Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The most striking moment in this 86-minute session comes when Ven Jampa Gendun reads aloud Heartspoon — an “encouragement through recollecting impermanence” by Pabongka Rinpoche — cataloguing the dying process in blunt, repeating phrases: “this is going to happen to you.” Around that reading, the session covers bodhicitta and an introduction to karma. On bodhicitta, Gendun contrasts “Velcro minds” with “polished marble minds,” uses a Dharamsala clouds metaphor for narrowed vision, and tells the parable of two Egyptian desert fathers who helped each other through spiritual crisis — arguing that serving others before we feel ready is itself the surest remedy. On karma, he introduces it as cause and effect internal to living beings, explaining karmic latencies through the seed metaphor and distinguishing actions of intention from intended actions. Suited to practitioners already following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 31 HMA 1996 09 04.mp3
UUID: 85d4b88a-4120-4c18-bdae-8d7ad9b02e59
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-09-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 86.3 minutes
Words: ~12,614
Always do in terms of adjusting our motivation. This continual process of reorientation, reorientating ourselves to it. What is the ultimate concern? What is the ultimate value in our lives? With the direction that we’d like to see our lives go?
Who we like to be? Ten twenty years from now. Quite often in beginning a teaching or meditation session we recite the refuge formula, the refuge prayer. It has two parts. Not only refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and the supreme community I go for refuge and to awakening.
But it also has another part which is not only are we seeking freedom from our own fear and constricting anxiety around the compulsive reoccurrence of the dissatisfactory patterns of our lives under the influence of afflicted emotions, under the influence of hatred attachment and most basically ignorance. And, under the influence and under the control of karma which we’ll be talking about tonight. Not only are we doing that for ourselves in order to be liberated from Those conditions which by their very nature are dissatisfactory but we’re trying to raise the level of our motivation and why we’re doing what we’re doing, why we’re involved in this journey at all. To go beyond our limited vision of what the good life might be composed of to include others as to why we’re traveling the spiritual path. That is to say to generate love and compassion as the motivation behind what we’re doing.
I think it’s tremendously profound. The intentionality that we bring to life and that we bring to our various actions. I think it’s very much a determinant of the quality of the outcome. So, know we’re trying, aren’t we? I think it’s terribly important that we as, I don’t know about you, but at least on my part as an ordinary person that we at least keep pointing our cart in the direction that we like our lives to go.
Keep reorienting ourselves in that direction. Even though it’s hard to be loving and compassionate all the time, it’s more difficult not to love at all, to have a closed heart. The pain of closing our heart. That we have to, you know these are very rare words I think. They’re very rare concept, idea in our modern day society.
And it’s very necessary that we keep reminding ourselves of the necessity to begin to open our hearts to go beyond our self centered, our exaggerated self concern. To begin to concern ourselves a little more as best we can without to something which lies outside of our self interests even if it be our family which more than not we identify in terms of our own self interests more than not. To begin to maybe develop some degree of altruism. It is a beneficial intention where there’s little or no self interest involved. Just a willingness to give or a willingness to help for the sake of giving for the sake of the benefit for the sake of helping that’s going to be derived for the other person whosoever.
Through the creative potential of my practicing generosity and the other perfections may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Through the creative process of my listening to the Dharma, through the creative potential of my practicing meditation, through the creative potential of my going to work, taking care of the kids, cleaning the house. We can if we’re skillful enough transform any mundane or seemingly a mundane activity into something which is going to help us to travel the spiritual path. Again and again we’re going to, when we talk about the awakened heart, bodhicitta, we’re going to into it rather extensively. Spend quite a deal of time on the two meditative traditions for the development of the awakened heart.
The meditative tradition of the sevenfold cause and effect method and that of equalizing and exchanging self and others. These ways that we can actually work with means the methods which we can awaken our hearts which we can actually develop love compassion. You know rather than it being a mere abstract notion which however desirable is something which is God given or something which is innate to certain individuals. But on the contrary, we can actually develop just as we can develop going to a gym and exercise and develop our muscles and our flexibility. We can also develop the ability of our minds to be more loving and more compassionate.
That’s the quality of our minds and it’s the quality of the dharma that it’s able to bring about those potentials of the mind to actualize what we want to become. In order to overcome selfish ness, it is necessary to be daring. You know, I think, you know, it’s very rare this orientation I think. But We lose sight, don’t we? We narrow down our focus of what is important and what the good life is made up of or what is of concern to ourselves.
Know, it’s as if, know, I remember having lived in Dharmasala which is in northern India, just at the foothills of the Himalayas. And quite often during, especially during the monsoon season, sometimes you wouldn’t see the sun for days at a time, You know at an altitude of say six or seven thousand feet, quite often you’d be completely surrounded by clouds. And your scope of your awareness would be narrowed down to just a few feet in front of you during the course of your day more or less. And you begin to think that’s the measure of the world. This few meters around the compass around you.
That’s all there is. That’s all that you’re concerned about. That’s the focus of all your energy and time and concern. And then one day the sun breaks through the clouds and you say, Oh, there’s something other than this little world which I’ve reduced my life down to. There’s another world out there and it’s like greater vision and expansion of our horizons takes place.
And likewise in an analogous sense in terms of mental vision. What it means to be in this world with other people who are very much like ourselves. But simply by, in such a claustrophobic narrow minded way of conducting a life, even minor irritations can be major difficulties. Our life becomes problematic by its very nature. Know, some people’s minds are like Velcro.
You know, they keep catching on things. Everything is a problem. I feel very feel very sympathetic for these people because you see how much they suffer. Other people, it’s it’s like the their minds are like polished marble. You know, like like dragging a silk cloth to get over polished marble.
There’s no resistance. There’s no and it doesn’t catch on anything. This glide through life, you know. Somebody honks their horn and then pulls in front of them in the traffic. No problem.
You know, they don’t it goes unnoticed. What they say, they don’t need to forgive because there’s nothing to get forgiven. This is, you know, it glides through life. Life is so much smoother. They have a greater vision, you know, about what their difficulties are.
And if we can begin, you know, phrase that I use from time to time which kind of trips off my tongue. The psychology of misery is pathology of epistemology, if you follow what I mean. You know, the psychology of our misery. You know, what is the internal cause of our problems, of our suffering, of our dissatisfaction, our frustration, all of our disappointment? You know what is the psychology of that?
I’m not talking about if you get run over by a truck. If you stub your toe or whatever. I’m talking about the internal conditions necessary for a way of suffering, way of dissatisfaction and disappointment in our life. Is the pathology. Pathology, sick, unhealthy, not very good, could be better, of our epistemology.
Epistemology, the way we make sense out of our world. Out of this chaos around us we follow some types rules to organize our experiences into some kind of coherent pattern so that we can find some kind of security so that we can predict what’s going to happen next. We gain some kind of control over our lives. And quite often the rules that we use, the way we make sense of our lives are pathological, aren’t healthy. I think that’s almost the bottom line of Buddhism is what they’re saying.
We are making use of some mistaken ways of making sense of our world, of going about our world, of approaching life. And if we can begin to spot these mistakes, we can begin to correct them and live a better life. We’ll have a more healthy approach to living. Our minds will be that much smoother. Our lives will go that much easier.
We’ll find that much more fulfillment. And one of them, and they’re too basic. Know of all the various pathologies that we are very much part of our life. Those of ignorance but also self centered. These are basic.
Our basic problems, basic pathology. All of our suffering, all of our difficulties, all of our hassles, all that goes wrong with our life, all that makes us feel unlovable, all that makes us feel defensive, isolated, having to guard our territory, feeling fragmented, alienated. This constant struggle that we are all constantly involved in in one way or another all stems from these two basic pathological patterns of our minds, self centeredness and ignorance. The moment we begin to open ourselves up, even if only slightly, to others about this. We begin to become concerned.
And I’m talking about just as if you were to go into a gym. Even if you haven’t worked out for years, you’re fat and stiff and you begin to exercise. You begin to loosen up a little bit and you begin to develop some of your, some of the capacities of your body in various ways. We begin to exercise until we develop a capacity to be or to be able to do what we want with our bodies. Why can’t we do that with our minds in the same way?
To be loving people, to develop that capacity, to exercise our ability, to be caring and the decent people that we essentially are, to allow our basic sanity to find expression. So, you know, but we need to actually do it. We need to actually exercise. Just as a thinking, a wishing. Even the wish I think is really worthwhile.
There a story on the news tonight about this little boy who was awarded some fantastic medal award. And he saved his father from he was being gored by a bull. And the little boy just he was nine years old at the time. He just ran out and beat the bull. You know, this bull was a huge bull.
And he had a stick. He just kept beating it. And finally, the bull went away. You know? And they were praising the boy.
They said, Oh, you’re hero. I just love my daddy. And there was an act. Was a need and there was response. And I think that’s quite significant.
Know part of, you know, that we are social beings and develop that mental health is a social phenomenon. It’s not something that we are able to develop in isolation from the world about us and the people about us. But it is very much a response to the needs of others. Know, taking, you know to take responsibility is probably the greatest, the most effective means to travel the path to one’s spiritual welfare. To solve one’s problems.
To develop a healthy approach to life. To the degree that we’re able to the degree that we assume responsibility, to that same degree we will develop the ability to respond. You know, if taking responsibility has any real meaning at all, if it’s something besides a mere romantic notion, then we have to develop ourselves to be able to respond. And there’s a story about, it translated by Thomas Merton. Some of you might be familiar with him.
He was a Trappist monk, an American lived in. He spent most of his time in Kentucky at a monastery, Trappist Monastery. And it’s a story about it took place in early Egypt when the Christian fathers lived as hermits in the desert. And there were these two particular hermits, hermit fathers, Christian fathers who each lived in isolation in caves in that area in the Egyptian desert. And they were quite different from one another.
One of them was quite mild and meek and very humble and very compassionate and loving and very tender hearted. You know people who went to confession would go to this tender heart monk because they knew that he would give a less harsh, what would you call it? Penalty, that’s right. So they always went to him as opposed to the other hermit monk who lived nearby and lived actually a few days travel away who was quite stern and quite heavy handed. I guess people who were on a real guilt trip would go to him and they could really get they could really work out their penance and they could feel that they had already done something in living up to the strict penance that the harsh father would give out.
Anyway, it so happened that around the same period of time that both fathers had experienced some spiritual difficulties that they began to question their vocation, they were involved in, what they were doing. They began to question whether they were on the right path, whether perhaps they should give up their struggle and what they were striving for. Simultaneously they decided to they had heard about one another. Each one of them was rather famous in the area. They decided to pay a visit to each other in the hopes that maybe they could be could be helped through this dark period of their life.
And they set out in towards each other’s caves simultaneously. And in the night, just as evening was approaching, they arrived at a resting spot. They were going to spend the night there and they spoke to one another. And the mild monk, the meek monk he said to the stricter father, he said I’m on my way to such and such. Do you know the direction?
And the strict father said yes, I know where he lives. Why are you going to him? He said, Well I have some doubts. I began to question my vocation and what I’m involved in. Perhaps he can give me some answers to the many questions that I’m facing, this struggle, this difficult period that I’m going through.
He said, Well, I’ll take you there in the morning. So the next morning they arose and they went to the strict father’s cave and immediately it became apparent that the father, that the mild monk had been seeking to find, he had actually met in the desert that night and that he had taken back to his own cave in fact. And so the father said to the Meek Father, I want you to spend some time with me. You can serve me for a while. And so over a long period of time, perhaps a year, the Meek Father served the Strict Father And he would listen to the various confessions that he heard and the various penances and the various advices that he would give to the people who came to him.
He would listen to his prayers and finally in serving him in this way and learning in this way and seeking his advice. After about a year’s time he came to the strict father and he said that, you know, I found the way again. I’m back on the path. Restored my faith and I’m going back to my own cave. And the strict father said to him, You know when we met on that desert that night, about a year ago now, and you were traveling to my cave to see me and you were experiencing great doubts.
You were afflicted by the devil and struggling against the darkness. I too was in the same situation as yourself. I too was experiencing doubts. I too had lost, was losing my faith. I was coming to see you.
And the meek father said to the strict father, Why didn’t you tell me that night? Why didn’t you express what you yourself were going through that was so similar to what I was experiencing? And the strict father said, you know if at that moment one of us had not been strong then we would have both been lost. So you know it’s not as if you know we’re going to ever have it all together. Maybe we will, sure.
But if we wait to have it together before we begin to help others, it’s going to be a hell of a long wait. You know, maybe rising to the occasion of as it were, not in the of pretending to have it together, but doing what you can, setting aside your own agenda and concerning ourselves with the difficulties of others is the way that we can be of greatest help to ourselves. The way that in fact we can bring ourselves together. Living I’ve seen so many times in my personal relationships with my teachers. And then having been a translator for them, how many times they would be perhaps sick or tired.
But then somebody needed their help. Someone had some problems and setting aside their own personal feelings, own personal difficulties, their own personal needs at that particular time, they do that. They were there for that person. And somehow I think in being there and developing the abilities to respond to the needs of others, that we’re going to our own needs, our own ultimate welfare is going to be fulfilled. You know trying, why is it that we don’t love each other?
Why is it that we don’t have time for each other? The energy for one another? And we’re beginning to try to understand each other, you know each other’s needs, each other’s problems. You know that we’re in fact not all that very different. Perhaps superficial gender differences and maybe some economic differences and different particular situations.
Scratch away the superficial differences. We’re all very much alive. Suppose we have a son who becomes an unbearable young man. It may be hard for us to love him. This is natural.
In order to be loved a person should be lovable. If our son has become difficult to love we will be very unhappy. We wish we could love him but the only way we can is to understand him. To understand his situation. We have to take our son as the subject of our meditation.
Instead of taking the concept of emptiness or some other subject, can take our son as the concrete subject for our meditation. We don’t blame our son. We just want to understand why he has become like that. Through this method of meditation we find out all the causes near and far that have led to our son’s present state of being. The more we see, the more we understand.
The more we understand, the easier it is for us to have compassion and love. Understanding is love itself. Understanding is another name for love. Love is another name for understanding. You know it’s quite necessary that we begin with ourselves.
The universal vehicle, vehicle of the Mahāyāna is not some abstract ideal notion or some romantic concept. But it is rooted in practical everyday life. Acknowledging our own pain, own suffering, our own dissatisfaction, the nature of what it means to be the ordinary human being that each of us are. And beginning to understand ourselves. And that we begin to beginning to understand ourselves, begin to love ourselves.
Maybe for the first time, know, I mean to sincerely wish yourself well. And That’s what essentially most love means. May I be happy. I deserve to be happy. I’m a sentient being just as much as anyone else.
I do not even comparing myself to others, I deserve happiness. Why not? Now I don’t have to earn it. I don’t have to be a worthwhile person or achieve some kind of status in order to earn the right to be happy. Just by my very nature I should be happy.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama says it is in the very nature of sentient life that we seek happiness. That we don’t have to somehow deserve happiness. And, you know, to have compassion for ourselves and understanding the nature of our problems and wishing ourselves not to suffer. And in understanding our own pain, understanding our own suffering, and wishing ourselves to be free of wishing ourselves well, we can begin to truly perhaps love one another because we can begin to understand this situation. You know we are, as I just said, we all are that much different from one another.
Understanding our own needs. You know, if we only overcome the narrowness of our vision, our fear, we’re all running scared. That we’re all so much alike. That we deserve each other’s sympathy and compassion and love. Because we all share in the human dilemma.
What it means to be the ordinary human beings that we are, you know, ignorance driven human beings. human beings who base their lives on exaggerated self concern and self centeredness. And begin to widen the scope of what it might mean to find a good life for ourselves. You know, just Beyond our self interest it actually develops some degree of altruism. Pragmatically, as the Dalai Lama said, this is the way that we can be wisely selfish.
Rather strange words in a way, aren’t they? To be wisely selfish. But by becoming concerned, beginning to open our hearts the best we can to others and taking responsibility for others. We are going to experience much more happiness. And how much, how hard we’ve struggled over the course of our lives.
You know I’m fifty one years old. I’ve struggled my whole life to find happiness. How far have I gotten in my path along my journey to that happiness? You know, I have to we have to question ourselves. How much have we learned?
How much has our exaggerated self concern, our self centeredness, our struggle to get me, me, my, my, our own happiness for ourselves. How far, how much happiness has it in fact gotten us? And how much pain has it in fact given us? Has it worked? Maybe beginning to look at the reality of where it’s gotten us and we can begin to reorientate and begin to open up other possibilities, different approach.
And that approach is an approach of other cherishing. So just to be a little more concerned, a little more sensitive to the needs of others. You know, going out of our way. As a need, you know, maybe first it’s just a matter of pragmatism, a way of finding a way of being wisely selfish. But at some point you do things just because you love.
You know, you fight the bull off just because it was there know goring your father and you love your father. You don’t want them to be hurt. There’s no matter of self interest involved at all. It’s completely selfless, oneself is forgotten. And in that self forgetfulness maybe we’ll find what we’ve been struggling all our lives to find some kind of happiness and fulfillment and the quality of life that we will want for ourselves.
So in this process, so you know why we do? We can do this. We can do anything for this reason. It can be the intentionality, the motivation behind our activity. Some way if I need, even if it’s just to say it in terms of words and thought, may I be doing this for the sake of others.
And even if just that wish is like a miracle, you know, like a light which vanquishes the darkness of a billion million years, a time, just a single light, a moment of light. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. This happy, healthy, sane human being that we all can become, that we’re all destined to become, that we all should become. And we try to, you know, we do something about it as best we can according to our capabilities and time and energy and to orientate ourselves to actually begin the practice, to take those steps on this journey in terms of the Dharma, the actual methods and techniques, how we can actually exercise the mind and develop these abilities to solve our problems and to find the good life for ourselves. And this process all incurs within the social context of the spiritual community.
Community. Those like minded individuals who acknowledge that they themselves are on a spiritual journey and they are seeking help and that they have something to give in return. The interdependency of the path. The social context in which this process takes place, that growth takes place. And looking at the possibility of doing it for something beyond one’s own immediate self concern.
For an ever widening circle of others so we can listen to it. No matter what I have to say, if I have nothing to say, makes no difference from your side. If you listen with such a motivation, it can only be of benefit not only to yourself but to others as well. 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 the Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening. To the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of the 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 destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until cyclic existence ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. So we’d like to stand up and stretch our legs. Okay.
So, we’re going to meditate. Beginning with, again adjusting your motivation in terms of developing love and compassion. And we were working and we worked through a spectrum of individuals. We’re working with a variety of individuals trying to develop the flexibility of mind to first be able to invoke compassion and love and then be able to invoke it toward different objects. Know, first beginning with the easiest object which is probably maybe a partner or parent, maybe a child.
Actually I think it’s difficult to begin with yourself but anyway it’s usually a good place to begin to try. It’s quite often the object that we forget about that we are deserving of our own love and compassion. So we have worked through a spectrum of individuals. Now we’re beginning to build up a mass of individuals. And just developing this ability of mind, this capacity.
Meditation in one sense is like the various techniques that we use like a recipe book. You a little bit of this and a pinch of that and three ounces of that and we put it together and we make something. And like here we’re trying to again develop the skill to be able to evoke positive, tremendously positive states of mind. Begin to develop the ability to evoke them at will just by being able to think about a subject. Turn our mind in a particular direction and be able to hold that.
And we talked about the different types of meditation in terms of analytic meditation and stabilizing meditation. Generally in the West people think of meditation as only stabilizing or concentrated meditation. But in fact, analysis, thinking, to penetrate an object is an extremely important area of meditation. And we try to, we put together this recipe, we invoke a particular state of mind, and we try to hold that state. So like a dry sponge in a humid atmosphere, begins like our mind begins to absorb, begins to to integrate this invoked state.
It becomes a second nature to ourselves. It becomes our primary nature. We change. We grow in that way. So, you know, there’s nothing, you know, what we call a loving person, a compassionate person.
And we have a sense of maybe there’s an unthought out sense that this person is, that’s their very nature. That’s just who they are. You know, like the Dalai Lama’s of the world or the Mother Teresa’s of the world. Somehow they have loving electrons protons and selfless atoms in their brains and that’s why they are so. And look at poor old me.
Compassionate people are just those people we conceive of as compassion are simply those individuals who we have the impression that are predominantly compassionate people. That they have the various patterns of mind in terms of love and compassion on the one hand, anger and hatred on the other. That they express more compassionate states and loving states. And therefore we call them a compassionate person, that they have the predominant patterns of their mind. And likewise, if we can begin to develop the skill of evoking compassionate states, these loving thoughts, then we too become identified.
We too can justifiably label ourselves as loving people, as compassionate people. Nothing more than that. Simply the basis of labeling and the person is labeled to that by various states of mind are the basis upon which we are labeled I or Jampa or whoever. And if that basis compassion, that is to say it’s predominantly compassionate thoughts in terms of compassion and anger, then we become a compassionate person. There’s nothing innate about it.
There’s nothing about our physical makeup or our brain structure which makes us compassionate. This is the predominant state that we express. So we can exercise that quality. We can develop that quality. So we’re going to look at development of love and compassion in terms of a whole range of beings.
We’ve been working with this process for some time now so playing with the idea, working with the idea, isn’t the meditation Olympics. It’s not the inner right. It’s just something we’re working with, exercising, training in. Do it as well as you can at your present level. That’s fine.
That’s more than good enough. That’s great. Someone that you love or very close to. Now just even thinking about that person, oh I love this person very much, they’re over there. You know if you can’t see them.
I just say, ah they’re there, okay. In somebody that you’re not so quite close to but that you like a great deal, you’re friendly with, they’re over there. Okay, good. And somebody who is neutral to yourself, you know a stranger, but they’re appealing. They have a nice quality about them that you might like to get to know them.
They’re there. And then fourthly, we’re going to work with four people tonight. Don’t worry about crowding your mind. It’s okay. The more the better.
The fourth person is just a neutral person. They’re neither appealing nor unappealing. You know, blah, kind of blah. You see my name? It doesn’t matter.
So maybe just glance around and sneak at your neighbor. That fourth person. So just having the sense that there’s these groups of people, having the sense that there’s somebody there that you really feel close to, you know, that your heart opens up a little bit to them. Think about that. You look over there and you close it, but try to, you know, see if you can something like so we’re going to work with the development of love and compassion for this whole group.
And we’ll do the nine round breathing meditation which we’ve been working with. With the first block in the left nostril. You don’t actually have to physically block it. Some people feel uncomfortable when they when they actually begin to play around with their breathing. They get a bit of some kind of frustration, sense of anxiety around it.
If it if it what works for you is blocking the left nostril breathing in this brilliant white light, you can hear something really positive. Know, all the blessings of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas or whatever is of of of spiritual energy in the universe, What you see is most positive in the world. You’re breathing that all in, coming down and down and then breathing out, blocking the right nostril, breathing out through the left nostril. And all the negativities and obscurations especially those associated with desire during that three times and then blocking the right nostril first, breathing in again all all the blessings of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Breathing out all the negatives and obscurations associated with anger, hatred, Doing that three times and breathing through both.
And out through the mid brow point and breathing out all the negatives and obscurations associated with ignorance. And this obscurations and negativities go out in the form of thick black smoke and they go off way into the mist. And they vanish. Gone. Never to be seen again.
You begin to have a sense of purity, sense of brightness and lightness, alertness and vitality in your mind physically and mentally about yourself. Imagining that process occurring. Then we’ll meditate a little bit on appreciating, you know, we’ve talked about the value of the human life, that we’ve taken so much for granted. Know, it’s like the given and we don’t even notice how fortunate we in fact are in terms of our freedom, in terms of our privilege. And therefore not valuing it, we don’t make use of it.
When you begin to value something, then you’re going to make sure that you don’t waste it. So we have to in Buddhism, a great deal of what the Buddha taught is tremendously simple, very simple model, like common common sense. But common sense isn’t all that common, is it? Maybe transcendental common sense that, you know, we have this life of freedom, you know, especially in the west with our affluence and all that we have are great privileges that we all enjoy. And even those pretty far down on the run.
I’m not saying that they’re well off by well off the western standards. In terms of what the freedoms and the privileges that they do enjoy, there’s nothing they have the capacity or she that they have the capacity to do. As opposed to many in the world who don’t have the same freedom, don’t have the same fortunes as ourselves. We’re going to imagine ourselves so that we begin to appreciate that we don’t take for granted what it is that we have and therefore ensure that we don’t allow it to go to waste. We’re going to meditate on that.
But first we’ll do mindfulness breathing between that time. So a lot to do. Okay. So if you take a firm comfortable posture. It’s called Heartspoon.
Strange name but Encouragement Through Recollecting Impermanence by Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche who was probably one of the leading figures in Tibet, one of the greatest Lamas of the twentieth century. He was the root lama, the main lama of the spiritual master of many of the path tutors of the two tutors of the Dalai Lama. And he has played a significant contribution to what we are hearing in terms of the Dharma that we receive today. He was a significant figure in that way in shaping present day Buddhism as it presently exists in the Tibetan tradition. So this was a teacher who came to Australia I believe two years ago or three years ago, who received the teaching on this text composed by.
In turn gave the transmission to Geshe Yeshe Tobden Rinpoche, who will be coming very shortly. And then last year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the transmission to Pensoppa Rinpoche and myself, or I should say, I was his scribe. Translated this together. So it’s just a very short text. And I thought it would be, you know, since it’s this unbroken meaning of transmission of this text from the person who wrote it, this great master of the twentieth century, Pabongka Rinpoche, down to Zopa Rinpoche, down to Pensoppa Rinpoche, and even a plastic cup can hold nectar.
I thought maybe I’d pass it on to you. Okay? So I’m just going to you can just listen and I’m just going to read this text to you. I think it’s it would be worthwhile if you have the transmission. So Heartspoon, Encouragement Through Recollecting Impermanence by Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche.
Kyabje means someone who is worthy of refuge. Ah, the hurt, kind mama, look to this beautiful one, how I behave and how I have cheated myself my entire life. Please look upon this mindless one with compassion. The essential advice to give yourself, Heartspoon, keep it within your heart. Don’t be distracted, don’t be distracted.
Reflect upon the state of your life from the essential point at your heart. Since beginning this cyclic existence which hasn’t ended up to now, though you have experienced countless cycles of rebirths, just so many variations on happiness and pain, you have achieved not the slightest from them. And though at present you have attained leisure and fortune so difficult to find, always till now they have finished and been lost, have been empty and without meaning. Now if you care about yourself, the time has come to practice the essence of future happiness, virtuous actions. You appear so capable, smart, clever, but you’re a fool as long as you cling to the child’s play of the appearances of this life.
Suddenly you’re overwhelmed by the fearful lord of death and without hope or means to endure there’s nothing you can do. This is going to happen to you. Because you think I’m not going to die for some time, I’m not going to die for some time. While you’re distracted by the never ending activities of this life, suddenly the fearful Lord of Death arrives announcing, now it’s time to die. This is going to happen to you.
Though you make arrangements saying, tomorrow and tomorrow, just then suddenly you have to go. This is going to happen to you. And without choice, leaving behind in disarray, you left off work, you left food and drink, you have to depart. This is going to happen to you. There’s no time other than today to spread your bedding and go off to sleep.
And upon your last bed you fall like an old tree, and others unable to turn you with their lily soft hands tug at your clothes and blanket. This is going to happen to you. Even if you completely wrap up your body in the last in mass under and outer clothes, still you have no freedom to wear them other than just today. And when that body becomes as rigid as earth and stone, you behold for the first time your own corpse. This is going to happen to you.
Though you struggle to speak your last words, your will and expressions of sorrow, pitifully your tongue dries up and you can’t make yourself clear. An intense sadness overwhelms you. This is going to happen to you. Do others put your final food, holy substances, relics with a trickle of water into your mouth? You’re unable to swallow even a single drop, and it over flows from the corpse’s mouth.
This is going to happen to you. Those surrounded by a circle of close relatives, heart friends, and those near to your heart. And even though they are loving and distressed at the ending of your being together while crying and clean, just then you have to separate forever. This is going to happen to you. Though you experience horrific hallucinations like a turbulence of waves and overwhelmed by unbearable excruciating pain, pitiful though you may be, there is nothing to be done.
The appearance of this life are setting like the sun. This is going to happen to you. Though with unbearable compassion your Lama and vajra friends plead in your ear for a critical thought to arise. And even though they do so with loving minds, there’s no hope. It’s unthinkable.
This is going to happen to you. With an expelled rasping sound so so at the time of death, the movement of your breath builds faster and faster and breaks like the string of a violin, and the end of your life has come to its close. This is going to happen to you. There’ll come a time when your cherished and sadly lost lovely body is called corpse, disgusting and rotten. And a time when your body, which can’t bear even rough bedding and mattresses, is laid on the bare earth.
This is going to happen to you. There will come a time when your body, which can’t bear even a thorn, is chopped to pieces and from the bone its flesh is torn. And a time when your body, which can’t stand even fleas and lice, is devoured by birds and dogs, so nothing’s left. This is going to happen to you. Though you go to so much trouble going and dressing your lovely body in the finest of clothes, there comes a time when that body is placed within a burning house and your body which can’t tolerate even the fire of a glowing stick of incense, must be burned in the midst of a fiery conflagration.
This is going to happen to you. There will come a time when entering into the roaring flames all your flesh and bone are burned and reduced to a pile of ash. Or a time when your body, which can’t bear even heavy cloth, is wedged tight into a hole in the ground. This is going to happen to you. There will come a time of denouncing the deceased, him or her, at the beginning and end of your sweet name.
This is going to happen to you. And a time when the area is filled with the sobbing sounds of your affectionate close companions and servants. This is going to happen to you. There will come a time when your clothes, hat, possessions and livestock will be divided up with nothing left in the four directions and corners. And there will come a time when in total despair alone you reach the passage to the intermediate state.
This is going to happen to you. The terrors of the four fearful enemies descending upon you are going to come. The appearance of being trapped under a mountain of packed rock and rubble and buried beneath a ferocious avalanche of earth. What to do? The appearance of being set adrift on the surface of a vast sea and carried away by violent swirling waves.
What to do? The experience of your heart and ears being split open by the sizzling and crackling sound of a fiery conflagration. What to do? The fearful experience of being enveloped and swept away by the swirling winds, dark winds of an eon, what to do? When you’re driven by powerful red winds of karma and swallowed up by a terrifying darkness, what to do?
When you’re bound with a lasso by the messengers of Yama and in total despair are led led away, what to do? When you’re tortured in so many detestable ways by ox-headed and scorpion-headed karmic agents, what to do? When you’re before the Yama King, the Lord of Death, as you weigh the whites and blacks, your virtuous and non virtuous actions, what to do? When Yama exposes your lie of having spent your human life in attachment, hatred, and deceit, what to do? When at Yama’s court the punishment that is the ripening effect of your negative actions is meted out, what to do?
When your naked body is stretched out on the glowing red hot iron grounds in the fires of hell. What to do? Though your body is cut to pieces by a rain of weapons, still you must experience it without dying. What to do? Though you are cooked in molten iron until your flesh falls away and your bones disintegrate, still you experience it without dying.
What to do? Though your body and fire burn inseparately, still you must experience it without dying. What to do? When your body is pierced by a freezing cold wind and cracks into a hundred thousand pieces. What to do?
Having fallen into a miserable state of a hungry ghost with its hunger and thirst, you have to starve for many years. What to do? When you become one of those stupid, dumb, unfortunate animals that eat each other alive, what to do? When the unbearable sufferings of evil gone realms have actually befallen you, what to do? Now, don’t be distracted.
With the sounds of hurrying, Right now is the moment, is the time to steal your will. It’s not only time, it’s almost too late. Right now, right now. Apply yourself with great force. Holy precept of the Lama, kind Father, heart of the authoritative scriptures of the victorious love song, practice of the pure path of complete sūtra and tantra, it’s time to place real experience upon your mind stream.
Who’s the faster, Yama, the lord of death, or you and your practice of realizing the essence of your eternal dream, the welfare of both yourself and others as much as you can each day? Unifying the three doors of your body, speech, mind, put the whole of your efforts into your practice. In response to the request of the past and past from Nawong Yangtuk, who single pointedly dedicated his life to practice, and recent requests from the manager of the Potala, Pelsi Kumo Sonam Kunga, I was persuaded to compose myself and all others Heartspoon, Encouragement Through Recollecting Impermanence. I, with the incarnation name of Pabongka, wrote this text at the Tashi Choling Monastery at Drepung in the district of Kham. It was translated into English from Tibetan by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Gelong Jampa Gendun at Chenrezig Institute on the auspicious occasion of its twentieth anniversary, September nineteen ninety four.
Whatever may have been accumulated through the translation of these profound vajra words of Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, Heruka in human form. May they immediately and completely feel all his vast and profound wishes. May anyone who touches this text sees, hears, recalls or practices it receive the blessings of holy Pabongka upon their mind stream. And may they and all sentient beings have the realization of impermanence in terms of death, the basis of the Hīnayāna, Pāramitāyāna and Vajrayāna vehicles. And quickly actualizing bodhicitta, may they all swiftly reach Buddhahood.
May goodness and virtue prevail. So we completed in Nayarut text, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path by Je Tsongkhapa, the verse which sets out our life of leisure and fortune, the value of having our human life and the fact that our life is not going to last forever, is different that we’re going to die and we simply don’t know when. And that which can be of any benefit at the time of death is only our practice in terms of how we developed our mind and the imprints that we’ve left upon our mind. Now we’re going to look at the next verse.
If you think again and again about these and their inevitable effects the sufferings of cyclic existence, the emphasis on the appearances of future lives will arise. So, if you think again and again about the deeds and the inevitable effects. So now we’re going to begin a discussion of karma. In some, to some degree we’ve developed an appreciation for this human life that we have. Beginning to appreciate our potential.
It’s difficult. I don’t think we realize how unimaginable our potential is. What we could do with it. What we could in fact attain. Like Lama Yeshe used to say, we live on dried chapatis, old pieces of flatbread that have been tossed away when we could have chocolate cake.
That is what we absolutely in fact deserve. But we’re very modest in our want. Very limited in our vision about who we could become and what we could achieve with our life. But still, perhaps we’ve begun a little more aware. Perhaps some degree of appreciation of what, you know, Some degree of inability to settle for less and want something more of our life in terms of quality of life, in terms of who we can be and not what we own, not what we possess, but who we are as a person.
And then, but realizing this chance, this opportunity that we all possess in terms of our human life isn’t going to last forever. It’s definitely that we’re going to die. And what is going to occur to us at the time of our death? You know what is going to happen? And so, this brings up the question of karma.
Beginning to consider the invariable relationship between our actions and their results in terms of our experience. You know, as we’ve discussed, what goes on to take rebirth is essentially the continuum of the very subtle wind energy mind combination. The very subtle mind is analogous to a radio being on, the mere fact of a radio being on. Whether the radio plays music or broadcasts the news, it is a characteristic of patterns of coarser minds. And the very subtle wind energy is analogous to the electricity of the radio.
Whether the radio eventually becomes a portable radio with earphones or whether it’s a cabinet model with four quad speakers is a characteristic of patterns of coarser wind energies and of elements and evolutes of the actual embodiments that we actually take. So there are very specific patterns of physical and mental characteristics that we will begin to express, that we will begin to generate. These patterns of mind and wind energy, elements and evolutes, you know, the parts of our body which evolve out of earth, water, fire, wind energies, not just matters of random chance. It’s not simply a haphazard dice game in terms of that we in fact are human beings with this particular type of embodiment, with this particular capacity. It’s neither random, it’s not a chance, it’s not haphazard in its cause.
But on the contrary, all of these gross patterns which constitute of our body and mind, they are the logical outcomes of discernible variables. karma. The logical outcome of karma. karma creates the format, sets style and determines the content of what will eventually be aired as a particular program. You know, I can imagine this is a particular program with our life.
karma is a special case of the general law of cause and effect. The law of cause and effect is in turn included within the view of dependent arising. The view of Buddhism is dependent arising. What this means varies at different levels of discussion through the various philosophic systems which are presented within Buddhism. From a very growth interpretation to an extremely subtle interpretation of what we mean by dependent arising.
That all things arising dependent upon something other than themselves. What this other is, is explained differently according to the different schools of Buddhism. But everything is a dependent arising, depending upon something other outside of itself or its existence. Within this is the general law of cause and effect. karma is a special case of the law of cause and effect.
The law of cause and effect describes production of effects from causes in general terms while karma more specifically describes the production of effects from causes in terms internal to sentient beings, internal to the continuum of living beings. So, here cause refers specifically to karma. And the meaning of karma is action, Activity, work. It’s a Sanskrit word which literally means action, activity, work. Mental, physical, verbal activity.
Our actions act as causes which initiate a variety of reactions, the final effect of which is that we ourselves as agents of those actions will experience a particular result. karma is concerned with the relationship between causes and their effects internal to sentient beings. Not concerned with the relationship between causes and effects external. For example, the fact that a flower grows from a seed, the relationship between that flower and that seed, that’s the relationship of cause and effect. But that’s not a matter of karma or the matter of a rain wearing down a mountain.
That’s a matter of cause and effect. Or fire burning up wood, a matter of cause and effect. But these are all external. These various events, physical events are occurring external to sentient beings, the continuum of living beings. They are explained in terms of the natural, the law of cause and effect in nature, but not within the continuum of sentient beings.
The occurrence of a limb falling from a tree is explained in terms of the external processes of the law of cause and effect in nature. While the fact that an individual is under that limb when it falls is explained in terms of karma of that particular individual. So, karma is the law of cause and effect in terms of its relationship to living beings, internal to experiences of living beings, of sentient beings. So, karma, you know, very broadly speaking means all of the activities or shaping that form who we are. That is, you know, all the internal conditioning factors which make us who we are and what we are.
All that we experience. You know, this includes all the latencies of past actions which we’re going to discuss tonight. All the genetic coding, the life in the womb, all the parental, societal, cultural conditioning, everything that acts upon us to make us who and what we are are the very activities which shape us as individuals. All the interrelationship between these processes and ourselves. So specifically, karma is of two types.
There is actions of intention, actions of intention, and intended action. It might sound like the same thing, just put it a different way. Action of intention and intended action. Actions of intention are the mental urge towards or a tendency to think in a particular way or to focus upon a particular object. It’s like a directionality of the mind.
The mind focuses upon this element within its field of experience rather than that. It thinks in a particular way, a particular train of thought. An orientation of the mind. This is what we mean by action of intention. The intention, the direction of the mind, what it’s intending, what it’s tending to, what it’s concerned with, what it’s focusing upon.
This urge to think in a particular way or to focus upon a particular object is what we mean by action of intention. So this way of thinking, this, you know, what we focus upon, what we’re concerned with, an impulse of mind, a volition of mind, this directionality or this orientation of mind draws us into particular states of consciousness, various feelings, draws us into perceptions and emotions which in turn motivate us to speak and to act out physically. Whether it’s simple or in complex ways. These latter are all intended actions. So there’s action of intention which directs the mind to think in a particular way, to focus upon a particular object.
This draws us into particular states of mind, states of consciousness, the various emotions which in turn motivates us to speak and act in various ways, that is to say intended actions. So these types of actions, when an action ceases, you know, we perform an action. Picking up a glass is an action, a physical action. My speaking is a verbal action. Thinking is a mental action.
All of these are various activities. All of these are karma. All of these are a type of work whether it’s body, speech or mind. When an action ceases, that means when I cease picking up the glass, it deposits there is a latency which is placed upon the consciousness. There’s some kind of residue that’s left.
You know, it’s not as if I’m unaffected by having done a particular action. You know, maybe picking up a glass is rather insignificant. But maybe if I were to kill somebody, become angry with somebody, to shout at somebody, that these various types, but in fact all activities of body, speech, and mind, they leave some kind of residue upon the consciousness. Some kind of conditioning factor is left. There’s some kind of a continuum of our being is left unaffected by what we do.
Consciousness carries what we call latencies of these past actions. Latency, a disposition, predisposition, a potency is left. This residue conditioning factor is left upon the mind and the consciousness carries this until fruition. So karma refers not only to the actions, like picking up a glass, speaking, thinking. It not only refers to those activities but also it refers to these latencies, these conditioning factors which our actions leave or deposit upon or infuse in our consciousness.
So it has these two means. Sometimes it refers to one and sometimes it refers to the other. Either the action itself, the activity, the work, or the impression, the imprint, what we call most properly the latency left upon the consciousness by the action. This provides for the connection between an action and the results of the action. You know, is a causal linkage.
So the action, you know, when we talk about karma, the whole theory of what we’re going to be involved in is karma as action. Action as causes bringing about results. Actions are causes. Now everything in the universe, anything that is a product, this table is a product, this building is a product, I am a product, arises in dependence upon causes. Happiness is a product.
Suffering is a product. Likewise, they arise dependent upon causes. Now, we know this to some extent, but our understanding of the nature of what causes our happiness and suffering is superficial at best. It’s misguided most likely. One of the substantial causes for our happiness, for our suffering are our past karma, our past activities, the conditioned factors left upon our mind.
That is, there is a connection between what we have done in the past and what we now experience. The cause is karma. The causal linkage between the past action and our present experience as a product, whether it’s experience of happiness or suffering, is the karmic latency which is imprinted upon the mind, which is left upon the mind. Just like a seed has a capacity, some kind of potency. When it meets with the correct conditions, like a flower seed, it grows into a plant and a flower develops.
Likewise, there’s a certain capacity or potency which is deposited upon the consciousness due to our various actions. This is the causal linkage. When this meets with the quick conditions, the cooperative conditions, some kind of experience will be undergone in terms of suffering, in terms of happiness. With regard to the means, we’re trying to, we’re approaching it in a very general fashion, trying to understand what we mean by karma. There ‘s a lot of misapprehension about karma, lot of mysterious notions about karma.
I think it’s good to kind of demystify it. It’s simply a matter of the law of cause and effect with regard to internal experiences. It’s very profound and it’s very complicated, but it can become relevant and it has an effect on how we live our lives and our behavior once we begin to see that there is a mechanism, that there is something more to our experiences than perhaps we’ve been used to up to now in determining. Generally, we see the cause of our suffering and our happiness in things, in people, in situations, things which are very much external to our own continuum. karma, the import of karma says that these things, these people, these situations, you know, a piece of chocolate cake, are the cooperative conditions.
They are necessary part of the experience, but they are not the substantial cause of what we experience. The substantial cause is an internal factor of the mind. What is this internal factor? Is a karmic linkage or karmic latency, the residue from a past action that we’ve created. This is the substantial cause to the experiential quality of our experiences.
And whether it’s happiness or suffering, the things outside of ourselves, that person, that thing, that situation, that piece of chocolate cake is merely the cooperative cause. Just as in the case of a flower. We need a substantial cause and we’ve talked about that last week when we talked about rebirth. The difference between a substantial cause and a cooperative condition. The seed is the substantial cause.
It’s carrying some kind of encoded information, genetic material. The earth, the water, warmth are the cooperative conditions. You have to have both in order to actually grow a flower eventually. Both are necessary. But, you know, is the genetic information carried in the seed which is going to determine whether it’s a flower or not and what variety of flower it is.
It’s necessary to have the water, the soil, the warmth. These are indispensable cooperative conditions, but the identity of the actual outcome is determined by the substantial cause. Likewise, in terms of our varied lived experiences, in terms of our happiness, in terms of our suffering and all that goes in between. We need the indispensable cooperative conditions. When we meet with them there is a ripening of the seed of this karmic latency within our mind.
It determines the identity of the experience in terms of its quality, whether it’s happiness or suffering and all that in between. So there is a linkage. Our actions are not simply, you know, we do not perform actions and then it’s finished. It’s done with. It’s as if nothing is carried over.
There’s no There’s not going to be any residual effect from what we do. In fact, there is. But it’s not a matter of someone standing over and writing down everything we’re doing and going to meet out judgment later. That’s not the case. There’s no moral judgment being made in this process.
It’s simply the outcome of discernible variables. The law of cause and effect fulfilling itself in equality internal to human beings, internal to living beings. Certain types of variables in terms of our actions will bring about certain specific results. Certain other types of actions will bring about certain other types of experiential results. That’s all that we’re saying.
There’s no moral judgment being made. There is a linkage between what we do and what we will later experience. That’s what karma essentially is saying. With regard to the means connecting a karma with its effect, and the karma is an action. Connecting a karma with its effect.
Consider this. In our conventional vocabulary, this is a quote by the Dalai Lama. In our conventional vocabulary we say, At an earlier time I did such and such. And it is the fact that the agent of that action is oneself. So, I’m an agent.
I actually, you know, I did something. I lifted a glass of water, ate a piece of chocolate cake. I got, you know, I got angry at someone. I shouted at them, whatever. From the viewpoint that oneself is a continuation of the mere I that perform the action, we say this.
But if we look into the matter, the action has ceased. So, you know, my shouting, that’s finished, that was yesterday perhaps. And the I of the present moment is now, is not the I of the previous moment. The I that was yesterday that did the shouting, it’s gone. The moment to moment is changing.
That’s the I of yesterday. It’s not it doesn’t exist today. The I of yesterday does not exist at the present time. It’s finished. Still, innately we have the thought and indeed say, I did that.
I shouted at somebody yesterday. And this accords with the fact one is therefore the owner of that action. In this way there is a connection between the action and oneself, and this is what connects forward to the future effects of that action, no matter how much time passes. Since the continuum of the mere I of the person who performed the action and thereby accumulated the karma keeps going, one is still the I who accumulated the karma. And since the action that was done earlier has to fructify, that is to bring about a result, there is no one else for whom it can fructify except for oneself.
Because the latency of an action is implanted on the continuum of the agent, that is to say, I shouted at someone, I was agent, I was the person who directed the activity of shouting. When this potency, when this latency, this potency is activated and brings about its effect, it is experienced by the being in the continuum. I’m in the continuum of the being of yesterday. Could trace myself from yesterday when I shouted, all the various events that I did, same thing with this person from moment to moment to moment up to having come to Buddha House and having walked in this room at seven thirty and now I’m sitting here and saying these words to you. There was an unbroken continuum of a physical and mental being replicating itself.
I’m in the same continuum of that being. You’re not in my continuum. These are separate continuum. Within that continuum is an I who shouted yesterday, left a potency, a latency within their mind of that individual. The continuum has continued up to the day.
There’s a connection with that I of yesterday. It’s not as if that I of yesterday was somehow unrelated to myself. There is an intimate connection of being in the same continuum. Therefore, I can legitimately say, you know, I did this action yesterday. That is to say the person within the same continuum.
And therefore, it is I who am going to experience the result of that past action. So, we’ve discussed. I’ll just talk a little bit more, okay? You know, a seed, like a flower seed, has a carrier of genetic information. It has certain information encoded within it.
And then upon the germination of the seed coming, you know, the seed comes in context with specific objective conditions, cooperative conditions, soil, water, warmth, whatever, then the seed germinates. Its potential is realized. And it begins to interact with its environment in a very predictable, specific manner. The process of growth is initiated. And then it produces a particular variety of plants.
So this is what we mean by potency. So potency has the idea of an organizing capacity. This capacity, an ability that when it’s activated, it initiates or begins to direct a production of a specific and predictable result. A seed has a potency. If it doesn’t have a potency, then it’s a sterile seed.
It’s not really a viable seed. So it’s able, when it’s activated, to direct a process of growth, bring about a predictable outcome. So, you know, for example, you know, to bring this in terms of the minds of ourselves, you walked into somebody’s house and they’re baking fresh bread and it really smells wonderful. And you know your mouth starts to water. It smells good.
There might, I don’t know for me for sure, would arise in your mind, a real desire to have a slice of that hot fresh bread with some butter and some jam on that. Take a huge bite out of something. A really strong desire would arise in my mind. But when I walked into that room, when I walked into that house, there was no desire manifesting in my mind. But when I came in contact with a specific condition, you know, this smell of fresh bread being baked, desire arose.
So, I can infer that even though when I walked in the house I didn’t have desire, there was a seed of desire. There was a potency for desire to develop within my mind, even though it wasn’t manifested. And that when it came in contact with a specific condition, then it manifested. It became desire. So, beginning to think of this in this way, that we have potencies within our mind, that when we meet specific conditions, certain states are manifested, certain experiences are undergone.
Our minds are not mere blank slates of pure consciousness, but they are conditioned by our histories of individual and collective mental, verbal and physical actions. All of our past actions, both collectively and as individuals. And these actions leave some kind of residue. They condition our minds in various ways. These conditioning factors are deposited within our mind stream.
So our minds are not just blank slate. We’re just not pure consciousnesses. Some kind of residue is left within our mind as a result of our various past actions. They’re predisposing latencies. They’re variables which when they come in contact with proper conditions cause various states of mind to rise, give directions, certain impulses to our mind, ways that we organize our environment, ways that we think about things, that we make sense of our world, that our mind’s these conditioning factors of our mind.
So this is what we mean by ripening of karma or maturing of karma. Just like the seed, when it comes in contact with the soil and water, it germinates. Likewise, when these conditioning factors, these latencies in our mind, when they meet with the proper conditions, they begin to express themselves in various ways, in terms of perception, in terms of attitudes, ways that we think, the directionality of our mind, our orientation, how we think, how we relate with our world, various experiences of happiness, feelings of suffering and discriminations, and the different emotions arise. This coming in contact of the latencies within our mind with the right cooperative condition, you know, it might be a person, it might be a thing, it might be a situation, it might be something internal to our physical environment. When these begin to express, when they begin to ripen, when potency is activated.
That’s what we mean by ripening or maturing of karma. So, karma predisposes us to experience and mentally, verbally physically respond in a specific manner in reaction to particular sets of objective conditions. Anyway, I think we’re working, getting an idea of what we mean by karma. Then we’re going to go into the various facets of karma, the various types of karma. You know, I think we have to, most basically we have to begin to question, you know, what are the deeper causes of my happiness and suffering?
From where are they coming from? Why is it that some people go through life, like this person with Velcro, things are made difficult? The same situation experienced by someone who has a smooth mind. It’s as if there was no problem whatsoever. That we aren’t just pure, that our minds aren’t just blank slates, that they do have conditioning factors and these conditioning factors determine our experiences.
Not only our attitudes but the quality of our actual feelings of happiness and suffering. The two people can go through the can meet with the same conditions and experience it in radically different ways. And why is that? Well, it’s because of their upbringing. That’s exactly right.
Their ways of thinking, ways of these, the karmic imprints which have been left upon their consciousness, their conditioning. What Buddhism would simply this simple idea to involve all of our various actions, mental, physical and verbal, and not only to this life but also to past lives. And beginning to, once we begin to, you know, the process of intervention begins with diagnosis. Once we begin, we actually can develop a handle on what we are going to experience. Once we begin to see the mechanism which is determining the quality of our felt experiences, then we can begin to make adjustments.
We can to avoid creating those types of activities, those types of karma which are going to cause us suffering, and we can begin to constantly adopt those types of activities which are going to bring about desirable results for ourselves, we can actually begin to constantly create the type of experience that we would wish for ourselves. Otherwise, simply a rather haphazard way of going about it. So this is what we’re going to be looking in terms of karma. Okay? I think we better stop there.
We’ll dedicate the creative potential. So we’ve created some kind of karma together, haven’t we? If motivation was such and was positive, then for sure we’ve created some positive karma together. That positive karma will bring about some type of experience of happiness. Will support our well-being in some way.
It will support our virtuous goals, however they might be. And we can dedicate that positive energy, that potency in very specific manners. We’ll talk more about that in the next few weeks. Oh by the way, there was a nasty rumor that there would be no talk next Wednesday. There will be a talk next Wednesday, okay?
So there will be a class next Wednesday. But it will be the last for until after Sydney, after the Kālacakra. But there will be a class next Wednesday. So we’ll dedicate. In the land enriched 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 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 and more. Thank you. So, again, if you’d like to get a cup of tea and stay for the discussion.
Otherwise, have a good week.