Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of a glass of fluid perceived as nectar by a celestial being, pus by a hungry ghost, and a habitat by a mosquito, Ven Jampa Gendun opens a 32-minute exploration of karma and the nature of the “I.” He first traces how the “I” is merely a label applied to a constantly changing stream of body and mind — like a wave whose water shifts every ten seconds — and explains why this continuity persists through death and rebirth. He then unpacks karma as two things: the initial impulse that directs attention toward an object, and the intentional actions that follow, both leaving “blueprint” imprints that shape whether experience is organized as pleasurable or painful. The session closes by linking karma and emptiness as mutually illuminating: because things lack inherent existence, karma can operate, and because karma operates, things are empty.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 H and M of B 1992 08 12.mp3
UUID: 114af2de-0685-4804-9c72-01d09a2a10fb
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-08-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 31.9 minutes
Words: ~3,963
Then the consciousness begins to express mental like qualities of a dog, the mentality of a dog. And upon this combination we label dog. And I, I has been continuously labeled to grosser or more subtle combinations of mind wind, mind energy. And in this instance it is now being labeled to a mind body of a dog. So this is what we when we say, I will be reborn as a dog.
The subtle mind energy which was in the continuum of my present I goes on to reassociate itself with the material basis of what develops into a dog. We’re continually calling this I, I, I, I, I. It reassociates and it’s still I but now it’s reassociated with the physical basis of a dog. So I as a human take rebirth as a dog. The continues on.
This I which has been labeled to this subtlest mind, subtle most energy combination, it reassociates with the dog body. I take rebirth as a dog. So sometimes we associate the I with the body. If we stub our toe we say, I’m hurt. Sometimes we associate the I with the mind.
If you see something pleasant, take some nice food, you say, I’m happy. I feel pleasure. We associate it with the mind. Sometimes we don’t associate the eye with either the mind or the body. And we say, You know, I hate your guts.
I can’t understand you. Get away from me. We are neither associating the eye with either the body or the mind. Sometimes we don’t even think of the eye. You know when we’re walking, we’re simply eating, we’re talking, sleeping, there’s no conception of I at that time.
So because thought is primarily, death is thought of as primarily associated with the body, when the body dies we have a tendency to think that the I dies, that the I ceases when the body ceases. But I have never been my body. I am merely labeled to my body, designated to my body. And just as the patterns of mind can continually change, you know I can be happy, I can be sad, I can have attachment, I can have non attachment, generosity, the patterns of mind continually change and I’m still labeling I continually upon that same changing mind and that base of the changing basis. Likewise, the body is continually changing and we continually labeling I upon a changing basis, physical basis.
We have a baby’s body, a four-year-old’s body, an adult’s body, continually changing material basis and continually labeling I. And that that that material basis can change very radically into a completely different basis. I’m still labeling I upon that same basis. It’s like for example, you know, within a wave moving across the ocean. You know, it appears that this this fixed mass, this wave is shifting itself over here.
But we know if we think about it a little more closely that from from, you know, from just from moment to moment, all the water in that wave is constantly changing, constantly changing. But there’s some kind of form, a force which is moving across the water. There’s a similarity of type, similarity of type, of shape. But the content of that shape is continually changing, continually changing, continually changing. You know from from you know from ten seconds to ten seconds probably every drop of water in that wave has changed.
There’s not one original drop of water. The same way with a candle flame. You know in a still room you see the candle flame. It looks like as if the candle flame is unchanging, like it’s solid, it’s fixed. But in fact we know that it’s moment by moment it’s changing.
The first moment of flame heats up the wax, causes the wax to catch fire. The first moment of the flame ceases and causes of heating up the wax there rises a second moment of the flame. The second moment of flame heats up the wax, ceases, and the third moment of the flame arises. So one moment of the flame gives rise to the next moment of flame gives rise to the next moment of flame. Continue, it’s continually changing but there is a continuum of the flame and the only way that we can know that the candle is actually burning down as if there’s change going on is because the candle begins to burn down.
The continual reproduction of a similar type in a continuum. And we label flame, flame to this that constantly changing pattern. Constantly changing pattern. And likewise with respect to the I. We’re constantly labeling I, I to a constantly changing pattern of body and mind.
Constant changing pattern in body and mind. Sometimes these patterns change very dramatically in the case of death. So these patterns of body and mind and energy are not just a matter of chance. On the contrary, they are the logical outcome of discernible variables. These variables are what we call karma.
What is determining these patterns? Their quality, their condition, their nature. karma, that is the actions. The actions of our body, of our speech, and of our mind. These are determining those patterns.
The conditioning influencing what types of patterns the eye is being labeled to. So this the mind is analogous to the mere fact, like the mere fact of a radio being on. You know whether the radio is playing music, whether it’s playing it’s playing the news, whether it’s playing an interview, talk show, is a matter of coarse consciousness. Subtle consciousness is analogous to the mind, the radio is simply being on. There’s some kind of quality there, some kind of potentiality.
It begins to express itself in terms of what type of program whether it’s the news, it’s music, whether it’s a talk show. The subtle energy is as if the radio is plugged in, the radio being plugged in. The style, the format of the radio show is being determined by karma. Type of coarse consciousness which is arising. It sets the program, it sets the content of what is going to take place, a particular program, our life.
So karma is action of intention and intentional actions. Two types of karma, actions of intention and intentional action. Actions of intention, actions of intention. This is an urge. This is the urge of the mind and the directionality of a mind, an impulse of the mind.
You know, why do I look at this, why do I, you know, out of all these possible, the field, why do I focus on this object and not on that object? Why am I interested in this object and not that object? This is intentional action, one aspect of karma. It is an impulse, an urge, the directionality of the mind to engage one area as opposed to another. That’s the direction.
It’s some primary function of the mind which causes it to move to a particular aspect of the field of possibilities. Some impulse, some urge. Out of this urge, this impulse comes intentional action. That is to say, once the mind is given some kind of directionality, particular, some type of particular state of mind may arise. Some kind of feeling, some kind of perception, some kind of that it needs to in turn motivate the mind.
They motivate the person to speak, to act, to choose how to act out. So there is the action of intention which is impulse to think in a certain way, certain to catch on to a particular train of thinking, a way of looking, a way of perceiving, a way of acting, a way of talking. The urge to move into to It sets into course some kind of train of thought, a particular way of viewing. And then the viewing itself, the speaking and the acting, are intentional actions. karma also refers to the mechanism which accounts for the continuity between a creation of an action and the results of the action.
You know more quickly, we call these karmic latencies or karmic dispositions. You know just as a seed is characterized by its potential to develop a result which is similar in type to itself. You know from if you plant an orange seed you get an orange tree, if you plant a tomato seed you get a tomato plant. That is to say there’s some kind of information in the seed, some kind of genetic information which when it meets the correct cooperative conditions will bring about a certain type of reaction, a very particular unique type of reaction. The seed carries information.
karma is information. When it meets the correct cooperative condition it causes a specific type of reaction to take place just like the seed of a plant. Sometimes some type of process will be enacted, will be precipitated, will come up, will be brought about. So action, you know, everything that we think, everything that we say, everything that we do is an action. These all leave some kind of latency, some kind of impression upon the mind.
You know, like a footprint in the mud. And then the it dries out. And there’s a there’s a very unique pattern which has been left, which has been imprinted. All of our actions are leading imprints on the mind. Ways of thinking, predispositions, tendencies.
Complexes of information. So these these are what we’re calling karmic latency. And they possess the potential or the capacity that when they’re activated they give some kind of direction to the mind. Some kind of impetus to the processes of mind. You know, the actions of intention as we talked about.
This activation of karmic latencies through meeting with cooperative conditions. This is what, you know, when we talk about ripening karma or maturing karma. It is these latencies, these seeds, when they meet with specific conditions then they react. Just like this like the orange seed. When it comes in contact with the nutrients of the soil, elements, moisture, then it begins to cause a particular type of reaction according to its specific type of genetic coding.
It begins to organize those materials in very specific ways. It’s reacting along very specific processes. Likewise with these imprints within our mind. When they when they begin to come in contact with various cooperative conditions, the world around us, the people, all the material things, then it begins to organize them in very specific manners according to very specific processes. It begins to look at them, to see them in very specific ways.
Trains of thought develop, ways of perceiving, ways of feeling about these objects begin to develop. The approach, the program, the style, how we’re going to operate is all encoded in these imprints. It’s like in a seed like some kind of DNA molecule. It’s how we’re going to respond. Some kind of, you know, the program pattern of response, a reaction pattern.
Reaction. We’ve committed an action and now there’s going to be a reaction pattern, application, you know, to a particular objective condition. And this is going to determine the nature of our perception, of our experience, and how we’re going to react to it. So in talking about actions, when we talk about skillful actions, we talk about unskillful actions, we’re not making any moral judgment whatsoever as to whether actions are good or bad. Actions, skillful actions, they predispose us to organize data.
You know, there’s the world out there. You know, there’s a given, there’s some kind of data and this world is as if it were chaos. There’s simply a chaos of there’s a field of color and shape, there’s a field of sound, there’s a field of taste, there’s a field of all these potentialities of experience. And we are trying to organize them so that they become recognizable. This is the process of perception.
How are going to relate to this world, this chaos? We’re trying to secure the self in space and time to fixate it, We want to organize these patterns. Otherwise it’s insanity. So how are we going to organize this world? We have specific means of we’re predisposed to organize the world along specific lines.
We’re to organize it in terms of specific constructs. You know, in specific we’re going to organize the data. We’re going to make constructs. We’re going to in turn experience those constructs in specific ways. When we talk about skillful actions, we mean types of actions which predispose us to organize the data.
The objective condition is specific ways conceptually creating out of them constructs which are discriminated in such a way that they are experienced as pleasurable. This is all that we mean by skillful action. Skillful actions are the types of dispositions that we implant in our mind such that we organize our reality in such a way that the constructs that we create are experienced as pleasurable. This is why it’s a skillful action. And then on the other hand, unskillful actions, They predispose us.
They give us the tendency. What other words can I use? Unskillful actions predispose to organize the world in such a way, the situation, you know, the situation in such a way that we experience it as unpleasurable. The pleasure and displeasure is not inherent in objects themselves, in situations, in people, in relationships, as if it were an automatic byproduct. But it is experienced in terms of how we are viewing, how we are organizing that experience.
The constructs we’re making out of all of this data, how we’re perceiving it, how we’re discriminating. It is in terms of our dispositions, that is to say the patterns we’re making, that we have, that we’re making use of to organize the world, organize what we think about it, organize how it looks to us, how we’re going to view it. The blueprints that we have in our mind, Yeah, I think blueprints. Know, like if you’re going to know, you’re going to build a building you keep looking at the blueprints and then this goes here and this goes here and this goes here and you know what you’re going to end up with if you keep looking at the blueprints. So is it these karmic imprints or is it blueprints?
How are going to organize this data, the world out there? We’re going to organize it along specific lines according to the blueprint which has been implanted in our mind. And we’re creating a particular type of reality for ourselves in accordance with our particular types of blueprints which are that is to say the imprints of our various actions, our dispositions, tendencies. And therefore we’re going to experience a particular type of reality. And if skillful actions predispose us to such types of blueprints that when they are constructed we have a we we gain a sense of pleasure from from what we’ve constructed for ourselves.
On the other hand, unskillful actions are such types of blueprints Such that when we’ve come in contact with specific data and construct them according to these blueprint plans, then we experience as a result displeasurable feelings in regard to that reality that we’ve constructed. Does that make sense a little bit? If the pleasure and pain were inherent in objects then you know we should all like the same thing and not others. This is obviously not the case. The experience of a pleasurable or painful feeling is not an automatic byproduct of meeting with a particular object or situation, as if they possess some kind of inherent pleasurable or painful nature.
I mean, as we’re going to discuss at length ad nauseam when we come to the awakening mind, All phenomena whatsoever are merely imputed by conception. They do not exist objectively. They do not exist from their own side. So the implication here is that if our karma acts in the sense of habitual reaction patterns, which determine how we conceive of an object. If everything is merely imputed by conception, it is our karma which determines the way the types of conception we’re going to be using to impute, that is to say to organize our reality, which determine how we’re going to conceive of an object, how we’re going to organize it, how how we’re going to experience and respond to it is all karmically determined in terms of the blueprints within our mind, the blueprints which we are at this present moment continually recreating, reorganizing.
It’s not as if these are fixed blueprints either. So when in terms of pleasure pain, when our reaction to an object is to maintain and to repeat contact with an object, the object is perceived positively When we meet with an object and when our reaction to that object, when we meet with an object, that is an objective condition which ripens a particular karma due to which we have a tendency to either to in this case, we want to maintain contact or we want to repeat contact with that same object in the future. That is to say that the object conceived of as positive. It’s labeled as attractive. And a feeling of pleasure is experienced in respect to it.
So there’s a there’s actually there’s a long there’s a very complex process which is occurring. You know the feelings do not arise instantaneously. There’s the point of coming in contact. Then there’s the labeling process of whether this is a threatening object, whether it’s enhancing object, a repulsive object, attractive object. And then in dependence upon that we experience a pleasure or pain with respect to it.
All this is karmically determined. That is to say, it’s being determined by our perception, the way we’re our reactive patterns to it. And these reactive patterns are our karma, which conditions why we take this view of this object, why we are reacting, why we are labeling, Why are we relating to this object in this particular way? On the other hand, when the nature of a reaction is to break off contact and not to repeat that contact again in the future, then the object is perceived negatively, is labeled as unattractive and painful feelings are experienced in association with it. So, you know, all our perceptions are belief laden.
Perception is is other recognition, discrimination. You know, I see a glass. That is, I perceive a glass. That is to say, you know, the glass, it’s not a glass before I perceive it. Perception and the labeling process are the same thing.
That is to say, you know, our experiences are karmically conditioned or determined because my perception, the way I’m labeling, attractive, unattractive, displeasurable, glass, table, watch, whatever, they all are karmically determined. The labels that I use, the way that I’m relating are terms of these blueprints, these patterns of my mind, these conditioned factors within my mind. There’s nothing out there which forces me. There’s nothing out there which is inherently pleasurable, which is inherently a glass, which is objectively a watch. These are all qualities which I am coming from the side of the mind, I am attributing to all of this data.
There’s nothing which makes it, there’s no glassness about that. There’s no inherent pleasurability about that. And to give a practical illustration. The substantial cause, you know we talked about substantial causes and cooperative causes. The substantial cause of pleasant and painful and indifferent feelings is the karmic latencies within our own mind.
The substantial cause of painful, pleasurable, and indifferent feelings are the karmic latencies within our own mind. It is the things about us which we come in contact with are merely the cooperative causes. Now we talked about substantial cause and cooperative causes. The substantial causes to these feelings are these patterns, these karmic imprints within our mind. The objects that we come in contact with which ripen these patterns Just like the seed is being activated by the soil and the water.
That’s the cooperative condition which activates it. These, the data, specific types of objective conditions activate specific types of programs, ways of proceeding within our mind. That is these objects, people, things about us are the cooperative condition. The substantial cause is our own mind which bring about But it’s necessary to have both. You know, as we said, without soil and water the seed will never ripen.
But without this seed, no matter how much soil and water we have, we’re never going to grow a plant. So it’s a combination of both. But we can work with the karma because there’s nothing inherently about that which makes it pleasurable or displeasurable. So I develop the karma whereby I can experience any object that’s pleasurable. It be an objective condition which will activate a pleasurable experience, anything.
And this is anything can act as a source of happiness. And you know to give an illustration, let’s take as an illustration Let’s say a glass of water. That’s better. A glass of water. A glass of no.
It’s a glass of fluid. We won’t even call it water. A human might see a glass of water and experience it as something refreshing, something refreshing to drink. Though someone with rabies would find it would have a great dread of water and hydrophobia with rabies. A celestial being would see it as a glass of see the glass of fluid as a glass of nectar and would experience it as bliss.
A hungry ghost would see the glass of fluid as a glass of pus and blood and would experience it as repulsive. A mosquito might perceive it as a place to lay its eggs. A fish is a suitable environment to live in. So it’s the same objective condition, but due to their way of organizing that objective condition, they all have different perceptions and they experience it very much differently. So, you know, the entirety of our present situation, of saṃsāra has been built up out of our karmic dispositions.
That we exist in the same space and time in this present situation is due to a commonality of our karma. That we are are you know, we all existing very much in the same place, in the same world. We all have developed the same common blueprints where we’re organizing all of this data in very similar ways. So that we’re all in this room, that we’re all in Adelaide in this world is our collective karma. But within that collective karma we each have our unique, our individual karma, our way of how we’re going to experience this commonality very uniquely.
So anyway, we have a lot more to talk about karma, a little bit more to talk about. It’s quite interesting because I think the more you understand emptiness the more karma makes sense. The more you understand karma the more emptiness makes sense. The two mutually supportive to one another. Because things do not inherently exist that they’re able to that karma is able to operate.
And because karma operates, that is to say actions as these patterns of perception, reactive patterns which are by which we’re organizing, because karma is operative, things do not inherently exist, that they’re empty. They’re not solid frozen in and of themselves pleasurable, displeasurable, attractive, unattractive. The mind is in its place in its way can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. It has that potentiality. What types of patterns that we create within our mind.
So we’ll stop there. And we’ll see if I have a cup of tea.