Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 137-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with an unusually philosophical reflection on what humans are truly searching for beneath surface desires — the sacred, inner meaning, something worthy of devotion — before grounding the session in Buddhist practice. A guided death meditation follows, using the image of passengers on a night train moving relentlessly toward a terminal no one can avoid. The doctrinal core covers the four general principles of karma: its certainty (positive actions yield happiness, negative bring suffering), its magnification illustrated through the butterfly effect and the story of King Ashoka’s dust offering, the principle that unperformed actions leave no karmic trace, and the non-dissipation of seeds already planted. A lively Q&A closes on whether compassionately euthanising a pet creates negative karma.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 3PA 2007 03 19.mp3
UUID: 18d4197f-9882-47fd-a6f9-889b197358a5
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-03-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 136.7 minutes
Words: ~12,071
How is everybody? Okay. Good. So we begin by adjusting our motivation. Can you hear me in the back?
Okay. No, Becky can’t hear you. Can you hear me now? I’ll try. Becky, you wave if I become too quiet.
So many of you had a busy day, unlike myself. So it’s quite necessary to stop speeding, stop distracting ourselves from ourselves, and check up with ourselves on why we’re here. What is the reason, the motivation? We’re talking a lot about karma. karma is the intention.
Good intention brings good results. Bad intention brings bad results. So there’s some kind of payoff. If we adjust our motivation from perhaps, I don’t know if you have a negative motivation for being here, but something over and above will be indifferent motivation. The more profound, the more intense our motivation, the more profound and intense the quality of the result will be.
So much of our lives is spent in a longing and a search for what we do not know. So many of our ostensible goals, so many of the things we think we want turn out to be the masks which our real desires hide. They are the symbols for the actual values and qualities for which we hunger. They are not reducible to physical and material things, not even to physical person. They are psychological qualities.
Love, truth, honesty, loyalty, purpose, something we can feel is noble, precious, and worthy of our devotion. We try to reduce all this to something physical, a house, a car, a better job, a human being, but it doesn’t work. Without realizing it, we are searching for the sacred, and the sacred is not reducible to anything else. Sacredness is in a sense of feeling, but a feeling that goes to the very heart of life. It is the feeling of recognition directed toward what is great and high enough to give our small lives meaning, to put our personal journeys in a greater perspective.
It is the feeling of reverence, what we call sacred, ultimately a universe of meaning against which we measure our personal efforts, personal lives, to see whether they too have meaning. So, you know, the path begins when we begin to try to find out who it is we are beneath all these layers of conditioning, all the social and cultural conditioning, all the propaganda that we’ve absorbed knowingly or unknowingly in the course of our lives, or the shoulds, ought tos of our lives, and the the taking for granted ideologies and psychologies. You know, trying to find what is it that I really want over and above all of that that I’ve learned or been told or that I think I should want out of my life? You know, what really connects with me? What what makes me feel good about myself?
And how what it means to live the life of an ordinary human being? What what brings meaning and purpose to my life? You know, I guess we have to keep checking up, don’t we? And what are our priorities? What is important to me?
It’s really quite a responsibility, isn’t it, to even ask that question to yourself? It presents gives us it presents us with a great burden almost in a way. Either we live a a life of hypocrisy and inauthenticity, or we have to live up to some degree, to some measure, the idea of what the finest life that we feel we could live might look like. You know, what is sacred to me? What is it that brings meaning and purpose to my life?
We call that a Buddha. I I don’t know what a Buddha is. It’s the the the goal of all my wanderings, what this kind of this reach for image that we’re all, at certain times in our lives, grasping for, searching for in our finest moments trying to be. And it is and then we call a Buddha someone who experiences unremitting peace with inside themselves and skillfully and fearlessly works with others and helping them to experience the same. And then whatever, whatever, whatever, we all have, you know, we’ve all have our ideas of what the sacred looks like to us, what resonates with ourselves at the deepest level of our being.
And we have to, you know, sometimes getting back in touch. Our society, our ways of life are very externalizing. They demand that we necessarily pay attention to what is going outside of ourselves and often times losing sight of what’s actually inside of ourselves. I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson that said, what is behind us and what is before us are of little significance to what is within us. You know, we we lose sight of what of what the type of person we’ve always wanted to be in our finest moments, our most noble moments, our most alive moments.
So, you know, kind of creating the space for ourselves to allow those those feelings of the sacred to to find some expression, to at least to get in touch, to take these possibilities of who we might be out of our storage places in our hearts so they don’t rot there and be lost to us, to resurrect the plot of who we might be, the story about ourselves. When a man experiences a fantasy of ultimate peace and wholeness, He needs to understand his fantasy as a statement of what he can achieve within himself. But usually he will project this image of paradise on a woman, unconsciously asking her or him to fulfill it, to bring it into some physical actuality to deliver to him. You know, we can’t ask the outer world what it is incapable of giving us. There’s a certain dishonesty in that.
There’s a lack of authenticity, a lack of wisdom. No matter how difficult or how challenging and at times seemingly insurmountable, the obstacles or the path may feel to us to be, we have to seek the solutions to our fundamental problems and the finding of the sacred in our lives where they actually can be found. And that is nowhere else than within our own minds, within ourselves. We really have no choice. We have to dedicate some of our energies, some of our time, some of the space in our life to our own inner world, the development of our own inner being and our own Buddha with inside of ourselves.
If we’re ever to find any peace and any means of really being a benefit to others, there’s no choice. It’s just a matter of restructuring our priorities from time to time, getting back in touch from time to time. You know, there’s a there’s a Zen story, a Zen master. He said if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. If you see the fundamental solutions to your problems outside yourself, you’re looking in the wrong place.
All I’m saying is we have a vast array of priorities and demands made upon our time and energies and so forth, that we have to find some balanced life in this chaos that constitutes our life. Some way of working with the practical necessities of life and relating to the world and people and situations. They they are deserving of our time and energy. They’re a significant part of our life. But we it’s absolute necessity.
It’s an imperative that we not forget about our own inner life and in terms of our own inner development and dedicate some time and energy, some of our resource to that development. Then I think we can, you know, we can live a balanced life. We can live a good life. Things will go well. And we can live kind of a a higher level order of being.
It’s a it’s a sane way to lead our life. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. You know, this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, and we have to do the work of actualizing, making that Buddha a little more real each day of our life, finding some means of expressing our own wisdom, our own love, our compassion, we skillfully and fearlessly work with others, and then finding openings where we can be Buddhist, we can express our Buddha nature. Do and we have to do the work, the inner work. And this all occurs within the social context of the Sangha, you know, in our spiritual community.
And we had a mindfulness day over the weekend. And I think it was it was very meaningful to me to see us coming together and supporting ourselves in a practice that maybe we wouldn’t have done if we hadn’t had Buddha House, or if we hadn’t dedicated that day and brought ourselves together in that way, supporting ourselves in that practice. And for, you know, six or seven hours, we tried to be Buddhists as best we could. And that was because it was dependent upon, it was supported by the Sangha, by the spiritual community. And we try to raise the level of our motivation, you know, the the why behind and the purpose for all of what we do so that we’re just not doing it for ourselves.
Some point in our lives, we have to begin to feel deeply or see for ourselves that it’s me first, I’m number one, center of the universe, approach to life just is not working. Even if we can begin to include one other person in a very realistic fashion and wanting to benefit from what we’re doing. It will serve to to break up this solidity of this hard ego structure, which in which we are keep ourselves in present. We can begin to open up to other possibilities. You know, relating to one other person.
We find some kind of reality. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, which we actualize by means of the Dharma in the social context of the spiritual community community and, and then within our hearts, maybe I can become a little more loving, a little more patient, understanding just for my my partner at home or my kids at home or my parents that I go to visit from time to time. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to be able to help them in some real some real fundamental way? The more I am, the more I can be for others. That’s why I’m going to listen to this talk, meditate, and then discuss the Dharma.
I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and, the other perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha.
Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for some and aversion toward others.
Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering that was actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during the beginning of this time and rejoice in all the virtues as superior and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others, to the great awakening.
So we’re going to meditate. So if you like to take a comfortable, firm posture, we’re gonna meditate on death. I’m just opening those windows a bit more. I don’t think you can. You can’t.
You know, we we’ve we’ve gone through we’ve gone through the the discussion on death in terms of the three principal aspects of the path, and we’ve we’ve gone through the the method of meditating on on death using the three roots that death is inevitable, that the time of death is uncertain, and that what is it going to be a benefit at the time of death? So I thought tonight you know, we we meditate on death not simply to overcome our fear of death and so forth, but in order to live with a greater intensity to our life. The remembrance of death is life enhancing. You know, we we as I was talking about, we get our priorities straight. I was I had dinner with someone last night and they were talking about the fact that they went to a singles party and they were just bored out of their mind for five hours.
And they were she kept saying, why am I here? Why am I here? And the reason she stayed there is because she didn’t remember death. So, you know, how much time do we have left? I I don’t know about you.
You’re I’m older than most of you. Okay. So we’re gonna meditate on the the the death is inevitable, and we’re going to go through the the the three branches, three reasonings that help us to establish that death is inevitable, that everyone must die. And, you know, this this is the work that you have to do for yourself. You know, you have to find what works for you, trying to get the penny to drop.
I can make some suggestions, but these are only fingers. Don’t get hung up on the finger. See where they’re pointing to. So you have to supply the within your own imagination, within your own creativity, within your own experience. More meaningful examples, what actually helps you to for the penny to drop for you.
So everyone must die, you know. We go through all the various examples that we can think of, you know, no matter how powerful kings, presidents, even George Bush will die someday. Mhmm. I won’t no comment on that. But even, you know, criminal saints, holy people, you know, men, women, post-grad students, if you’re twenty, you know, young people, forty-year-olds, young adults, middle aged, older people, everyone.
This body of ours is a composite. It’s just simply a it’s like an event. It’s a happening. I don’t know if you I don’t know you, probably. I’m I’m from America.
Anyway, don’t hold it against me. We had back in the seventies, you know, there was this flower power flower power generation, you know, drop what do you say? Drop what do you say? Drop in. Drop out.
Drop. And they used to have these events. They have these used to be Kool-Aid tests. People would drink acid. They’d create these conditions and they have an event, happening.
Yes. We’d come up, you get all the, we’re like a happening. I mean, when you’re not certain causes and conditions come together and event happens, we’re an event. And the nature of the event is that nature tends toward disorganization. Unless we resupply all the necessary causes and conditions, we will keep replicating those in some fashion and keep some kind of continuity going.
If those causes and conditions are interrupted for some reason in any way, disintegration. And same way with ours ourselves. We are a a momentary event. And as long as those causes and conditions keep replicating themselves, the event seems to continue pretty much stably, you know, like a candle flame. You know?
But actually, it’s being recreated moment by moment. When that wax is exhausted, the candle flame vanishes. And likewise, there’s a. So just considering the fact that that that all of life tends toward disintegration, disorganization, that’s in the nature of things. At some point, the causes and conditions which maintain disorganization are not going to be sustained and we would disintegrate, and we would move on.
And the third reason is that our life is continually decreasing. And I’m the what works for me, and I use this image and working with your own mind, what image works for you of being on this train? I don’t know. I used to, you know, I lived in India a number of years, the trains there are quite slow. And you have an overnight journey and sometimes, you know, you’re, you’re sleeping on them.
If you’re lucky, you’ve got a, you’ve got a birth, a sleeper. Yeah. And you know, you’re shaking around and you wake up in the middle of the night and you don’t know where you are and it’s dark. And all you know is you’re on a journey, you know, and you’re passing, you look out the window and you see a few lights here and there passing you by, you know, we’re all, we’re all, even as we sit here with like in a huge train or maybe a ship, I don’t know. And we’re all on this journey.
And then we look outside and we see the lights going by and some when we when we when we get to our destination, the train stops. We we have no choice. We have to give off. And, and whether we’re on that train journey, whether we’re happy, whether we’re unhappy, whether we, you know, we, we talk to the other passengers, have some nice meals, whether we’re sick or, you know, worry, whatever. And even in the course of the night, even as you sleep, the the the the train just keeps on going without relentlessly moving on closer and closer and closer to to the terminal, and then we have to get off.
We have no choice. And and we’re all on that journey in one way or another. So we’re going to meditate on those three qualities out of the first premise that death is inevitable. So take in a comfortable relaxing the body starting at the crown of our head at the scalp. In the forehead, you know, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out.
The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing. Facial muscles soften, relaxing. Jaws relax. Muscles in the back of the neck perhaps gently turn your head to the side a few times stretching, loosening. The muscles in your throat relaxing.
Relaxing the upper back feeling this burden that we carry on our back we can move down through your body into the ground. And shoulders, that’s rotating your shoulders a few times. Letting them drop a times, letting them comfortably to the sides. Your hands, just let your hands go soft. Your lower arms.
Your upper arms. Your chest is at ease Relaxing the heart and the lungs the middle of the back, Relaxing the stomach. Releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, your belly to go soft. Relaxing the intestines. And holding your trunk erect, relaxing the lower back muscles.
The pelvic area. The genitals. The buttocks, Upper legs. Lower legs. Your feet are soft.
Bringing awareness to your body in general, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions within the body. Focusing upon those areas. Consciously relaxing, softening. Feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen, body becoming relaxed, at ease, comfortable. A sense of physical well-being pervading your body.
It’s a nice place to be in your body. And then bring your mind to the breath. Stay easy, gentle in that flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful, use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Now we’re going to begin the meditation on death.
Inevitable, and we’re going to use three reasons. And the first of these three reasons is everyone must die, no matter who it might be, however powerful, however holy, however skillful, presidents, kings, artists, criminals, secretaries, office workers, factory workers. They all live. They all rule. They all work.
They laugh. They cry. And, eventually, they die. What’s so special about me? What is so special about me that I’m not going to die if everyone else dies?
The second reason, the body is a is a composite of constantly changing causes and conditions. It’s simply an event where causes and conditions have come together momentarily. Just like a candle flame. It looks solid and steady, but actually it’s being recreated moment by moment moment. And if there’s any interruption in the recreation, when the causes run out, then there’s death.
The candle flame ceases. Our lives are the exact same way. All the causes and conditions would continually keep our life going. Eventually, there will be an interruption, and they will cease. And the third reason, your lifespan is continually decreasing.
Moments become minutes, minutes become hours, hours become days, days become weeks, months, years. And finally, you reach the end. It’s over. Even as we sit here, we’re moving toward the end of our life continually, unremittingly, without pause. So see if you can come to some kind of determination, some kind of conclusion in your mind.
I’m not always going to have this life. While I have it, I’ve got to use it meaningfully, wisely, create some kind of purpose for this life. It’s I’m not always going to have it. I can’t waste it. And then bring your mind back to the breath.
And getting in touch with your body, physical sensations, feelings of the body. In a slow and gentle relaxed manner. Become aware of what’s going on about you. Just take your time. There’s no hurry.
Thinking again and again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects and the sufferings of cyclic existence will alter the priorities you give to future lives. So the line that we’re looking at in terms of Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path is to think again and again about the unvarying relationship between actions and their results. That is, say, we’re looking at karma. We’ve we’ve been talking about karma what? One week?
Two weeks? We’re going to look at karma from lots of different points of view. We said that karma was the specific type of causal mechanism whereby an individual’s intentions bring about certain types of actions, verbal bodily actions, that these actions along with the seeds or these predispositions or latencies, we have ways that these actions condition the mind, bring about specific types of results, results which accord with the nature of the action. That all of this is termed karma. We said karma was intention.
The the physical act or the bodily act of killing is the intention to take life. So when we talk about karma, we’re talking about a mental act, and then how it’s eventually expressed either verbally or or bodily. Our minds are conditioned. They aren’t blank slates. Our because there’s residue, some trace of our actions are imprinted upon our consciousness, our minds.
And because we are we are the agent of that imprinting of the action, that the being, the eye, which is in the same continuum of consciousness with the agent becomes the experience of the result of that action. Both the agent and the experiences are owners of the action. Our minds are conditioned, you know, by our our histories of our individual and collective actions that we’ve created over the course of our life, beginning with our beginningless lifetimes. So our minds have deposited on their own within them, the residues of these past intentions that we’ve had, the various past actions that we’ve created in the forms of seeds. You know, our all of our our experiences, whether they’re pleasurable experiences, whether they’re unpleasurable experiences, are the result of these residues of past intentions, are karma.
You know, they meet we meet with a particular objective condition, a situation, a person, an event of some sort. These things about us, whether it’s a person or a thing, an object, event, are not inherently agreeable or disagreeable, attractive or unattractive. The indispensable inner cause for the experience of which arises through our meeting with our contact with these various external factors, these objective conditions. The internal cause are these latencies, these predispositions, these conditioning factors within our own mind, these karmic seeds. So the various objective conditions that we come in contact with serve to activate, serve as a tendency for us to perceive the objective situation in a certain manner, in a certain style, in a certain way.
You know, all our all of our various perceptions and experiences are arising in part due to these internal conditioning factors of our karma, these latencies, these traces, the ways our minds have been conditioned by our past actions. A good way to look at this is there’s a classical or a traditional illustration. Ways the the the diversity of ways of perceiving the seemingly same objective conditions, the same objective object. For example, you know, the we take a glass of water. Oh, no.
Not a glass of water. I didn’t say that. I didn’t hear that. Glass of liquid. Okay.
To a human, you know, we we, we, we all have, we all have a shared reality as humans. That’s our collective karma. We have shared karma. So that’s why we’re able to relate and we have more or less common experiences. We see things in, common with one another.
We perceive things in common with, with one another. That things have a certain publicity. They seem to have some objective reality. A glass of liquid for, for the average human, you know, might, it’s probably perceived as a glass of water, for example, this glass. It, it could be, it’s, if they were thirsty and they would drink it, they would experience some kind of refreshing, some kind of pleasurable experience.
That same glass of liquid, if it were being seen by or experienced by a celestial being, would be perceived as a glass of nectar and would be experienced as bliss. That seemingly same glass of liquid, if it were, you know, seen by a hungry ghost, would be perceived as a glass of pus and blood and would be experienced as repulsive. That seemingly same act objective condition, this glass of liquid, if it were as seen by a hell being, would be perceived as molten lead, liquid molten lead, and would be extremely painful. That same that same glass of liquid, if it were, what, seen by a mosquito would be perceived as a place to lay its eggs. The same glass of liquid perceived by a fish would be a complete environment in which to live in.
So all of these diversities of ways of perceiving the same seemingly objective condition are due to the internal conditioning of the mind. These are the factors of karma. The point is that that the world that we we come to know and our experiences of it are are not given to us. They’re not it’s not as if the world is imposing. There’s an objective reality, which is which exists independent of our mind, which somehow forces itself upon us.
And we are passive observers. It is a participatory universe. We are co creators of our universe. What is it that predispose to create in the particular fashions that we do? These are the conditioning factors within our mind at present.
This is our karma. We have the karma to to have the shared reality as we perceive it now. So we’re going to look at karma in terms of its, some of the general principles of karma, but also in terms of how we can how it applies into practice, the specific categories of karma. And we’ll discuss karma as causes and karma in terms of its results. And we’re going we’re going to begin with the four general principles of karma.
And I’ve made, we’re going to have, there’ll be some more printouts, some more material given out on karma, but these are some of the topics that we’ll be taking up. And I thought it might be useful if you had something to look at while I ramble on up here. So we’re going to begin with this first section, which is called the four general principles of karma and its results. The four general principles of karma and its results. So, the first of these is the certainty of You know, this is like the, you know, the the Christian notion of as you sow, so shall you reap.
karma is classified as as positive, as skillful, as virtuous when due to the ripening influence of the objective condition, and where we’re just talking about seemingly a glass of fluid, for example, that would ripen a predisposition whereby we would go on to experience that glass in terms in a positive manner. We would, we would, we would, it would be perceived as attractive. It would be experienced in terms of a pleasurable feeling. It would be, it’s reacted to a, in a, in a positive manner. That’s what we mean by positive karma or skillful karma, virtuous karma.
That is to say the karma is known by its result. It’s not absolute. Likewise, karma is classified as negative, as unskillful, as non virtuous, when due to its ripening influence, contact with the objective condition is such that the object is perceived as unattractive. It’s experienced as displeasurable, and it in this is responded to in a negative manner. So the the positive or negative quality of an action is positive from from the point of view of its result, of our actual experience that it that it brings about.
In in either case, the point I’m trying to make here is, are we making any sort of moral judgment? You know, the it’s sometimes said that the Buddha taught only two things, suffering and how to end suffering. So the the the Buddhist Buddhism and the Buddha and the teaching of Buddhism, the Dharma, the teachings of Buddha are pragmatic. They’re they are they use this as their standard of major suffering because we can argue about almost anything, existence of god and so forth and so on. But there’s one thing that we can’t or we probably wouldn’t argue about is that everybody wants to be happy.
Nobody wants to suffer. I think we’d almost all you know, we might say, well, you know, what’s happiness for you and what’s happiness for me are different, unique, so forth and so on. You know? Or what’s it? Yeah.
But nonetheless, we all want to be happy. None want to suffer. So that’s the that was that’s the underlying principle in which all of Buddhism is founded, How to bring about that end. We all have an innate desire to achieve happiness. And how do we fulfill that aspiration to happiness?
How do we remove suffering? And then this is it’s pragmatic in that way. It’s utilitarian in that way. Following directly from that basic assumption, those types of actions which are beneficial, which bring about those ends that we want, that we aspire to, that bring about happiness, we’re going to call those positive actions. They’re not absolutely positive.
You know, we don’t have we don’t have tablets that were hand been handed down from the sky. Thou shalt not. We only know that there are certain types of actions which bring about what it is that we want, happiness. There are certain types of actions which bring about what it is we don’t want, suffering. So we’re gonna call those virtuous.
Those which bring happiness, we’re gonna call them skillful. We’re gonna call them positive. We you know, word works for you. And on the other hand, those which bring about types of experiences, which we don’t want, which we find disagreeable, we’re gonna call negative, we’re call unskillful, non virtuous. There’s no moral judgment being made.
It’s pragmatic in that way. Mental states such as, you know, generosity and love and wisdom and so forth are beneficial attitudes, are benefiting attitudes. They, they, they, motivate us to to enact skillful verbal and bodily actions, deeds, acts. You know, we we might we might give something out of generosity. We might be kind to somebody because we love them, you know, help them out in a difficult situation.
We might give advice out of wisdom. And those types of acts motivated in such a way will have as the reaction that that these we will self will experience some kind of positive result. On the other hand, attachment and hatred, spite and miserliness and so forth, you know, we we might we might steal somebody’s possessions out of attachment. We might kill somebody out of hatred and so forth. These these are will bring about as a result, a type of experience which we don’t want, which a type of suffering in one form or another, where other people’s physical and verbal and so forth actions act to bring ourselves harm in some some fashion or another in return, as you sow, so shall you reap.
And the quality of the cause corresponds to the quality of the result. The quality of the result corresponds to the quality of the cause. What it is that we want is happiness. Those causes which bring that about are positive. And those types of causes, what we don’t want is suffering.
Those types of causes, that is, karmic causes, which bring that about are negative. There is throughout nature, throughout throughout the natural universe, a similarity of type. We’ve talked about this when we talked about rebirth between a cause and its result. in dependence upon a wheat seed, a wheat plant grows. Corn will not grow.
Barley will not grow. There’s no not even the slightest dissimilarity of type. We use this in everyday in our everyday life, you know, this, this, this knowledge of a relationship between cause and effect. You know, if, if there were a storm outside and these lights went off, we would say, oh, maybe the power lines blew down. Something like that.
We, we, we know from the result, the possible cause. We can infer the cause from the result. So, you know, if you, if you, if you ate a, this is quite common in India, but I know. If you ate a meal and you got became sick, you say, oh, is it was that food I ate? No.
There was a late there’s a relationship between that the result that you experienced and the probable cause, the similarity of time. So this, you know, let us say we’re talking about that the world is not chaotic, that there is some kind of, we do discern some kind of order in the universe. Our experiences, the hap the feelings that arise within us are have a cause. They don’t that they do not arise from nothing. Nowhere in the universe does something arise from nothing, nor do they arise from a cause which is dissimilar in type to themselves.
That there is a definite certainty in the in the quality of the cause and its result. The claim that the world is rational is connected with the fact that it is ordered. Events generally do not happen willy nilly. They are related in some way. The sun rises on cue because the earth spins in regular manner.
The fall of a heavy object is connected with the earlier release from a height, and so on. It is interrelatedness of events that gives us a notion of causation. The window breaks because it was struck by a stone. The oak tree grows because an acorn was planted. If we can make a record of all the events in some region of space over a period of time, we would notice that the record would be crisscrossed by would patterns.
These being causal linkages. It is the existence of these patterns that is the manifestation of the world’s rational order. Without them, there would only be chaos. So, the point is that all our mental and physical actions, our causes, have are no different than other causes in the universe. And then we said that karma that karma is situated in the greater context of the law of cause and effect, both in the natural world, but also internal to ourselves.
That karma is, is an area of the law of cause and effect, which is specific to the inner causation, you know, our causes as actions and their results in some kind of experience internal to the being. So there’s no difference between the natural processes of cause and effect and the inner processes of natural processes of cause and effect and the inner processes of cause and effect in terms of a similarity of type between a cause and its result. Our experiences are products. They are results. They have a cause.
And that cause is similar in type to the result. There’s a certainty in this. And we can, we can, we can’t see, we can, we can infer this, you know, from the natural world, that this also applies equally to our internal experiences, our inner world. So in in dependence upon a negative action, only a negative result arises. in dependence upon a negative action, only a negative result arises, suffering.
Happiness never arises by definition. in dependence upon a positive action, only happiness arises, suffering never arises by definition. That’s how we know the the the nature of the cause by way of understanding the result, our own experience. So if it didn’t matter whether we suffered or not, whether we’re happy or not, It wouldn’t make any difference what we did. You know?
We could but it does matter because we want to be happy, and we don’t want to suffer. Therefore, it may it matters what we do because what we do is going to have an effect on what we eventually experience in terms of happiness and suffering. It makes a great deal because we are the agents of the action, and as agents agents of the action, the being which is in the same continuum as myself, as I continue on, will come to experience the fruit of that action, the result of that action when it meets with the proper activating condition. When we when we look at the natural world, we can see that there is a consistency between a cause and its result. You know, for we, you know, we, like darkness does not come from the flame of a candle.
Cold coldness does not come from a burning piece of wood. We can’t get water out of dry sand. You know, this is in this is in the nature of things. And, you know, I was talking about before in a bit. You know, our our our our contact with reality is at best very partial.
And moreover, to the degree that our you know, we have no other choice, but to live in accordance with the way things are in their real nature, to harmonize ourselves with the laws of the universe. Part of that law is the law of karma. If we’re going to live intelligently and bring and and be able to create the kinds of life that we want for ourselves, if we are ever going to find happiness, then we have no choice but begin to begin begin to identify what is the nature of reality, what kind of causes are what kinds of processes are operating within the universe and begin to record our behavior in a way which is consistent, is harmonious. Otherwise, we’re in conflict. We may want happiness.
We may wish for happiness, but we as Śāntideva says, though we though we though we want happiness, we run to towards suffering. And though we don’t want to suffer, we continually create its causes. So, this this this nature of karma is termed conventional right view. Right view just means this is the good way to look at things if you really want to know how the world is operating, if you want to begin to adapt your life to the way things actually are. It’s a it’s a good view.
It’s a good way to see things. Through gaining an understanding of this certainty of karma, we will if we gain some kind of confidence, we will invariably, you know, the that in this invariable relationship between karma and its result, we will we will naturally begin to adopt positive actions and naturally begin to avoid negative actions. You know, it’s if if the more wisdom, the more intelligence and awareness that we bring to our practice, the less we have to coerce ourselves, the less we have operate on a system on the basis of blind belief and so forth. You know, we don’t have to be good boys and girls, you know, obeying obeying rules laid down, you know, twenty five hundred years ago. If you know that putting your hand in a in a candle flame is going to burn you, that’s your experience.
No one has to you know, no one has to tell you, rule number one, don’t put your hand in the flame. You know? You will naturally tend not to put your hands in the flame, you know, because you’ve come to understand is the natural the the consequences of that way of acting that, you know, within your own experience. So, you know, we if we if we begin to have some kind of confidence that the positive actions are going to bring happiness, negative actions are going to bring in suffering, we won’t have to we won’t have to put ourselves in a dharma straight jacket. We won’t have to coerce ourselves and repress ourselves or force ourselves to act in positive ways and avoid negative ways.
We naturally want to be happy. We naturally don’t want to suffer. Once we it’s only a matter of becoming identifying what is in fact happiness and how that happiness is brought about, of identifying what is real suffering and how that suffering is brought about, the reality of the situation. So the first of these four general principles of karma is the certainty of karma. Happiness and unhappiness are invariably the respective results of positive and negative karma.
And there is never inconsistency in this relationship. The second is the magnification of karma. What does it say here? karma increases so that result may be much greater than its cause. This is an extremely subtle aspect of karma.
You know, it’s said, you know, in Buddhist, what do we say, epistemology, logic, reasoning, they’re said to be three levels of phenomena, three types of phenomena, three levels of phenomena. There are what’s called manifest phenomena, or obvious phenomena — stuff that we can see with our eye. This glass is a manifest phenomenon, obvious phenomena. I can see it with my eye consciousness. There are, there are hidden phenomena and there are two types of hidden phenomena, two levels of hidden phenomena.
They’re just hidden and extremely hidden. So emptiness is a hidden phenomenon. It’s not extremely hidden. No. Emptiness.
We can we can we can arise we can arrive at it through reasoning, through logic. But there is a more subtle level of phenomena called extremely subtle or subtle level of phenomena, extremely hidden phenomena. And this is this this some of the more subtle workings of karma. The subtle workings of karma are even more difficult to understand than emptiness. I mean, I know many of you think that emptiness is kind of, you know, the most obscure thing in the universe.
But anyway, it’s not. But there are things which are even more. There are only only it’s said that a Buddha can see for themselves. But they they we can we can we can use analogies. We can we can come at it indirectly.
I just, in an overall comment, in, with regard to this, because karma and many of the things we do aren’t accessible to us either directly or through a process of reason. We can only, we can we can approach them through analogy and intuitively, you know. But with regard to this, I I know the Dalai Lama once said that emptiness, and we’re gonna spend a long time discussing what emptiness is when we come to the third principal aspect of the path. But emptiness is like like the central, the hub of the Dharma. Liberation.
Without emptiness, let us say the wisdom, understanding the emptiness, then the Bodhisattva’s aspiration to and dedication to free all sentient beings is simply a noble idea, which in reality can never be achieved. It is emptiness. Let us say the wisdom realizing emptiness that actually liberates us. It actually removes ignorance from our mind, and thereby, we cease creating karma, and we experience peace. Now if this emptiness can be arrived at through a process of reason, we can rationally come to its understanding, you know, using lots of different methods of approach, lots of avenues in coming to that understanding, but it’s quite reasonable.
If that is the hub of Buddhism, if that is the central foundation of Buddhism, then these other areas which we which are even more obscure, which we can’t arrive at, then we can provisionally accept them. If the heart of Buddhism, the central principle of Buddhism, can be reasonably established, then these other areas, which at present are inaccessible to ourselves, we can use them as a working hypothesis because the central focus is something that we we can arrive at through our own our own reasoning. We can establish through our own logic and so forth. Then if that’s the most important, these peripheral areas, we can just for them, for the time being, as a working hypothesis or operational basis for our life. So this is kind of the advice that the Dalai Lama gave as a way of have some kind of perspective on these workings of karma.
You know, we have to think about them. We have to discuss them as intelligently as we can. And we can we have we have to make use of, you know, the the the text and explanation of our teachers and so forth. But we we we may not be able to arrive at a conclusive evidence, which will be convincing, but we can we can just use it as an operational basis for, you know, how we operate our lives. Right?
Because we can have confidence in the central focus of Buddhism, for example, emptiness, that wisdom, that we can that we can gain some maturity. Therefore, just for the time being, I’m going to I’m going to provisionally accept these more subtle areas, such as some of these subtle areas of the workings of karma rather than simply rejecting them. So the the note, the second of these three of the four general principles of karma, the magnification of karma, you know, the the our actions deposit karmic seeds in our mind, condition our mind. And when these activated, they come in contact with a specific objective condition. They produce a variety of results.
And we’re going to go through the listings of the possible types of results of various types of karma. But additionally, there is the magnitude of those results can increase in terms of the size of the result, in terms of the amount of result, the duration of the result, the intensity of result, know, even minor positive and negative actions can bring about greatly magnified results, greatly increased results, major results have major effects. So, you know, the, the, the traditional, this is an analogy. That’s the best we can do at this point. The traditional analogy, which is given in describing this increasing magnifying quality of karma is acorn seed.
You put it in the ground and this huge oak tree grows. From a very small seed, a huge result arises. Okay. There’s a, perhaps a more modern day analogy. There’s a I don’t know if maybe I mentioned this or maybe some of you heard of it.
It’s called the butterfly effect. And it’s in it’s within meteorology. There’s a there’s a thought that that long range, an accurate long range for weather forecasting is almost impossible. Why? Because there is a propagation of almost infinitely minor variables over time.
And the reason the example that they give is that even the motion of a butterfly’s wing in France can over time bring about a tornado in the United States. And over time, there’s a, there’s a propagation or augmentation. And I would, I, you know, that’s, that’s, this is called, I don’t know, I don’t know much about this area, but it’s quite an interesting area. One, you know, the one, I try my best to figure these things out. And sometimes I’m not very successful, obviously.
This is called deviation amplification. And the one example that they give, which I think is quite interesting, and it’s a very simple example, and it is it’s like there’s a there’s a there’s a child child who’s on a cricket team. And one, you know, one day they’re playing, they’re out there playing the game and the, the, the normal bowler, or, you know, I guess there’s a few bowlers. I’m not much, I don’t know much about cricket. I’m sorry.
Oh, I’m American. I can’t have an excuse. Hurts his finger. So they said, well, who are we gonna get the bowl? You know, everybody can’t, he’s tired, you know?
So you, Johnny. Johnny’s I’ve never bowled before. Yeah. Come on. You try.
Give it a go. You know? So he gives it a go. And and he lo and behold, first couple balls, he gets so wicked. You know?
Johnny, natural bowler. You know? And he’s really encouraged by this. You know? And he he said the coach says, you know, we’re gonna make you a bowler.
So he goes home, and he’s really enthusiastic, and he’s practicing his bowling bowling. And the next game, because he did so well last week, we’re gonna put you in the rotation. And then he gets to bowl again. He does well. So, and so he, he, he is encouraged.
He gets a chance. He gets an opportunity to bowl. Having the opportunity to bowl, he gets more practice, you know, and game practice. And he actually develops his talent. And if he has, he has the, he actually has the training.
If he has some natural talent to go with that, he develops into a really excellent bowler. Now, now the point I’m trying to make here is that the very fact that even a very significant event that this the normal bowler, you know, stubbed his finger. This kid was given this opportunity and there’s a slight deviation for the normal sequence of rotation of the bowlers. You know, as this things are altered slightly, he gets to be invited to bowl. Out of that, he gets to, he gets, and he did He gets to practice more and more.
He gets enthusiasm. He gets encouraged. And he and he, lo and behold, he starts developing into a bowler. And maybe he goes on to become a test cricket, whatever they do, whatever they’re called. I know.
Test cricketer. So so even pardon? Let me do it. Yeah. That’ll do Test cricketer.
Okay. So even you know, I mean, the idea of some of the you know, if you as I mentioned before, you think too much about karma, you go crazy. But even just a slight event can, over time, given the proper conditions, augment itself. That that this is this little event of being there at the right time and place in this the normal bowler, stubbing his finger and all of this and augments over time till he becomes Shane Warne or something like that. I don’t know.
He becomes a a great bowler. He had the karma to become a great bowler. You know? Maybe he his little event which brought about this was became amplified into he became a world famous bowler. Anyway, there you go.
I gave it a go. I give it a try. So from even insignificant causes come great results. So there’s another classical example. And this is this is a good example in a way, But this, know, the idea of many of you have heard of the ancient Indian king Ashoka, one of the great Buddhist rulers of ancient India.
It is said that in a previous life, he offered a handful of dust, you know, to a previous Buddha. He was so inspired and so had so much reverence. He said, you know, I wish I wish I had something to offer. I wish I had a handful of gold. He had he was just a poor beggar boy, and he up his handful of dust, and he said, oh, I wish this was gold, I think.
That in almost seemingly insignificant event, the the result of it was that he was born as king Ashoka, one of the great rulers of ancient India. So, you know, the as I’ve tried to this is, you know, maybe it’s unimaginable. I don’t know. There’s many there’s a text there’s a teaching by the Buddha called the Sūtra on of the Wise and Foolish, where there are many, many, many of these stories told about the the consequences of actions. Some of them are in terms of this increasing quality of actions, there’s magnification of actually bringing about tremendous results.
So some, you know, I guess if you keep playing with the idea, if you keep looking at analogies in the natural world, but also in terms of these stories and so forth, maybe you can develop some kind of confidence or maybe begin to use it as an operational basis. If you do, if you, you know, gaining some kind of confidence in increasing nature of karma, then you will naturally begin to adopt even minor actions and begin to avoid even minor negative actions. So that’s the point. Even the little things we do can make a difference because they can be magnified over time. Maybe I’ll go on a little bit longer.
The third of these four general principles of karma. If an action is not performed, its result will not be experienced. You cannot meet with the result or karma that you have not performed. You know, this is a lot of the things I think that are taught that are presented really sound simple minded. I mean, they sound like common sense, but in a way, sense isn’t very common, isn’t it?
You know? We it’s if if you if all products, everything that is whatsoever are the results of causes. All of our experiences are called all of our experiences are causes. Good experiences, bad experiences, neutral experience are all results. Therefore, they have a cause.
Yeah. If we if we don’t create a particular cause, we will not experience the result. Our happiness, our long life, prosperity, wisdom, love, anything and everything that we may feel to be positive, that’s valuable to ourselves, that enhances our life, that are, that is desirable, are all products. Our happiness, our long life, our prosperity, our physical well-being, our wisdom, our love. These are products.
All products have a cause. Therefore, their existence for us directly depends upon our creating their causes. If we don’t create the causes for them, we will not experience them as results. Our suffering, our having a short life, being broke all the time, lacking love, lacking wisdom. These are all products.
They all have a cause. You know, what whatever we see as undesirable, whatever undesirable, whatever we see as negative, our products, they all have a cause. If we don’t if we if we create the cause of them, we will experience them as results. If we don’t create the causes of them, we will not experience them as results. And then this is a it might sound simple minded, but it’s I guess it’s a good thing to keep in our simple minds.
You know, if we want a long life, then you have to then you must respect life. You have to save life if rather than destroying life. If if if you if you desire prosperity, then you have to be generous with whatever it is you have, you know, rather than being selfish, trying to hold it hold on to all that you have all the time. If if you if you want wisdom, then you have to be, you have to make use of your intelligence, use your awareness rather than trying to turn your mind off, numb yourself, dumb yourself down. You know, if you, if you, it’s not difficult to see, for example, that if you want to be loved, then acts of caring, kindness, affection directed toward others, predisposes others to act the same way towards ourselves rather than harming them and being harmed in return.
So if we gain some kind of understanding in this, this third quality of karma, that if we don’t perform the specific actions we won’t, which is the cause we won’t experience the result. If we gain some kind of understanding, some kind of confidence in that, then when, whenever the, the desire for a particular result arises, I would like to be like that, or I would like to have that. Then we’ll go out of our way to create the cause. On the other hand, whenever there is some kind of undesirable experience, some some kind of undesirable happening or something something that is that you don’t want, we’ll go out of our way to cease creating the causes and not create the causes for that in the future. We’ll be we’ll we’ll be motivated to adopt the appropriate actions, which which bring that about or don’t bring that about.
And then finally, the the fourth of these fourth, these four general principles, karma that are are not dissipated. Dissipated. Once karma is created, it is never lost. It will remain until it yields its result. So, you know, however, we talked about how our actions deposit seeds, implant seeds within our consciousnesses.
And these seeds will simply not vanish of themselves. They are not lost in the shuffle of lifetimes. They do not wear out or rot or become spoiled, lose their potency. They are not lost. When they meet with the appropriate activating condition, some type of resultant experience will arise for ourselves.
You know, there’s like the, like the seeds in the, in the pyramids of Egypt. These seeds, some of them have been there three thousand, maybe four thousand years. And they take these seeds, and they put them in and this has done been done in recent times. They put them in soil and add water and so forth. And they they they sprouted a wheat plant.
You know, they had maintained their viability, their potency over three three or four thousand years. You know, the seed the potency of the seed remained. It and and when it met with the the proper the appropriate activating condition, that potency was expressed in terms in this case, a plant grew. So we have all of these karmic seeds in our mind. They’re not going to be lost.
They’re not going to go away. When they meet with the appropriate activating condition, they will be they will find expression, and we will undergo a particular experience which corresponds with the action that created those seeds. So if we gain confidence that an action once performed is not lost, is not dissipated, then we’re we’re naturally going to and this is something we’re going to work with in the in the coming weeks. We’re going to avoid destroying our positive seeds within our mind through anger and misguided regret. You know, when you say that seeds are not dissipated, seeds are not lost, there’s a certain qualification which is necessary, unless destroyed by a countervailing power, by a countervailing force.
And by that I mean, the positive seeds in our mind can be destroyed by anger and by misguided regret. For example, on the other hand, and we’re going to talk more about this in the future. On the other hand, the negative seeds in our mind, and it works both ways, it works to our advantage and disadvantage. The negative seeds which are present in our mind can can be destroyed by applying what are called the four powers. And this is a specific method whereby we can weaken and destroy the negative karmic seeds in our mind.
The method is called the four powers, the power of repudiation, the power of reliance, the power of turning away, and the power of antidote. And we’re gonna go through this four powers. But anyway, it’s like if if if you if you have confidence that that these seeds are there within our mind and they’re not going to go away by themselves, that you want to maintain. You don’t you don’t want to lose, destroy the positive seeds in our mind on the one hand. Therefore, this would help you as a means of when you find yourself becoming angry.
One of the disadvantages of anger is that you’re going to destroy these positive seeds in your mind. On the other hand, we also have negative seeds in our mind. When these these aren’t going to go away by themselves, therefore, you’re going to be motivated to make use of these four powers by we can weaken and finally destroy these these negative seeds. It’s like when they’re described in different various ways, because one way is using analogy is like, like, as if you put a seed in fire such that it’s just scorched. It loses its potency.
It’s no longer viable. No matter how much, you know, you put it in earth, no matter how much water you you put you pour on it, it’s never going to sprout. It’s never going to bring about any type of result. We can we can work with that. We can guard against destroying the positive seeds within our mind, and we can work with the method of destroying purposely the negative seeds within our minds.
Once we have this confidence that these seeds are in our mind and are not going to go away by themselves, that they are not dissipated. Okay. So that’s the four general principles of karma. Then we’ll we’ll begin to look at some of the more specific areas of karma, the, you know, the negative path of action, the positive path of action, and so forth. I’m gonna sit there.
Okay. So does anybody have any comments, anything that that I can share? Hidden. There’s three. And we take it from an understanding that there are we’re working on other areas?
I think when the when I was mentioning what the Dalai Lama said. Yeah. I think his point was that if if the central principle of Buddhism can be arrived at through reason, I mean, emptiness can be arrived at through the process of reason. And these other areas, such as the the subtle work of the karma, which which cannot do. We can we we are we can have a willingness to use them simply as an an operational basis for our life.
And? And? Is this same as good intention in someone needing suffering? What is it? So we’re gonna go we and hand out you the the branches of a complete path of karma.
So we can we can we can begin to analyze and break it down in terms of now what is in terms of the second part? What is in terms of thought? What’s the motivation? So and then, you know, if all four of these branches are complete, then the the karma is complete if one of them is missing or two of them are missing or three of them are missing, then the karma becomes lighter and lighter. So one of the one of the one of the factors involved in the thought is motivation.
And is there an effect Yeah. You you can’t kill off compassion, can you? I mean, the motivation can be compassionate. But it’s quite it’s it’s quite difficult to to really understand your own motivation. Sometimes we kill because it’s uncomfortable for us to see the animal suffer.
You’ll get it yet. I think different teachers will give you different answers according to different situations. What complicates that a bit because I’ve been in that position with a cat. Yeah. And you do tend to take the advice of the professional, the vet, who says, look.
You know, this is the best thing you can do for this animal. Yeah. So you you take that advice plus I think compassion is a word that probably until you realize emptiness, you don’t really understand compassion. That’s my thinking. But I’m sure at the time of the putting down of our cats, we were very upset, obviously, for days after.
But we relied if you like, we relied on the teacher, which is the vet. To, you know, to give us that advice and maybe build some compassion within us. I mean, you take in my instance, we took the animal to the vet. Yeah. Because she was, you know, just acting strange.
We go there, the vet examines, we said, look. The liver’s enlarged, can’t do much about that many times. Yeah. The best thing you can do for the more you delve into it, the more I guess what I was trying to do is, you know, thinking these seeds in my mind, you know, there’s one instance that, you know, you would hope But the fact some mitigating circumstance. The fact that you have to quit.
I mean, there isn’t I mean, we we talked about these stories, sometimes they they try to illustrate whether they’re true or not. But there’s a story about the Buddha when he was a Buddha. He was on a ship. And this is story. Okay?
Illustrated point. And he he came to understand that this one passenger was going to kill the other members of the of the ship. And because he was so concerned about this person’s karma that they would create and all the negativity that they would create create by killing all the rest of the passengers and that they would go to hell and so forth. Out of compassion, it said that he killed this man. Anyway, so the point is that yeah.
So there’s a moral there is. Yeah. Some kind of guideline. But let’s be fair. As a Bodhisattva, he had heaps more power on top of what I’ve got.
I put my cat down fifteen years ago. Yeah. That example to purify a lot of negative karma and create a better situation for yourself instead of going on a guilt like, oh my god. I’ve done something wrong. Well, it’s not it’s not guilt as as as such because I’ve got my dog that’s coming up to, you know, another year or two.
Vets are already talking about, you know, he’s got this and he’s got that. You know, I mean, I’m quite comfortable in one way that my motivation was as pure as I am able at this time to be compassionate to to see the dog or the cat put down. Think I’m gonna have more trouble with the dog because I now know about karma and all about all the seeds and all the rest of it. I’m gonna be in you’ll be getting for for positive stuff, anger and and something around the regret. Misguided regret.
What kind of regret? Misguided. Misguided. Sometimes the words are really good, and I I miss them. But as far as the debt, I mean, we’re we’re gonna you know, maybe we can we’re gonna we’re gonna analyze some of the negativities and branches of negative karma in terms of these four branches.
I think we can understand it. Some of it’s not all the branches are there. It’s not as heavy. And and and having a beneficial intention, even though you do kill, can it’s a mitigating. And how it’s done, and then what’s done, it’s painlessly possible and so forth as a mitigating effect.
So there’s a lot and then it can get to the point where it’s it’s unsure. It’s indefinite karma. Not sure whether it actually ripens or not, whether it actually produces effect. You know, mean, we’re doing really, you know, grain that goes to feed it. If they do all be adding up now, which they’re starting to do, and they realize how much it costs and how little we pay for it compared to costing in the earth.
Of of Buddhism. And once we understand that Okay. Then we will the the rest sort of fits in. My question is, as emptiness is so crucial to. Why isn’t that talk first?
I You wouldn’t understand. Pardon? You wouldn’t understand. I don’t I think we have such an emotional investment in the way things are in this reality as we perceive it. And we we wouldn’t even be able to entertain the possibility that things aren’t the way they appear.
Then we have to begin to at least have develop I know if that makes much sense. We we we have an emotional investment in the way things are. Point because when you were teaching me, you said that emptiness is a process of using logic to come to that. Well, that’s not enough. Logic is not enough is what you’re saying.
Is it? No. No. No. You need to be able to get in touch with your mind and clear that so that the logic can The hard thing about how I think about emptiness is, I mean, it doesn’t it’s not the logic for the reason.
It’s the habit actually affect your mind to integrate Yeah. What the significance of emptiness into any actual how it changes your mind and your life. That’s the difficult. Professor of it, intellectually, but not really experience it. It doesn’t affect you.
Yeah. The significance of being the impact. You were talking about whether that was wrong. I guess it’s it’s, you know, the motivation. Yeah.
I mean, a lot of that’s I guess there’s a quite a diversity amongst motivation for vets. Some are just doing it for business. Mhmm. And some are doing it because they really love animals. Mhmm.
Yeah. So whether it’s around my baby or not, I find it hard to to get to it that way. Right? So but that’s just personal. That’s just an aside.
And when you said it it was so to take us we provisionally accept some of these things to work with them, which I understand. But they’re not reachable by reason. But these three levels of phenomena that I mentioned. Yeah. The third type of certainly, if it actually is not performed, this result will not be experienced.
So this means that if you don’t create the cause, you will not experience the results. Your eating doesn’t feed my stomach. So it is way to Yeah. Yeah. Those genes would act as the cooperative condition necessary to activate the the karma of the mind of the being who was born of that particular ovum, which they got from their parents.