Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 39-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun anchors an abstract doctrinal point with a fishing story: a practitioner who vowed not to kill for sport nearly says yes when a friend calls on a holiday morning, illustrating why formal vows carry us through moments when wisdom fails. The talk opens with a recap of the four modes of karma before turning to the four powers of purification. After reviewing the first power — repudiation, stressing regret over guilt (the problem is the action, not the person) — Gendun gives extended attention to the second, reliance: recommitting to one’s inner Buddha and to sentient beings after harm, like pushing off the very ground you fell on to stand again. He closes with a definition of love borrowed from an American psychiatrist: the will to extend oneself for another’s well-being.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 HMA 1996 11 06.mp3
UUID: 47b4c30a-52db-4da2-a586-0d7ae4058503
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-11-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 39.3 minutes
Words: ~6,106
We’re finished with karma. Isn’t that wonderful? We’ve almost gone beyond karma. You know, we’re talking about you know, to place our pleasant discussion in in the context of a of a karma as actions and the results, we’ve been looking at what is called the four distinct modes of karma or actions. You know, these these are the practical implications of the theory of karma in our daily life.
How how what kind of ramifications? If in fact karma the law of karma, that is to say, the law of cause and effect in terms of our lived experience, if in effect is valid, if it is the truth of things. What how does that translate into modifying our behavior or thinking? What do you know? So what if karma is true?
Well, it does make a difference if it is true. The first of these distinct modes of karma is that the effects of actions is invariable. That is, the skillful actions bring happiness, unskillful actions bring suffering. There’s this invariable type of relationship. Our various experiences of happiness, of suffering, of a long life, of a short life, of having lots of material possessions, loving relationships are all results.
They’re all products. All products results arise dependent upon causes. Those desirable effects, products that we wish, those which are associated with happiness and well-being arise dependent upon skillful actions. And those types of results, you know, which associated with suffering, things that we don’t want, difficulties, problems in our life, our results, our products, they they arise dependent upon unskillful actions. There’s this invariable relationship between the cause and the result.
We see this every day in our life. We use this. We understand this. If you when you go to a doctor, he diagnoses you by means of your symptoms. Your symptoms are fever, cough.
Those are results. He can have a he can he can have a reference or infer that the cause is a bacteria. Maybe he’ll actually do a blood test, but maybe he won’t have to. Maybe he can just infer by the nature of the result what is the cause. He can remove the cause.
They give you some antibiotics, for example. So there’s there’s a there’s a relationship between the causes and the types of result, an invariable type of relationship. And this applies likewise to our internal experience and the quality of our life. Secondly, the the effects of an action is increased, and we talked about this in discussion group. I thought it was quite interesting about sometimes the it would what is actually being gotten at here is that even for me, minor skillful and unskillful actions, greatly increased results can accrue, can can be experienced.
And sometimes there is it was described as as a knife edge between these cyclic processes. Sometimes there’s a there’s a point where just a very insignificant variable can have tremendous ramifications at certain points in cycles, in in processes. And this is true also in terms of of our the quality of our lived experience, the result these these results that we’re talking about. The ramification, what is the point? That even, you know, that we’ll begin to become mindful of even our minor types of actions, understanding that they can have great repercussions somewhere down the line.
So we just don’t concern ourselves, well, I’m not gonna kill humans, but I’m gonna kill this fly. Yeah. Just our general way of thinking. But it does make a difference. You know, perhaps the karmic consequences aren’t as great, but killing a fly can can also be the results can be greatly multiplied in the future.
So we become mindful of even our minor actions, both skillful and unskillful. Thirdly, the effects of an uncommitted action is not experienced, and this is an appeal to common sense. If everything that we experience is a product as a result, if all products and results arise from causes, then if we want a particular type of experience, particular type of result, maybe it’s to be loved, maybe it’s material prosperity, maybe it’s a long life, beauty, whatever, enlightenment, Buddhahood. If we want that, then we’re going to have to ensure that we create the causes. If if we don’t if we haven’t created the causes, then you can pray night and day, and the cause will never come about.
If you create the causes, and they they they quite often in the Tibetan tradition, they they they use the example that, you know, they say, if someone has created the causes for happiness, they can put, oh, I don’t want happiness. I don’t want happiness. I don’t want happiness. They’re gonna be happy anyway. Yeah.
On the other hand, if you haven’t created the causes of happiness, oh, I want happiness. I want happiness. They’re gonna be miserable. There’s not much that can be done. No one is above or beyond the law of cause and effect or karma.
So if if you don’t want to go to experience a particular type of result, you have to seek and stop creating the causes. If you do want to experience a particular type of result, then you have to begin to create the cause. And if it the the situation is such that if it didn’t matter whether we suffered or not to ourself if it didn’t matter to ourselves whether we suffered or not, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference what we do from the point of view of Buddha. Go and do what you want. But it does make a difference whether we suffer or not.
You know, we can talk about you know, we can argue and debate. Buddhism is quite extensive in this area in in their ability and their their their analysis of the nature of the world and the nature of or the existence of god, and we we can go through we can have all the various philosophical debates and but it’s hard to argue. You know, we can argue about almost any point of of philosophy or theology, but it’s hard to argue about the fact that we don’t want to suffer. We want to be happy, and that’s what we mean by a sentient being, a living being. That seems to be the nature of our very minds.
And if that is in fact the nature, if that is in fact primary to our nature, then it becomes to make a great deal of difference what we do and don’t do because it’s going to make a great deal of difference in what we in fact experience as a result of that. And, fourthly, when we’re looking at present, this fourth distinct mode of karma is that actions once committed are not dissipated. And, you know, we’ve been looking through this that is to say that the the actions leave some kind of residue on the mind, on the on the stream of consciousness, some kind of latency, some disposition, a potency, like a you know, using analogies or metaphors. These are just ways you know, help these are tools to help us to think about these things, but they are limited, and they aren’t they aren’t exact. We can think about karma, our karmic actions as leaving seeds, certain potencies, which when met when when they meet with the the proper cooperative conditions, then the the potency is activated.
Some kind of reactive pattern, some some way of interacting with the environment occurs. Likewise, with these potencies within our mind, these seeds within our mind, they’re going to remain until they’re activated by some stimulus, some objective condition, and then we’re going to experience a according congruent experience of suffering or happiness, congruent with the skillfulness or unskillfulness of the causative action. Unless, and this is what we’re looking at, we we we these seeds are destroyed by a destructive agent. And in terms of our skillful actions and their seeds, the the they can be destroyed by anger and misguided regret. So this is motivates us to there’s another impetus to help us to forego anger, and considering the the detrimental effects on all the positive actions that we’ve created in the past, it’s going to weaken and destroy those.
But, also, it’s a it it points out the necessity to dedicate dedicate the positive actions that we created as a means of as we’re protecting these seeds from the destructive force of anger and misguided regret. So we’ve talked about that. Now we’re looking at the other side of the situation that, in fact, we’ve all committed negative actions in the past, whether we can remember them or not, whether we were conscious of committing them at that time or not. And their potencies are within our mind. The karmic seeds are going to remain there.
And then when when they meet with the appropriate activating condition, we’re going to experience some kind of undesirable experience. We’re gonna go through something or or have something occur to us or some feeling will arise which is undesirable, which we’d rather not, suffering of some nature or other. So but we don’t have to allow this to occur. We we, as it were, have we don’t have to remain victims of our past. We can take the you know, we can intercede in this process.
And the way that we intercede is by destroying these past potencies, these these these negative seeds within our mind, these potencies which have been implanted by our past negative actions. And we said the way that we do this is by means of the four powers, And we’ve gone through the first power, the these these four powers, the power of repudiation, the power of reliance, the power of restraint, and the power of thorough application of the antidote. We looked at the first of these four powers, the power of repudiation. That means, you know, actually, if possible, to actually recall, recollect some of the negative negative actions that you’ve created for that you’ve done. Developing a sincere, genuine feeling of regret, and the way we talked about the difference between regret and guilt, where the focus in the case of guilt is upon the person, that somehow we are a failure as a person, that somehow we are defective as a person, and this is simply an expression of that basic defect of our nature, as opposed to regret where we simply the focus is upon the nature of the action.
We made a mistake. We added one and one to make three, and it had detriment it caused harm either to ourselves or to others, but it has there’s no reflection on on who we are as a person. We keep our eye on the problem. We are not the problem. The problem is the problem.
The problem is attachment, hatred, pride, jealousy, basic ignorance, and we keep that in mind. But we do develop a sense of regret. We made a mistake. I wish I hadn’t done that. Why?
If it no for another no other reason, then we harm someone, either ourselves or another. But also this harm is this is going the harm hasn’t ended there. It’s going to extend into the future in terms of this potency, which is in a present within our own mental continuum as we sit here now. We don’t want to experience the results of that negative action. There’s some regret about the possibility of future sufferings, and moreover, these present negative potencies within our mind block our present development.
They block our they inhibit our growth in solving our problems. So there’s a lot to be regretted about due to these past negative actions, but nothing to feel guilty about. So that’s just a genuine now all of these four powers, they cannot be applied mechanically and thinking. They can be you know, they are a way we can actually help ourselves. We can stop crying and dry our tears and do something about our problems for ourselves.
And then we have a tool to work with. It’s not as if the situation is not hopeless. It’s workable. But it can’t be done mindlessly, thoughtlessly. We actually actually have to have some kind of confidence in what we’re doing.
We have to investigate, see whether this is plausible or not. And even and even if we only have some trace of belief, make making use of it. You know, we have to, at some time, forego our skepticism and get on with the process of growth and working with some real method. And we can you can spend your whole life and and pass your entire life in in a type of skepticism where you never get on with with doing what needs to be done. And a skepticism, that is a questioning attitude, has its place, and Buddhism would hold it in high regard, but it only has its place.
It’s not a type of it’s not a particular lifestyle. And it’s like a tool. And and to lead a productive life, we have to have an array of tools, and skepticism is one type of tool. By all means, question, examine. But at some point, we we we take whatever belief we’ve come up with, whatever confidence, even if it’s only some slight to some slight degree, and on that basis, we actually employ we implement these methods.
Even if it’s only to that degree, it’s going to have that much effect. Even if we own that much faith, it’s going to have that much power to help us to solve our problem. Working with this first power, the power of repudiation, where we we no longer identify with that negative way of acting, that type of that way of thinking or behaving. Now we’re going to go on. I’ll never get to it.
The the second of these four powers, the power of reliance, the power of reliance. So this involves a reevaluation of our priorities. You know, we talk about this every night, don’t we, together at the beginning of our of our sessions together, you know, just, you know, reevaluating, re reprioritizing, getting back in touch with deeply cherished values, reorientating ourselves, recommitting ourselves to the direction of growth and awakening finally, of solving our problems. There are there are two basic objects toward whom we can create negative actions, unskillful actions. One is Buddhas, and one is sentient beings.
Sentient beings I mean, that may sound strange, but it’s just a way of categorizing. Sentient beings are all living beings aside from Buddhas. Okay? We there are Buddhists there, and all the rest we call sentient beings. This is the way of dividing up all possibilities of living beings.
So there I said that these two objects are the two objects toward whom we create negative actions, either Buddhas on one hand or or sentient beings on the other. All our negative actions have necessarily been created with regard with with regard to either of these two. You know, as, you know, we’ve all experienced sometimes that we all we all have moments of real insight and caring, and we’re able to to see our situations clearly and in the light of our own inner wisdom and compassion. You know, at other times we’re full of confusion. We’re we’re we’re confused, and more than not we in such moments, react in terms of our habitual principles of what is called the sometimes called the eight worldly dharmas, the eight principles of ego’s world, you might say.
You know, operate on the basis or on the principles, on the determining factors of of pain of pain and pleasure, of gain and loss, of fame and notoriety, of praise and ridicule. You know, these these, you know, if you think about it, this is these very much these principles of of pain and pleasure, of gain and loss, of fame and notoriety, of of praise and ridicule, are the determining very much determine our actions of how we’re going to behave in the world. If it brings me pleasure, I’m going to do it. If it causes me pain, I’m going to avoid it. If it brings me gain, I’m going to do it.
If it brings me loss, I’m going to avoid it. If it brings me fame, I’m going to do it. If it brings me notoriety, I’m going to avoid it. If it brings me praise, I’m going to do it. If I’m ridiculed because of it, I’m going to avoid it.
These are these are the these are the ways of the world. That’s why they call them the eight worldly dharma, the eight principles upon which most people base their entire lives. This, you know, this is there’s no clarity, there’s no perspective in such a way of acting. You know, these are the rules of how to be a model prisoner in saṃsāra, in cyclic existence. You these are going in the same compulsive patterns, moving out of them, never growing, never never going beyond what who we once were, and there’s no growth.
So we what we’re saying is that we don’t always exercise good judgment, that we that we that we temporarily lose some kind of perspective, lose sight of our priorities in our life, you know, our goals in life, and we all know this. Most of our life is passed in this state. You know, we lose sight of what is important to ourselves. We often lose sight of of the path, of what we would like most for our lives to be seen as an expression of. You know, we lose we lose we would rather what we would rather do in the light of our own inner wisdom and our own compassion.
You know, just by way of an example, for one reason or another, perhaps they they went to a teaching, a talk, maybe they saw a movie or some kind of life experience, but anyway, by for some reason or another, an individual saw that or felt very deeply and it was moved that all living beings, whosoever want to be happy and don’t want to suffer, just like myself. And they they and that suppose that that understanding, that insight, you know, it makes a difference, doesn’t it? You know, we can’t you can’t go home again when you’ve had some kind of insight. You can try, but then you leave an inan an inauthentic way of life. You know, once your mind has moved, once you’ve seen something, you can’t quite be the same person again.
You know, this this insight that this person had, that all living beings want to be happy and don’t want to suffer, it weighs it weighed upon their conscience for some time. And after, you know, considering it, they conclude, you know, how can I go on killing? Know, how can I I how can I keep fishing, for example, okay, for fun, for sport, knowing that how much suffering I am in fact causing? And those fish, you know, they’re living beings. They have a mind just like I I do.
Just like I do. They don’t want to suffer, and I cause them suffering. How can I forgo that? How can I how can I be oblivious to that fact? I somehow I can’t be oblivious to that any longer.
I have to change that type of behavior. You know, I can’t I can’t numb myself to their pain any longer because I see it at some in my own mind at some level. And so, you know, this this insight and this this this weighing upon their mind provokes, you know, moves them to actually do something. You know, that they they want to they want to they want to make some kind of commitment. They they they take a they make a promise or a vow, and may perhaps in the context of a formal ceremony before a spiritual teacher, or maybe just must maybe just to their own inner Buddha, their own inner sanity, their own inner compassion, not to intentionally kill again out of just for sport, Yeah.
You know, you you want your life to begin to be seen as an expression of what is it that you want to stand for, who you are as a person, to bring some kind of authenticity in your life, you know, that that that is to go beyond this this division between what it is I do in the world and what it is I feel very deeply myself. Okay. So this individual has more or less perhaps in a formal ceremony, perhaps only to themselves has taken a vow or made a promise, I’m not going to kill for sport any longer, for just for my own pleasure. And then a few days later, a friend calls up and, you know, it’s a it’s a it’s a holiday morning. There’s no work that day.
A friend calls up and says, you know, I say, oh, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s go fishing. And and and all these seductive images about about which have been in the past associated with the good times that they’ve that they’ve experienced in fishing together come begin to rise up in this person’s mind. And and I’m thinking, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Let’s go fishing. Let’s go. So for you know, we we have to understand that for ordinary people like ourselves, it’s difficult to keep our insights, our caring, always fresh within our mind. You know, our priorities and principles always strongly before us, you know, in all the various situations that life is continually bringing ourselves.
The fact is that all sentient beings want to be happy, don’t want to suffer, including fish. You know, this is like a truth. Know? This truth might bother us. This truth might disturb our our our general way of bringing finding pleasure.
It might cause pains to our consciousness our our constituents our conscience. You know, it affects us, this truth. How we’re gonna fit it in with our lives? Are we going to overlook it? Are we going to pretend it doesn’t exist?
Are we gonna go back to sleep? But it is a truth. It’s the actual reality. But a mind of desire can’t see this, is obscured to this truth. It only sees its own wants.
It can’t see beyond that, its own pleasure. A mind of anger can’t feel this truth. It’s insensitive to it. A a confused mind will not be mindful of it, will seek to forget, to numb, to become unaware, cultivated unawareness of this very truth that doesn’t understand this truth. But this person says, oh, no.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I decided to get off of fishing. Let’s do something else instead. So, you know, this is the importance of the of the value of promises and vows that we take.
These vows and promises help to carry us through these times when our wisdom and caring aren’t operating, when our mindfulness and awareness aren’t fully functioning, you know, when we get off course, when when we lose sight of our primary goals, you know, what are our deeper values, what what are our highest priorities, you know, and, essentially, to become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. That’s from the point of view of Buddhism. You know, you might concur with that. That might be also your clarity. You know, the to become a Buddha, You know, this we want to actualize this this something inside of ourselves.
This becomes our highest priority in our life. This is what we keep trying to orientate ourselves. So as a means to help us to do that, we take vows, we take we make promises to carry us through when there’s moments when we aren’t our wisdom isn’t operating, when our compassion isn’t manifesting itself, when we’re confused, when we’re full of attachment, when we’re full of anger or pride or jealousy. You know, this thing, you know, it’s it’s this force of habit. You know, for example, there are are five lei vows, which are quite often taken by Buddhist practitioners.
That is to say, not to kill, not to steal, not to involve oneself in sexual misconduct, not to lie, and then, swiftly, the vow of abstaining from alcohol. Now drinking alcohol, this is just by way of example, I’m using this as an example, is in itself is not negative is not a negative action. Drinking there’s nothing wrong with drinking alcohol. There’s nothing inherently wrong with drinking alcohol. But for some people, it it is problematic.
You know, most people, if they go beyond a certain limit, lose their ability to discriminate. They they they, as a consequence, they hurt themselves or they hurt others. Some people see drinking as an obstacle to their daily practice, to their meditation practice, for example, as a hindrance to precision in their thinking, for example, as an obstacle to clarity of mind. And therefore, though drinking is in itself not negative, it leads down a path which many people choose not to take. They have chosen another path.
So the way that they can help themselves stay on their chosen path is through the taking of vows and promises. This assists them in staying on their chosen path. So in the context so the point that we’re getting at here is that in the context of acting in contradiction to one’s vows, one’s made some kind of promise that that we have made, you know, especially in the context of a formal ceremony where you take a vow or make a promise in form in in before your spiritual teacher and and before the various Buddhas imagined before you, that you as it were, you’re creating some kind of negative action toward Buddha. You know, it just like we’re we are turning our backs on our own inner Buddha. You know, you’ve chosen a path, you know, when your wisdom was functioning, when you when you were clear in your mind, when your compassion was manifest of where you want to go.
You know, you want to go to Buddha. That is to say, you want to grow. You want to ultimately awake. Maybe we don’t call it awakening, but you want to evolve yourself. You want to go beyond these dysfunctional patterns and develop develop oneself in love compassion and wisdom and personal power and finding ways to creatively express these in our daily life.
You know, that some in some clarity of mind, you saw that this is what you in your finest moments, your noblest dreams, that this is what you would want most for yourself. But we’re not we’re not always in those states, are we? Sometimes we’re overcome by confusion, overcome by new attachment and jealousy and hatred and the eight worldly dharma, these eight principles of ego’s world. So so at the if and we that’s the reason we make these promises, these vows. And if we break those vows, then we are as as if turning our backs on what it is that we have wanted most in our life, what what is of greatest importance, what is our priority.
We’ve turned our backs on the on the Buddha within ourselves. You know, that which is the personification of what is that we of the central character of who the story that we want to tell ourselves about ourselves, this finest person we could ever hope to be. We’re turning our back on that person of who we want to be. We’re going in another direction. But also we’re we’re we’re, you know, breaking our word that we make to our teacher, in front of our teacher, and he’s imagining these Buddhas, which in fact are there, but we imagine for the sake of our minds are there.
We’ve broken a promise. So in applying this this second power, the power of reliance, it’s necessary that we reevaluate our priorities, that we recommit ourselves to growth, to awakening, and we reorientate ourselves. You know, we’ve gotten off the path that we want to travel when our wisdom was working, when our compassion was working, when we had clarity of mind. This you know, this is where we want to go, and now we’ve gotten off that path for one reason or another. And we oh, so we you know, we don’t give up on ourselves.
There’s we can begin again, and we do begin again. We we orientate ourselves again to what it is we want. That is to say, we go for refuge again. Amen. We we begin to seek the guidance of those who assist us along the path again.
We take, you know, we we we we go take heartfelt refuge in Buddha again, and Dharma in the spiritual community in these Three Jewels. So this is one way of reliance, relying. But even without promises and vows, to commit an unskillful action towards sentient beings, and we said that we can commit an unskillful action toward either Buddhas or sentient beings by breaking a vow or a promise that you’ve made to the either formally, if I’m your spiritual teacher who’s seen to be a representative of the Buddha or imagined Buddhists before you, or even in informal sense that where we promise ourselves, that we promise the Buddha the finest nature of our own minds of what it is that we want to do. You know, we we we commit we commit ourselves to that Buddha where we go for refuge again. But even without having taken a promise, made made a vow, you know, to commit an unskillful action towards a sentient being, that is most simply to harm ourselves or others is to turn our our our back on loving others and loving ourselves and and thus to realizing our ultimate potential.
You know, we could we’re going to discuss at great lengths later when we come to the awakened heart, you know, when we are truly loving. And the the the the definition that I make use of in talking about love is adapted from, strangely, enough, an American psychiatrist. You know, the the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nourishing one’s own or another’s well-being. The will to extend oneself for the purpose of nourishing one’s own or another’s well-being. This is what I think comes close to the idea of what Buddhism means by love.
When we are truly loving, we are extending ourselves in in order to nurture another. When we extend ourselves, we are growing. To love is to extend ourselves. To extend ourselves is to grow. To love is to grow.
And the more we love, the more we grow and are able to love. To commit an unskillful action is to harm, and where there is harm, at least temporarily, there is no love. To stop loving is to stop growing. So, you know, if there’s one evil in this world, it is just this, to stop growing. And that is to say, to to to prolong the unawakened state and thus to allow suffering to exist that much longer in our lives and for others.
So in apply in applying this power of reliance with regards to sentient beings, no matter what we may have done to harm them, we we recommit ourselves to loving them and to having compassion for them. In spite of all our imperfections, in spite of our limitations, we do the best we can. We try to rededicate ourselves towards the development of real caring and helping of others rather than harming ourselves harming them and ourselves. And we try to open our hearts again to to sentient beings, to develop compassion for them. So this is what is meant by the power of reliance, either toward Buddhists, you know, turn we turn our back on our own Buddha with inside ourselves by breaking our vows, or to sentient beings.
We’ve harmed them rather than loving them. So we we recommit ourselves. And what does it mean to rely? We rely on the very object we have let down to pick ourselves back up. You know, like when you when you fall down on the ground, you push down on the ground to pick yourself back up.
You rely upon the very object upon which you fell to get yourself back in position. Likewise, having broken our vows, our our formal promises to the Buddhas, simply turning our back to the Buddha inside of ourselves, we we rely upon that same object. We go for refuge to that Buddha. We commit ourselves. We put our get get ourselves back on the path.
And we we toward those sentient beings, we have harmed through our unskillful actions, and this is simply what we mean by unskillful actions. There’s no absolute about it. There’s no inherent there’s no moral judgment being made. To harm is unskillful. This is the bottom line of Buddhism.
And all of Buddhism can be summed up in in the line, if you can help help, if you can help, at least don’t harm. And this is the the essence of all of Buddhism, I think, in in a very real way, to refrain from harm and develop oneself so that one, in fact, can help, and to help at the maximum ability that is necessary to become a Buddha. So we’ve fallen down. We’ve fallen down on our inner Buddha, and we’ve fallen down in terms of the Three Jewels, or we’ve fallen down in terms of sentient beings. And by depending upon them, by going for refuge or developing love and compassion, we pick ourselves back up again.
So this power of reliance is said to be especially effective in eliminating the governing result. Now we talked about the four types of results of actions. The power of repediation has the has the ability to overcome the ripening results of actions. This power of reliance aids in overcoming the governing result. The governing result is the type of environment, the type of resources that we find ourselves with.
That’s that’s what is meant by the governing result, sometimes called the environmental result. Well, we’re not going to finish karma. Sorry. You’re stuck with it for a little bit a while longer. Now it’s quite useful, I think, and I I kind of enjoy this area of discussion a lot of you know, some areas are perhaps abstract and philosophical in nature, and it’s hard to bring them down to some kind of applying them to our everyday life, make them quite relevant.
But I I I kind of when I talk about karma and especially these four powers, I feel like maybe, you know, within the context of my real limits as a and my misunderstandings and my confusions as a teacher that I’m actually being in some service in a in a in practical or significant way that people can take these and they can actually use them even at night and help themselves. And then I feel like, well, what I do is worthwhile because it has some practical benefit. Other than that, I don’t know. Lots of words, but maybe not too much use. I don’t know.
But this is, you know, this this is something meaty, something we can really get a taste out and work with, that we can do for ourselves. So we’ll stop there, okay, for tonight. So we’ll dedicate the creative potential to the skillful actions that we’ve accumulated. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig Tenzin Gyatso, please remain till 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 this supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. Thank you very much. Have a good week. If you’d to get a cup of tea and join us for a discussion, please please, by all means, you’re welcome.