will be they will maintain their integrity. They won’t lose their power. They won’t be lost in the shuffle of taking rebirth or whatever, unless in this qualification they are acted upon or destroyed by an outside agent. So this becomes quite important. This qualification refers to the forces of anger and misguided regret in terms of our positive actions, in terms of our skillful actions on the one hand, and on the other hand, what is called the four powers or sometimes called the four counteracting agents in terms of our negative actions that we create.
That is to say, our positive actions, skillful actions that we create, these latencies in the mind can be destroyed or weakened by means of anger and misguided regret on the one hand. On the other hand, the unskillful actions that we have created, and if you’re like me, you’ve created a lot of them. The the negative actions that we have created can be weakened, can be destroyed by means of applying what are called the four powers. So, you know, okay, looking at this, because this is this is and I think one of the most important areas that we can actually do something for ourselves in a very real and substantial way, even though it’s in a very profound way, in terms of working with the negativities within our mind and helping to prevent, you know, destroying the whatever little positive that we may that we may do, in fact. You know, aside from, for example, the many the many other detrimental consequences of anger in destroying both our own present peace of mind and destroying the the peace about us in the minds of others.
Anger also destroys our future happiness as well. This is a if one can gain some kind of conviction in this, this acts this is also another antidote to anger itself. You know, you know, we want to be loving people. One of the the the most greatest interferences, obstacles is our anger, is our is our our hatred, our aggressive tendency. If we if we begin to see the the disadvantages of anger, not only in it does it hurt people immediately, not only does it ruin hurt destroy your own peace of mind immediately, but it also has negative consequences for ourselves in the future.
That is to say, all of the the positive imprints that we’ve created in our minds can be weakened and destroyed by anger in all the good that we’ve that we’ve done. And the positive results which they would have created for ourselves can be destroyed by hatred and anger as well. There’s a verse where it says, whatever good such as acts of giving and worship of those gone to bliss, those gone to bliss are the Buddhas, accumulated over a thousand aeons will all be lost in a single fit of anger. So, you know, beginning to appreciate the destructive effects, not only the immediate destructive effects of anger, but also those of long term.
And then the other destructive agent is that of misguided regret. So, you know, we do this quite often unintentionally in the sense of having second second thoughts or misgivings about something that was positive initially. You know? That that you know, I mean, people, they maybe they call up Salvation Army. They say, well, I’ve got I’ve got this junk in my in my garage.
Come over and pick it up. You know? Maybe it’s or you just give it away. And quite often, you know, a couple weeks later, you realize, oh, you know, I could use that. You know, you give something away out out of the goodness of your heart, some kind of positive motivation.
And then later on, I should have never have given that away. That was really stupid. I mean, now now that I can use it, it’s not there. Have any regrets about something positive that you did or, know, maybe, you know, you oh, last night I went to that I went to a talk on Buddhism at Buddha House. And the way home I had this, I banged my car up.
I wish I had never gone, you know, but you went with some kind of positive motivation. But you now I really regret that I ever went. So this is Buddhism would regard as misguided regret. That is to say, having second thoughts, having qualms, or simply misgivings about something positive that you once did. This tends to weaken and can actually destroy the positive action.
You know, regret is the opposite of joy, of rejoicing. This is one way that we can increase the effects of positive action or negative actions. Associating these latencies within our mind with either regret or with rejoice. In terms here we’re looking at the fact that we can destroy positive actions, these latencies within our mind. We can weaken them through both anger and misguided regret.
The the it’s going to be hard to prevent, if you’re like me, anger arising and maybe also misguided regret around the positive actions we’ve created. So what we can do and what is very much advised for ourselves and which we in fact do every night, every Wednesday evening at the end of our talks together, is to dedicate positive action. You know, whatever it might be. We give it some kind of directionality in our mind. We can dedicate the positive action to something temporal.
You know, we can dedicate it to money, beauty, health, whatever. Or we can dedicate to to something, you know, perhaps beyond that, something which is something beyond chocolate cake, something which is of profound meaning, you know, to our own attainment of Buddhahood for the sake of all living being. This is said to be perhaps the most profound dedication. You know, it is said to be the most profound, the most powerful, in that it is as if we take this single drop of positive action that we’re dedicating and replacing that drop in the ocean of the Buddhas’ creative potential. We are as if adding it to that vast ocean of the creative potential of all the enlightened beings.
And it’s said that that drop just like as if we, you know, we went out to the ocean and we just placed a drop of water in the ocean, until that ocean dries up, that drop of water will remain. And likewise, if we dedicate in this way, you know, whatever positive action I may have created, I dedicate it for that I may attain Buddhahood for the sake of all living beings. Until that gains fruition, that is to say, until we gain Buddhahood, that drop of water, that drop of positive potential, that skillful action will remain. It will never be destroyed. So, you know, now we’ve talked about the possibility of destroying positive, skillful actions by means of these negative attitudes and these negative patterns of mind of anger and misguided regret.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably created some negativities along the way. Whether whether you remember them or not, whether you’re conscious of having created them or not, it’s almost certain for all of us, yes, I’m taking a wild guess here, that we all have the negative latencies of past unskillful actions within our minds at present. I mean, it’s hard to imagine that isn’t. As I’ve tried to emphasize, our minds aren’t blank slates. They have our evolutionary history encoded on them in some way or another.
All our various actions that we’ve created, whether with awareness or unawareness, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, whether intentionally or unintentionally, whether consciously or unconsciously, you know, they leave impressions upon the mind, some kind of residue. These these, as it were, karmic seeds are within our minds at present. Even even as we sit here, there are some negative karmic seeds, and the effects of these seeds is that they will bring some degree, some type, some variety of suffering. So we can either hope for the best or we can actually do something for ourselves. And this doing for us something for ourselves is the application of what is called the four powers, the four counteractive agents.
Agents. That is the we can work with a method whereby to to actually weaken and if it’s applied thoroughly enough to actually destroy many and ultimately all of these negative karmic seeds within our minds, the four counteracting agents of the four powers. And as I said, I think this is really a significant area, and this is where we can really do something for ourselves. You know, this is termed purification of the mind. And these are are very profound ideas.
I mean, was reading today of someone who who did a retreat for, I think, two and a half years. And he, in this article, this interview, was talking about a sense of purity about themselves that comes from such an experience. And I think this is quite true, isn’t it? You know, you know, people are, you know, people are always involved in a struggle in some sense, you know, manipulating the situations, the world about them in some way or another according to to however they see whatever is going to make them happy. Their their in in one way or another, we see the causes of our happiness, the causes of our well-being in all of these various relationships and these things and these people is in the world about us.
But what is but how you know, but what is it which is actually from what perspective is all of these things seen? It is out from out of the eyes of our own mind. You know, we’re looking out onto the world. You know, all of these these these things about us, the world about us, these situations, experience, all are known or all are experienced within the medium of the mind itself. If that medium of the mind is confused, if it if it it in itself is tormented, if it in itself has a limited conception of itself, has a sense a negative impression of its own nature.
What kind of world could we ever hope to create for ourselves out there when the very eyes out of which we’re looking upon that world are we’re seeing our world through a glass darkly in some fashion or another. And there’s no possibility for for, I think, experiencing what what it is that we most want in our life, you know, what the quality of life we want about for ourselves, no matter how skillful we may be able to manipulate the people and the things and situations about us, if the mind in itself is is is operating in a dysfunctional manner in one way or another. So the idea of these ideas, for example, of purity, a sense that that one is okay, that it’s one is a fine person deserving of happiness. And coming from, you know, that that place in itself can predispose us to see our world in a much better fashion, in a in a way which is going to be help us find what it is we’re looking for. So, you know, how do you it’s no matter no one would ask you to give up your relationships or things about your job, your leisure time pursuits, your interests, your hobbies, by all means, these are these are all components of the good life.
But, you know, but the mind in its place and is the mind is in its own place and in its way can make a hell of heaven a heaven of hell. It’s very just it’s very much dependent upon the skill or attitude, the quality of mind that we bring to these various experiences in these situations. So this is the way that we can we can improve the the very quality of our mind in which all of our life experiences are occurring. And outside of the details, the the very the universal nature of our experience is very much dependent upon quality of our own mind. So I think this is something which is quite significant, something that we can and it’s quite profound and something that we can methodically do for ourselves.
You know, we people go to a high lama, they go to a therapist and they’re suffering and they say, help me, what can I do? And the lama, and if the therapist is honest, can only say there’s nothing I can do for you because your karma is ripening right now. You have to experience. There’s nothing within the Buddhist tradition that even there’s no god who can intervene in that experience. Once the once the ripening process begins, inevitable effect will occur.
But there’s something we can do before, prior to that, we can do for ourselves in a very real way so we don’t have to undergo those experiences. And this we can do by beginning to purify these negative impressions which are residing within our own mind before they meet with the appropriate cooperative conditions whereby we will undergo suffering. So these are the four opponent powers, and we’ll go over those next week. So together we have created a great deal of skillful actions through our motivation, through our positive intention, through listening, discussing, and as a means to avoid destroying that skillful latency in our mind that we’ve created, we’re going to dedicate. And we dedicate it not just, as was mentioned, for our own ends, for our own limited conceptions, not just for our own piece of chocolate cake, but for something beyond that.
Our goal lies something beyond that. In the land that circled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Kuan Yin, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain until the end of cyclic existence. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more.
Thank you. So by all means, invite you to to stay for the discussion group if you’d like to get a cup of tea. Otherwise, have a have a good week.