Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of a traveler handed the wrong city map — Brisbane when you need Sydney — Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 76-minute talk arguing that self-improvement fails when the underlying worldview is flawed. The two core dysfunctional maps are ignorance and self-centeredness; the antidote is the leap off the diving board toward other-centeredness and the awakened heart. He then turns to karma — why it empowers rather than condemns, and how emptiness and karma support each other — illustrated by a live experiment with the young-woman/old-woman optical illusion and by the image of a glass of water seen as nectar, pus, or molten lead by beings at different levels of existence. He closes with karma’s four effects: ripening (realm of rebirth), experientially similar (generosity brings wealth), functionally similar (habit), and governing (environment).
File metadata (for organising)
File: 32 HMA 1996 09 11.mp3
UUID: d31c9234-7bb3-42ca-ba07-7b14d16a348e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-09-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 75.8 minutes
Words: ~9,267
So we begin as we always do in terms of adjusting our motivation, reorientating ourselves, redirecting ourselves perhaps, getting back in touch with certain principles or guidelines that we’d very much like to see our lives lived out of, to see as an expression of what we stand for, who it is we are. But oftentimes, for various reasons, one reason or another, we lose sight of or get out of touch with, and our life goes by. You know, last week I began to emphasize the fact of developing as our motivation, the why we do what we do, the why behind our listening, various practices, our meditation. And maybe if we can extend it that far, the why we do all our various activities throughout the day, to one of basically compassionate activity as an expression of our caring for others. Through the creative potential of my practicing generosity and the other perfections, my ethics, effort, concentration, wisdom, may I achieve the state of the Buddha for the sake of all living beings?
And I might become a tremendously healthy person for the sake of all others. You know, I think Buddhism doesn’t offer us a quick fix. I think that’s pretty safe to say. Or if it does, I missed the boat somewhere. I think it’s working at a very deep level.
Many of the self improvement methods, growth methods which have been popular for the last maybe twenty, twenty five years offer some way to behave, to change our behavior or perhaps our attitudes. Sometimes they produce a temporary change, some kind of effect, desirable effect. But the basic dysfunctional patterns of our lives remain very much unchanged because they’re operating from a very deeper level than we normally are able to access or even consider. You know, the very maps that we use to navigate the terrain of our lives, the way that we navigate, operate in the course of our lives. You know, it is at this level that Buddhism is seeking to bring about a fundamental change in the nature of who we are, our worldview, paradigms which we out of which we our attitudes and our behaviors develop.
If, you know, if we were traveling, say, maybe we’re going to Sydney next week and we wanted to get to a particular street, it would be quite useful to have a city map to get there. But if someone, rather than giving us the map of Sydney, gave us the map of Brisbane, we’d have a terribly difficult time getting to where it is we wanted to go. So we might think, I’ll change my behavior. I’ll just be more little more diligent. I’ll make more effort in trying to get to where I’m going.
The best we could hope for is to get to the wrong place faster. And that’s all we could ever hope for in such a situation. Or we could say, Well, I could change my attitude, you know, about going down the wrong streets all the time. And we could get to the place where maybe, well, we accept the fact that we’re lost and maybe it’s okay. We might develop a rather blase attitude, a rather sophisticated attitude of just hanging out and chilling out, acceptance and having no expectations and going with the flow, whatever.
But the bottom line is we don’t get we want to go. So, at a certain point, it’s neither our behavior which is necessary to work with, for sure, no doubt. But it’s neither our attitude, but it’s necessary to work with at some level, for sure. It is the very basic maps that we’re operating with, the very guidelines out of which our attitudes and behaviors arise out of. So, you know, in Buddhism that’s why it’s so hard, I think.
We’re trying to change these most basic fundamental blueprints out of which we understand what it means to be a human being, what it means to what the good life is about, how we make sense of our world. And two of those most dysfunctional maps that we’re operating with are those of ignorance and self centeredness. Ignorance misconceiving the very nature of the world about us and the nature of the I, most fundamental. Everything that we do, everything that we conceive of and operate in the world is based upon that I am doing this. It’s based with the total conception of the I as the agent of these various actions.
And there’s a misconception with respect to that agent. And therefore, in some way or another, all our various attitudes and behaviors which arise out of that fundamentally flawed map are inexact or inaccurate, don’t get us quite to where we want to get to. Somehow there’s a dissatisfaction. There’s always a level of disappointment, frustration, the wheel that grinds on its axle. Dukkha, suffering.
But also in terms of this dysfunctional predilection of self centeredness. You know, evaluating, assessing, responding to, conceiving of the world and everything within it and other people, various events and situations of what’s in it for me, how does it affect me, evaluate it in terms of my purposes, my agendas, my goals. This way of being in the world is another fundamental map that we’re working with. And these fundamental maps need a lot of working through. And that’s why in this process of reorientation, this redirecting ourselves, not only do we have to work with developing more skillful behaviors in terms of ethics and the various types of forms of ethics, beginning to abandon unskillful types of actions and beginning to involve ourselves in skillful actions, but also in terms of benefiting others as a matter of ethics.
Not only do we have to change our attitudes, but we have to change the very fundamental guidelines or the are maps, our worldview, which are dysfunctional. And we have to keep coming back to that again and again and again. I think I began last week I began to read a paragraph of quotation, but somehow I got off the track. No surprises. Know, talking about awakening our hearts, it’s not just it’s a paradigm shift that we have to constantly involve ourselves in.
That’s not something which is natural to ourselves because our present maps, which are the nature of self centeredness, aren’t in accordance with what we’re trying to do. They aren’t getting us to where we want to get to. So it sounds a bit artificial. It sounds a bit foreign to us. It feels incongruous to our present disposition and how we go about getting the good life for ourselves, how we go about trying to find happiness in our life.
It seems perhaps unnatural. Many of the perhaps some of the ideas they’re working with. But perhaps we have to begin to question, Well, does my way work? Are my maps bringing me what I want? And beginning to be aware that we are operating from the basis of certain maps and our worldview.
The very fact that we experience suffering should tell us is a message about the nature of our underlying belief system. That what we experience is very much a reflection of who we are. That if we experience the world pathologically, that is a somehow dysfunctional, somehow unhealthy or in negative ways, you know, it as reflection of our basic maps that we’re using to navigate. Our approach to life is somehow flawed. What we see is very much a reflection of ourselves.
And so we perhaps have to call and become begin to become aware of and acknowledge the fact that we’re operating from a worldview, that our minds simply aren’t if we you know, perhaps we never considered it at all. But the fact that our minds are conditioned, that that we are operating from a belief system, from various ideas, that the ideas are the eyes out of which we see the world, and that many of our ideas and presumptions and these fundamental maps that we use are flawed. And one of these is self centeredness as a method to get to happiness that we want and be rid of the suffering that we don’t want. Isn’t working for ourselves and becoming aware of how it is operating our lives and is inhibiting ourselves from getting that input indeed from what it is they want. And to continually reorientate ourselves.
You know, this is what we do week after week after week in terms of first developing some idea of what possible alternative types of refuges in our lives, what might actually bring about what it is that we’re looking for, and seeing that our present refuges aren’t working for ourselves, but then trying to transform the very reason that we’re involved in this. If we’re still going to be if our reason for involving ourselves are misconceived, if we are flawed in some way, then we’re never quite going to arrive at where we want to get to. We’ll simply have a better attitude about not getting there, or we’ll get to the wrong place faster. Faster. Buddhism is saying, Let’s get to the right place as quickly as possible and begin to work at all the various levels, not only our behavior and attitude but fundamental.
And of these most fundamental are ignorance and self centered. And so, again and again, trying to bring into question the reason why we’re involved so that it doesn’t become part of the problem. You know, all the various solutions that we come up with ultimately are problematic because they involve these dysfunctional maps in one way or another. In order to overcome selfishness, it’s necessary to become daring. It is as though you were dressed in your swimsuit standing on the diving board with a pool in front of you and you ask yourself, Now what?
The obvious answer is to jump. That is daring. You might wonder if you will sink or hurt yourself if you jump. We are attracted to our cocoons and our selfishness, and we are afraid of selflessness and stepping beyond ourselves. So in order to overcome our hesitation about giving up our privacy, in order to commit ourselves to others, welfare, some kind of leap is necessary.
So this leap is the awakened heart. And just, you know, most basically that I have to improve myself and develop in my skills and my ability so I can be of greater benefit to others. The direction is very much in terms of other centeredness and making continual leaps. You know, even if they’re only continuous little leaps over the course of our everyday life, you know, so that we’re constantly undermining this dysfunctional pattern of self centeredness. So that we’re constantly building up the habit of other centeredness, the motivation behind why we do what we do.
Though growth is essentially an individual task, it occurs as an authentic response, not only to our own needs, which are limited and exclusive, leading only to a partial and some kind of narrow growth, but in response to others’ needs, which are unlimited, which are universal. So we can talk about all the various growth methods, means of self improvement. But at some time or other, we have to just simply become a good human being. You know, if you want to I was reading an article on management techniques. And you can go through all of the training and communication skills, perhaps, and power strategies.
But at some level you just have to become a trustworthy person. Ultimately, people are never going to If there’s an incongruity between who you are as a person and the various techniques that you’ve built up, it becomes obvious. And over time, perhaps in the short term, You can have some kind of effect in terms of what you want, but not in the long run. Have to work at a very Who we are as a person. I don’t know if it’s Emerson or it’s attributed to a Zen master.
Zen student came before the Zen master and the Zen master said, Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. You’re very careful. And this is also true in some of the areas of psychotherapy where they and it is all every day or every week almost literally there’s a new technique of psychotherapy coming on the market. And they’re all trying to work on the method to cure our various psychological ills in one way or another. But there have been surveys made that the effectiveness of a therapist does not correlate positively with the type of therapy.
Whether it’s Jungian or Freudian or Gestalt or behaviorism or cognitive therapy, that there’s no correlation between the effectiveness of the therapist and the type of therapy that they may practice. But there is a correlation between the therapist himself or herself and their effectiveness, who they are as a person. What is the nature of our character? What kinds of paradigms are we operating out of? What are the maps?
Maps? What are our most basic beliefs about the world and how to be with people? And these are the levels that I think that we’re working on. Not just quick fixes. Not just to make ourselves feel good.
Not communication skills in order to help us to be able to manipulate people a little bit better in order to get what we want, but just simply how to be a better person. And I think then we get along better in life. And so, other centeredness is the most fundamental way to be a better person and how to get that much better in life. I said there are basic dysfunctional patterns, dysfunctional maps that we’re operating under the control we’re making use of, and this ignorance and self centeredness. I think the overcoming of ignorance, the development of the wisdom, understanding, emptiness is quite necessary.
There’s no question about that. But that’s I think we have to look at this in a very long term perspective. It’s going to take a great deal of effort and a great deal of time in working through the layers of misconceptions that we have so that we actually begin to this wisdom actually our understanding begins to actually act as an antidote to ignorance. Ignorance actually begins to lessen in strength. It no longer comes up as often.
When it does come up, it does not remain as long. Our wisdom is actually developing, beginning to grow, and beginning to overshadow the force of ignorance in our lives in terms of the nature of reality. A very, I think, a long term project from what I see of Buddhism. But something that we can immediately put into effect is simply becoming a kinder person. I think altruism is the most immediate method for the quality of life that we would want for ourselves, open to ourselves as ordinary human beings.
Being a little kinder, little more sensitive and caring, and having that as the motivation as best we can again and again as the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing. I think we will be that much happier. Our life will run that much smoother. We achieve that much more of our goals. And I think the quality of our relationships will be that much improved, and the good life will be that much achieved in proportion to how much we’re able to actually feel that and put it into practice.
Simply becoming sensitive and caring and beginning about others’ problems and others’ needs and beginning to, perhaps in a healthy and appropriate manner, beginning to set aside our agendas for the needs of others, to begin to make this type of paradigm shift in very small ways over the course of our everyday life in order to actually begin to reform these maps. So, you know, this is what we do or we try to do here readjusting our motivation, working at one of the most fundamental maps, which isn’t working for ourselves. And this is something that each of us has to do within our own hearts all the time, keep reminding ourselves to keep making these leaps. You know, if you’re on the diving board, go jump. Do something which perhaps doesn’t quite feel natural for yourself at the time, but it only feels natural because it isn’t it isn’t congruous with the the map of self centeredness.
That’s the only reason. It feels foreign at present. But there will come a time when it become your nature. It will feel the most comfortable way to be in this world. So, yeah.
Anyway, think it’s worth bringing up and considering in the context of our discussions together, but even more so in finding the being mindful of it in some small way. And in the course of your everyday life, when there are opportunities to make these, when you’re on the diving board, and that’s when it’s time to jump and make these little leaps, to give up our hesitation, to give up our cocoons in small ways from time to time and commit ourselves in small ways from time to time to others’ welfare. So, in this process, in this long term process, this long view, this working through, down to the most fundamental levels of who we are as a being, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. This is the final transformation of who we will ultimately be. This becomes a central concern to our life and creating the space and putting forth the energy.
Know, taking that first step on a journey of a thousand miles and taking them one at a time, but taking them nevertheless. And, you know, making use of an actual method, you know, where we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There’s something there are some profound teachings and and means available to ourselves that we can pick up and and use for ourselves in changing our mind. The Dharma. And then through this process, you know, and giving assistance of others, you know, interacting with others in a productive manners.
And you’re using each other in terms of as models, as goal, as as inspirations, as teachers and examples, as whatever, you know, we have to give and making use of that and giving whatever is that each of us has to give in the process. So, you know, it’s like creating a social context for this process to occur to keep reminding myself and not to create the environment where these dysfunctional patterns aren’t simply being reinforced, where we don’t exalt them, we don’t empower. But on the contrary, we encourage and exemplify perhaps, and maybe in some small way inspire others to choose alternatives, other possibilities, make other choices. And then again and again, trying to raise the level of our motivation. Again, you know, just to so it doesn’t become so it acts as an ultimate solution to our problems, whatever involved we’re involved in.
It’s really working at a very fundamental level, that we’re going to do it for an ever widening circle of others. So we can do that in any situation at any time in any context. And here we do it in terms of why we’re going to meditate or why we’re going to be here together in this way. You know, my might it be not just for myself, but might it be such that it can it can make me that much of a better person, such that I can be of that much more benefit to others. And then it acts as an antidote to our problems.
It it can it can only be of help To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha 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 spiritual community, I go for refuge until awakening. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening.
Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, mind, 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 has ended and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening.
Like to stand up for a minute and we’ll okay. So, you know, we’ve been in terms of, again, development of love and compassion as motivating force. You know, we’ve been working with various individuals. I think maybe it’s useful to go back a little bit, to backtrack. I think it might be useful to focus upon ourselves.
So taking yourself as the object of your development of love and compassion and making this kind of a commitment to yourself to help yourself. So, using that as our focus. And then we’ll practice the nine round breathing meditation then ness of breathing. And then we’ll do a loving kindness meditation, I’ll lead you through. Okay?
So take a firm, comfortable posture. Activity. Work, mental, verbal, physical. The karma is what shapes ourselves. In a way, we are our karma.
Our lives are our karma. The real significance of karma is that we are responsible. Message of karma. We might not like to hear that or quite be able to feel the full significance of what that might mean, that we, in fact, are not victims. All religions have to deal with the problem of suffering in some form or another.
Why is there suffering in the world? Not even religions, just in general. It’s whether secular or nonsecular. It’s something which is to be tried to be understood and to be worked with in some fashion or another, at some level or another. You know, either, you know, this maybe suffering is haphazard.
It is by chance. It just happens. Or it’s our suffering is imposed upon ourselves by external forces, by our other people, other nations, maybe by an all powerful God. In any of those cases, we have control little control over whether we suffer or not. It’s not as if they were in our hands.
Buddhism is saying that, in fact, it is in our control, that ultimately we, as the agent of our actions, are responsible for not only our suffering, but also our happiness. That the bottom line is ourselves. There’s nothing outside of ourselves to blame. But this is meant to empower ourselves, that we can begin to intervene in the process which is at work in a skillful fashion and thereby take control over the quality of our lives and achieve the happiness that we want and to eliminate the suffering that we don’t want. And it is in our hands.
That’s the significance of the import of karma. It’s empowering. It gives us a means, a handle on the problem of suffering and happiness in our life. You know, what we have done what we are now is what we have done. What we do now is what we’re going to become.
It opens up the possibility of shaping our future. So, you know, we began to talk about what we mean by karma as our various actions, but also the causal linkage between the action and the eventual experience or the effect of those actions. So, you know, there’s the general explanation of cause and effect in nature. And then there is that specific area of the law of cause and effect in terms of the felt experience, in terms of that which is internal to the continuum of living beings. That is karma.
karma has actions and their effects. So, it’s simply a subcategory of a larger explanation of the law of cause and effect, that all effects arise dependent upon certain causes, that it is not a haphazard universe, but it is not chaotic, but it runs according to certain laws. We may not be able to discern those laws at present, but still nevertheless they operate and begin to align ourselves in order to achieve more appropriate results, types of results that we would want for ourselves. So there are both the actions that we create and these actions implant latencies within our mind. And these are the causal linkages which will, when you meet with the appropriate conditions, will ripen into some sort of experience, some type of result internal to ourselves.
In application, karma is classified as either skillful or unskillful. And these are the terms that I use. I think that you can use the word virtuous or non virtuous, or positive and negative. And when we meet with a particular object, a particular condition, we come in contact and that object, whether it’s a person, a situation, or a thing, is perceived as attractive. And in association with it, we experience pleasure.
We react positively. That’s what we mean by a skillful action. That’s all. Nothing more than none. When we meet with a particular condition, a person, a situation, a thing or some other, due to the latencies within our mind ripening, that the contact with that object is interpreted as attractive, agreeable.
There’s a felt experience of perceived as disagreeable or unattractive. Then there’s a felt experience of painfulness associated with that contact, which reacted to in a negative fashion. Therefore, we say that the action which precipitated that way of experiencing that object, that situation, was unskillful action. That’s all we mean by skillful and unskillful action. There’s no moral judgment being made.
The quality of the action is determined by the quality of the result, whether painful or pleasurable. Buddhism does not talk in terms of right and wrong, but uses the different concept of skillfulness and unskillfulness, which are very definitely different, not synonymous with the former concepts. Skillfulness is an ethical, psychological concept. Actions are seen as skillful if they are the expressions of or conducive to skillful mental states by compassion, tranquility, joyfulness, and clarity. They are unskillful if they are expressions of greed, hatred, and delusion.
Skillful actions are those which are conducive to human development, and particularly to the development of Samādhi, which is meditative concentration, and Prajñā, which is wisdom. It is axiomatic in Buddhism that skillfulness is beneficial to both self and others, whilst unskillfulness brings suffering eventually to both. So, you know, the experience of pleasurable or painful feelings is not an automatic byproduct of coming in contact with a particular object as type of object or condition, as if the object, whatever it might be, a person, a situation, a thing, had an intrinsic nature from its own side which was agreeable or attractive, that they had an inherently agreeable or disagreeable nature of themselves. When we come to the awakened mind, we’re going to discuss this at great length, ad nauseam, that phenomena are merely imputed by terms and conceptuality. Phenomena are merely imputed by terms and conceptuality.
So the implication of that is, in terms of the discussion of karma, is it is our karma which are the predisposing latencies within our minds which have the capacity to influence the way in which we conceive and therefore experience objects, things, people. Is how An understanding of emptiness supports an understanding of karma. Understanding of karma supports an understanding of emptiness. Basic to Buddhism is the conception that knowing is an organizing into the known. Knowing is an organizing into the known.
What we come to know is very much dependent upon our participation, the labeling process, our interpretation, how we are conceiving of the object. What is it that determines this process, whether we label this object as agreeable or disagreeable, attractive or unattractive? There is nothing inherently attractive or agreeable or unattractive or disagreeable about the object. Nothing inherently exists. Nothing exists from its own side.
It is very much dependent upon the mind labeling it as such. What determines why we label something as agreeable or disagreeable? It is our karma. So, you can see how karma fits into how they support one another. Things are empty of inherent existence, but they exist.
And the way they exist is determined by terms and concepts, the way that we think of them. And what is it that determines how we think of them? Our karma, our past actions, the latencies within our mind. When our reaction to an object tends toward prolonging and repeating contact in the future, that’s the nature. We come in contact with an object, a glass of liquid.
And the nature of the contact is that I want to prolong that contact, that I want to repeat contact in the future, that the object is perceived in a very positive fashion. The object is labeled as attractive. That’s something that has a pleasurable appearance about is then experienced, various feelings arise, in dependence upon contact. In this case, in association with an attractive object, we experience pleasure. And we react in a positive manner.
So if the nature of our contact is such that we want to break off contact, we don’t want to meet that object again, The object is labeled, is conceived of, is designated as being disagreeable, unattractive. We experience, we associate with that object painful feelings. It is perceived in a negative fashion. This whole process is operating under the control of karma, the latencies within our mind, the conditioning factors, why we perceive the way we do. So, an indispensable cause for the experience of pleasurable and painful feelings are the karmic latencies within our mind.
You know, usually we see the basis for our feelings outside. You know, this piece of chocolate cake is somehow inherently pleasurable. But we know that is not the case, even when we begin to analyze the situation, even superficially. But normally don’t analyze them this way. Somehow, due to association of pleasurable feelings with this object, we begin to think of the object as having, by its very nature, the ability, the capacity to bring us pleasure.
But here it is being said that the the piece of chocolate cake, is merely the cooperative condition. By coming in contact with a cooperative condition, it ripens a predisposition, a latency within the mind, which causes us to perceive of that object in an attractive way. We have a positive contact with it and we experience pleasurable feelings in association with it. That the substantial cause to our feelings are within the mind itself. That the things and the people and the situations about us are merely the cooperative conditions.
And we talked about this when we were discussing rebirth. Now, thought I’ve never done this before, but I’d like to try a demonstration. How what we perceive is dependent upon our previous experience, that our perceptions are not devoid of factors of our conditioning within our mind, what we bring to the situation. That is not that the objects do not objectively exist out there, but are very much dependent upon our preconceptions, labeling process, the conditioning factors within our own mind. So, I just want to try a demonstration.
I’ve never done this before. Maybe it won’t work, okay? How past conditioning affects our perception. Now, what we’re going to do, we’re going to divide the room in half. The upper half and the lower half.
I’m joking. Just, you know, maybe draw a line somewhere down the middle. You’re either on you’re either on my right side or my left side, whichever you feel like. You don’t have to actually do it. You don’t have to physically move.
Just think of yourself in that. And then okay. The the the right half of the room, I’m I’m gonna show a picture to the left half. So while I’m showing it to the picture to the left half, I ask the right half to close their eyes. Then I’m gonna show a picture to the right half, and while I’m showing the picture to the right half, I ask the left half rather than to close their eyes.
Okay? And you may be aware you probably have seen this picture before. You know, just be open to what’s being trying to be gotten at here. And let’s kind of go along with it, okay? Okay.
So, in the right half, just close your eye for a moment, okay? Okay. Now I’m gonna show the left half. Just show you a picture. Okay?
We won’t make any comments about it for the moment. Okay. It’s not so big, but can you see it okay? Okay. Okay.
Now, if the left half will close their eyes and the right half, will you look at this picture? Okay? Again, we won’t make any particular comment about it. Let’s take a look at it. Okay.
Now you can all look. Okay? Now I’m going to show you together a picture. Okay? And you’ve seen this picture before.
I don’t know. No. I I’m curious. So how many of you see a young woman? Okay.
How many of you see an old woman? Okay. How many of you see an attractive woman? How many of you see an ugly woman? Okay.
One person Okay. Somebody sees a young woman. Okay? Okay. Somebody sees an old woman.
Okay. Why And then why is Are you looking Are you You’re seeing the same object. Why is it that one you’re why is it that one of you is seeing a young woman? Why why is another seeing an old woman? I mean, there’s only one object here, isn’t there?
It’s going to be seen. You’re doing the scene. But you you see an old woman? Me. Yes.
Yeah. Why do you see an old woman? It’s the the basic question. Creating a shin of a big thousand. How how can how in the world can you see a young woman when it’s obvious it’s an old I don’t so, you know, I’ll show you what I showed the others.
I mean, you probably know. So here, I showed the I think the right half with more of a picture which is similar to an older woman, I think. Would you agree with that? Yeah. So And then the left half saw picture of a woman who was young woman.
Okay? So, you know, you have some experience. And how would this affect you in what you, in fact, saw here? And, you know, there are two possibilities, aren’t there? There’s if you take this to be a nose, big nose, and this to be a mouth.
Can you see the old woman? Yeah. This is a mouth here, big, big nose. But there’s another possibility, isn’t there? This could be a choker, a necklace.
This is her chin. Chin here. Nose here. Ear. So, I mean, we would agree.
We would all agree that there’s black marks on white paper. So it’s like we’re pretty much in agreement of the objective fact. But how we interpret those facts is going to be very much dependent upon our past experiences, or it’s supposed to be. the past experiences was whether which of these two you saw. So just check that our minds are conditioned by what we expect to see, our past experiences, the conditioning factors that have been implanted within our mind.
If we take this in a more traditional Buddhist example, like a glass of fluid, that seemingly a human being would perceive, due to the way that they interpret, due to their karmic latencies in their mind, would perceive this glass of fluid as a glass of water. That they would experience it as refreshing. But, you know, if somebody had rabies, a hydrophobia, they would have a great dread around it. But in general, a human being would see it as a glass of water and as very refreshing. A celestial being would see it as a glass of nectar and experience it as great bliss.
A A hungry ghost would perceive with the relatively same object as a glass of pus and blood and would experience it as repulsive. A hell being would perceive it as molten lead and would experience it as tremendously painful. A mosquito would see it as a place to lay its eggs. A fish would see it as a complete environment in which to live. So, you know, there are all these diverse ways of perceiving what is more or less the same object.
And what is the variable? Why is it that there are these variety of ways of perceiving? The diversity in ways of perceiving and experiencing something more or less the same object. This glass of fluid. This is attributed to the diversity of karmic predispositions, the karmic latencies within these various beings’ minds.
You know, almost all of us, due to the influence of our cultural condition, which is our collective karma or our social karma. We would tend to conceive of a long white tube of paper stuffed with dry tobacco as something to be placed in the mouth and to be set on fire. That would come to mind. We would label it in that fashion. There are people in other cultures who would not share that same karma.
And it would never occur to them that the function of that long white tube was to be placed in the mouth and set on fire. It would seem absurd to them. So some people tend to conceive of the inhalation of the toxic fumes given off by these white tubes as pleasurable. Some people tend to conceive of the inhalation of those toxic fumes of smoke as being obnoxious. So this is their individual karma.
So if it were the inherent nature of an object to be pleasurable or painful, then any valid experience of that object would necessarily have to be one or the other. That if we were to experience it in any way in a valid manner, it would have to be either pleasurable or painful. But it’s not the case, is it? That there’s no inherent desirability, there’s no inherent pleasurability or painfulness about the object. It is in our interpretation of it and how we label it and how we conceive of it and the feelings associated with that process.
So, if an object such as a cigarette were inherently pleasurable or painful, if that were in its very nature, if it in itself were to determine of how we are to experience it, then any valid experience would have to be exactly in accordance with it. There would be unanimity in how everybody would either be smoking or we would have no smokers at all. So, phenomena are empty of any inherent properties whatsoever, whether it be their attractive properties or their unattractive properties, even the very fact of their existence. Nothing whatsoever exists purely from its own side, completely, you know, from the side of the object. Everything is empty of such a way of existing.
If there’s no such thing as an inherently attractive or unattractive object, then what is it that determines our actual felt experience in relationship to the various objects that we come in contact with? It is the karmic latencies within our own mind. How do we account for them? We account for them in terms of some conditioning factor. And this conditioning factor is brought about how?
By means of our previous actions in terms of how we think, how we behaved, both verbally and physically in the past. You know, we’re beginning to find some mechanism for the explanation of suffering and happiness in the world. Not only that, for the very nature of the reality in which we participate. The idea of the various realms of levels of existence become more and more plausible. As we begin to see them not as separately existing out there independent of our own minds, see how it is a participatory universe and we are involved in its co creation, and that there can be levels of reality coextensive with one another that we aren’t able to perceive simply because we don’t label that particular reality.
We don’t have the metaphors, we don’t have the images within our mind because we don’t have the common latencies which are necessary to be activated in order to organize our reality along in those ways. You know, this idea that knowing is an organizing into the known. And the rules by means by which we organize are dependent upon our karma, the conditioning factors within our own mind. So, you know, these various possible ways of conceiving a glass of fluid, we can begin to our mind can begin to see the possibility of other realms of existence. You know, it’s not a notion or a childish notion to think of hell realms, where everything is seen as threatening, as everything is experienced as tremendously painful.
Why can’t that realm why can’t there be that way of interpreting our reality? Why can’t we have those rules which organize our experience along those ways just as much as we have our present rules by which we organize our present reality in terms of fairly balanced out slight sufferings and slight happiness that we experience in the human realm and the and the way it’s organized. And anything that we can imagine can be because nothing exists from its own side objectively, inherently. The mind is shaping it, and that which is determining how it’s shaped are the karmic predispositions in our own mind. So, you know, we can talk about karma from the point of view of cause, which is very much what we’re talking about, and we’re going to go into this more in the future.
But also in terms of its effect. karma, in terms of effect, is discussed from four points of view. There are four types of effects of karma. There’s the ripening effect. So we’re talking about some type of conditioning factor, some residue which is left in the mind, having thought in a particular fashion, having acted in a particular fashion.
The action of intention and intended actions. The way that we think, what we think about, the intentional quality of our actions, simply doesn’t pass through the mind without leaving a trace. That there’s some tracks left behind. Having thought in this way has conditioned the mind in a very specific manner. It’s not as if thoughts can pass through our mind as if through some medium like a bird flying through the space.
And the atmosphere just closes up and it’s as if nothing ever passed through that area. There’s no tracks left behind. But, in fact, all of our various thoughts, our motivations, our intentions are leaving some sort of residues. They’re conditioning the mind. We know this, we use this idea every day in terms of what we mean by habits.
Thinking in one way will facilitate its being thought of again in a stronger, more with increased force. The idea that doing something once facilitates doing it again. It becomes easier the second time, becomes easier the third time, more easier the fourth time. So there’s some kind of residual effect left in the mind. There’s some kind of tracks left which have certain effects, have certain results.
There are four types of effects. There’s the ripening effect. There’s the effect which is experientially similar to the cause. The effect which is experientially similar to the cause. There’s the effect which is functionally similar to the cause.
Functionally similar to the cause. And finally, the governing effect. So, there are these predispositions, latencies, tendencies, these tracks which have been left in our infused or left upon our consciousness. And they’re going to have certain effects. What types of effects?
They’re classified in terms of these four types. So, the ripening effect. The overall level of reality that we experience, the projected realm that we come to know, that we’re born into. It’s interesting. There’s this notion like we’re like an explorer, you know, exploring the deepest, darkest Africa, and we discover something that’s never been seen before.
And so we have that sense like we’re born into something which preexists to ourselves. And we just it sort of is out there, and we come to know it. It sort of forces itself upon ourselves rather than having the understanding that we are born into a particular collective reality in which we are participating in its evolvement, in existence. And that we don’t we are we this world as we know it didn’t exist, didn’t preexist to our being born into it. Well, existence is defined that which is that which is known by a valid cognition.
So it’s Buddhism is always coming from the notion of of mind. But but it’s not to say that machines cannot be extend the capacity of mind in certain areas, like with a microscope. What was unknowable to eye consciousness can be made known to our selves, like looking into seeing microorganisms, for example. It only comes machine only extends the capacity machines extend the capacity of mind to come to know that existence ultimately comes down to the mind knowing. So, yeah.
So, the ripening effect. The overall realm that we come to know, that we’re born into more or less. This is an effect of what we call propelling karma. Propelling karma. This is you know, we talked about death and rebirth at moment of our death.
And we’re going to I’ll talk about this more in the future when we go through the twelve links of dependent origination that propelling karma is activated. But it’s called propelling karma because it actually throws us into another existence. It throws us into an overall way of perceiving the realm of existence in which we’re born. Know, most simply, it throws us into a rebirth. But what is it?
It an overall pattern of perception of our environment, of the world that we come to know. We share in this. If we didn’t we have very similar propelling karmas that have caused us to have a shared reality. But we both share more or less the same world. But we experience it individually.
We have a shared reality which is due to our similarity of propelling karma, which by means of which we took we birth in the human realm. But within this human realm there are what are called completing karma by means of which we come to know the specifics for ourselves as individuals, the effects of that particular realm, you know, how we fill out the life in that realm, the qualities, the type of world which we perceive out there is determined by our completing karma. So all of our various feelings and happinesses we experience individually within this overall realm of human existence. For example, in terms of ripening karma, ripening effect, talking about the effects, the ripening effect of the action of killing is rebirth in a hell realm as a hell being with an attitude of great fear, great paranoia, and the experience of excruciating physical pain. And a body which is able to sustain that pain.
A human body could not sustain the type of pain which the the hell being, is able to undergo. Our body would disintegrate immediately. Who we are, what we are, and even our materiality, is appropriate to the condition in which we find ourselves in. It’s like a statement about what we’ve done in the past, our human body. It has certain capacities and able to it’s appropriate to our conditions and living in the human realm and having certain experiences, being predisposed to undergoing certain other experiences in terms of physical pleasure, physical pain, etcetera.
So everything fits together. So the ripening effect. Then the second was the effect experientially similar to the cause. The effect experientially similar to the cause. So this is simply the formulation of the teaching as you sow shall you reap.
That you get very much what you put out. That is, you experience the effect similar to the cause that you created. So the effect which is experientially similar to the cause. So this characteristic of karma points out that all of our very specific experiences, whether we have wealth, whether we have poverty, whether we have beauty, whether we have ugliness, whether we have short life or a long life, whether we have loving friends or hateful friends, are all the results of specific causes similar in type to themselves. In other words, like begets like.
For example, experientially, the action of generosity will bring about the effect of wealth. On the other hand, miserliness will bring about poverty as a result. You know, it is. Patience will bring about a beautiful form. Intolerance will bring about a repulsive form.
Intolerance will bring about a repulsive form. It is thereby. Taking life will cause us to have a short life. Saving life will cause us to act as a cause, as a karmic imprints a karmic predisposition such that we will have a long life. Through the actions of caring and loving others, we ourselves will be cared for and loved by others. So, there’s a similarity between the cause and the effect, experientially.
And the third type of effect is the effect functionally, similar to the cause, functionally. So this says the resultant tendency to repeat past actions. There’s a tendency to commit the same action again, habit. Our predisposition to perceive and relate and to act in similar manners again and again and again, habitual ways that we’ve done before. Committing an action once facilitates its repetition, committing it again.
So it’s functionally similar to its cause, the predisposition to repeat the same types of action. That is, for example, having enjoyed killing in the past, then you would have a tendency or predisposition, you would have an inclination to maybe join the army or become a butcher, to take up some type of livelihood where you would be able to express this type of function, this type of behavior again. You would enjoy hunting. You would you have very little regard for life. So this is the effect functionally similar to the cause.
Then the fourth type of effect is the governing effect. So this is you know, ripening effect was the overall realm in which we find ourselves. The governing effect, and sometimes it’s called the environmental effect, is the resultant immediate surroundings and resources that you have at your disposal. The governing effect of killing, for example, is the ripening effect is being reborn in hell. Either that force can be ameliorated or that one can eventually be reborn in the human realm.
But as a subsidiary effect of the action of killing in terms of the governing effect, that one would be born in a barren place, a sterile environment, a place where life forms found difficulty in growing and surviving. That the food that you had would lack nutritional value, that medicine would be impotent, it wouldn’t have much effect on your illnesses. So these would all be types of governing effects. Anyway, I think in the future we’re going to continue to go into karma more. I guess the main thing is, as has been mentioned, that because things are empty, that is to say, they don’t have inherently desirable or undesirable qualities, they have no inherent qualities whatsoever, That the mind is participating the organizing into the known, into the reality that we come to know, and all the various qualities that we attribute to that reality, to the things about us.
This is a nice person. This is a terrible meal that you just cooked, whatever. All of the various qualities. And what is it that is determining how we are organizing, the way that we’re interpreting and perceiving and coming to know and feel about the world are the conditioned factors within our mind. These conditioned factors are the causal linkages, the karmic latency left in our mind.
How are they implanted? By our various previous actions, by our ways of thinking and behaving previously. So begins to we can begin to find some sort of mechanism which explains our experiences and helps us to be able to intervene in the process in terms of what we in fact want. We can begin to act skillfully to bring about ends, to create an environment and felt experiences desirable to ourselves. We can begin to avoid unskillful actions, that is to say, types of actions which will cause us to experience an environment and felt experiences which are undesirable to ourselves.
It’s both empowering and it’s empowering to ourselves in the way that we can begin to take control of our lives and quality of our lives in terms of our experience. We can create the world we wish for ourselves and how we experience it. So we’ll stop there. We’re going to if we all make it back, We’re going to resume on the sixteenth of October. Okay?
Sixteenth of October. And, you know, many of you may not know, but I mean, you may know, but you might might have you might not know of, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who is coming the first week in October after the Kālacakra ceremony in Sydney. He’s going to be teaching over the course of that week. And by all means, I think I would take take advantage of the opportunity. Yeah.
There’s some brochures that you, I think, in the up in the hallway. And, you know, it’s really I mean, he’s a really tremendously special person and to take advantage of the opportunity, And then, you know, really make the effort to create the space and put forth the effort to get there. I think I think it’s really I really, you know, more than recommend it. And I really would like for you very much to meet him and to receive his teachings. So anyway, just wanted to remind you of that, to, you know, keep that in mind.
So let’s dedicate. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful, please remain to 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, the awakened heart that has not arisen, arise and grow.
And may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more. Thank you. Have a good break. Would you like to get a cup of tea? We’ll have a discussion.