Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this two-hour session, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with T.S. Eliot’s verse on knowledge versus wisdom to frame a frank survey of the secular “refuges” people rely on — love, politics, celibacy, meat-eating — before asking whether any of them actually work. He then continues the previous week’s death meditation, guiding the group through three reasons the time of death is uncertain (unpredictable lifespan, the many causes of death, the body’s fragility), and leads a seated practice on that question. The session then shifts to karma: he explains why subtle karmic phenomena require credible testimony rather than direct perception, recaps four general principles of karma, and introduces the ten negative karmic paths using a four-branch analytical framework (basis, thought, action, culmination), working through killing in careful detail. A lively Q&A closes with discussion of mercy killing, soldiers acting under coercion, and whether covetousness can be intentionally cultivated.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 3PA 2007 03 26.mp3
UUID: ebde1aac-2311-494b-95db-1e92982da9c8
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-03-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 125.7 minutes
Words: ~12,232
It’s nice to see familiar faces. It makes me much more comfortable. So we have to begin can you hear me okay? So we begin by adjusting our motivation. You’ve had a busy day unlike myself.
So it’s necessary to pause and check up within ourselves, you know, why we’re here. And perhaps to try to adjust the motivation why we’re here to if it’s indifferent or to something positive according to the various levels of intensity or in terms of the goal that we are able. The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention, endless experiment brings knowledge of motion but not of stillness, knowledge of speech but not of silence, knowledge of words and ignorance of the word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.
But nearness to death, no nearer to God. Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God nearer to our death.
So, you know, we it’s in adjusting our motivation, it’s this process of reprioritizing, getting back in touch with what is uniquely important to each of ourselves, you know, what brings meaning and purpose to our lives, what we what is worth our lives. Perhaps, you know, recommitting ourselves to those ideas and those values and ways of being which we’ve lost sight of, which we get out of touch with in the course of the busyness of our lives. And this process that, you know, we all are going for refuge. It’s no big deal in a way. I guess it’s just a matter of what it is that we go for refuge to and checking to see whether our particular refuge is working or not.
And our families, we hold dear, our material things, money, status, entertainment, sex, drugs, politics, rock and roll, sports, politics, love that’s a good one, isn’t it? Falling in love. A lot of people take refuge in that. Some people take refuge in the global community. Some people take community.
Some people take refuge in the patriotism to their country, to their racial identity, their ethnic background, joining a club, hanging out with the boys on Friday night. Some people take refuge in vegetarianism. Some people take refuge in eating as much meat as they possibly can. Some people take refuge in celibacy. Some people take refuge in having as much sex as they possibly can.
Some people take refuge religion. Some people take refuge in materialism. So there’s all types of possibilities and we each have our own particular refuges which we greater or lesser degrees of refuges that we make use of every day of our lives in some form or another, in some way or another. So I guess it’s important that if we’re going to live our lives intelligently and try to lead a successful life, that we check up to see whether our particular refuges are working or not, and at what level are they working or not. You know, everybody has problems of one sort or another, you know.
So, you know, the minor little irritations up to major tragedies in our life in one way or another, in some form or another. You know, the someone that’s close to us dies, or they get sick or we get sick, has accident, somebody close to us or we ourselves lose our job or we have a car or we wreck our car, we spill soy sauce on our shirt, you know, all these little problems, major and minor tragedies and difficulties of our life. So, you know, kind of setting all of those various ups and downs of our life aside, what is the overall impression that you have when you think about your life in terms of the success of your life, the quality of your life, the fulfillment of your life, the meaning and purpose. You know, sooner or later, I think that confronts us and asks us, you know, now that you’ve gotten this far in your life or maybe you haven’t gotten far enough, what has it all been about? You know, all the blood, sweat, and tears that we’ve expended, all the thinking, the worrying, the anxiety, the planning, struggle.
Now where has it gotten us? Or do we seem we seem to be going through the same motions again and again and again, going through the same difficulties and again. We haven’t really progressed anywhere except maybe just coming around full circle to where we were ten years from now, twenty years from now, ten years before, twenty years before. You know, we do all kinds of things to find happiness, don’t we? Keep thinking, how can I be happy?
How can I alleviate this problem? What can I do next? You know, we we we get we find a a new partner or a new wife or a new new new husband or we just maybe we go we try going alone for a while or or we we get a new job or we take up a new career or we just give up working for a while and see how that works for ourselves. We move into a bigger or a smaller house or another flat in the city or out in the country or in the suburbs or somewhere. We take up a new hobby or a new sport or we try a new interest, a new business venture.
Some kind of leisure time pursuit of one sort or another, you know, where we have another baby or we have I don’t know. You tell me that you have another facelift or you have another affair or you don’t know what to do next, and I’m trying to figure out what can I do next to find the happiness that I’m looking for? At least for a while until something else comes up. So there’s there’s, you know, we’re there’s always seems to be some kind of project. Can you hear me okay?
No. It’s not very loud. It’s not loud enough. Okay. So in conclusion, I’d just like to add is that better?
Yes. Okay. Good. Maybe that’s good. So we’re talking about all of the various projects and all the various refuges that we are trying to take recourse to over the course of our lives, trying to divert our attention in some way or another from the dissatisfaction, the underlying currents of anxiety, the fear that more than not runs our life.
I mean, it’s not a very pretty thing to look at, is it? And that’s why we keep ourselves distracted most of the time, finding something else to occupy our mind with most of the time. But in that way, we never really solve our problems. We never have to get down to the fundamental difficulties in finding these fundamental solutions. All the various themes of dissatisfaction, disappointment, frustration, the sense of passenger-hood in our life.
We’re all waiting for a knock on the door, or a telephone call, a letter in the mail. The life you wanted has arrived. Would you like us to send it, or will you come down and pick it up yourself? You know? I this is so Buddhism is asking that as best we can, that we become the authors of our lives, that we take our life into our own hands, that we no longer remain victims.
You know, as long as we we have hope in you know, the we we we cling to the unconscious hope that I can keep that the dominant themes and reoccurring patterns of my present ways of thinking and acting can remain very much the same, but somehow some unexpected occurrence is is going to come along. Know, something totally unpredictable, some goodness is going to happen as if all by itself. And we’re we’re kind of holding out for that. Some kind surprise ending that we hadn’t planned for. This time around, things are going to be better.
They’re going to turn out the way I want them. I’m not quite sure how. Somebody or something is going to come around and make my life the way I want it to be, make of it the kind of life I want to live in some way or another. Maybe, know, I guess it’s different for each of us, isn’t it? If we really look into ourselves, you know, maybe some devoted wife or a sensitive, caring man, a new therapy, some kind of psychotropic drug which is going to make things better for me.
Maybe my guru can make things better for me. That’s a good one. Maybe just something totally unpredictable, which I don’t know at present, but it’ll come along. So we wait. In some way or another.
I think we’re all waiting. There’s a Yeah. We’re waiting with great anticipation for that call telling us that our life has arrived. We don’t quite know what we’re waiting for or how to overcome the inertia of not waiting. And our life kind of these disappointing, you know, these look forward tomorrows that we have great anticipation.
They slowly, one by one, drift down into the disappointing todays, which didn’t quite bring us what we were at some deeper level looking for to our lives, to bring us, into the forgotten yesterdays of our lives. And our our life just kinda creeps on at at its petty peace. You know? Days become months and months, years, and our life goes by. And we really haven’t gotten as far as we want to in our life.
So maybe we have to really become sincere and look at alternative refuges in our life. We have to try to learn from our life. We have to use our intelligence. We’ve all had enough experience but we missed the lesson. We keep dismissing the lesson that life is trying to continually bring us.
And then life is over. It’s finished. It’s sad, but that’s the case. So before that happens, maybe we can do something. So, you know, we in terms of other possible refuges or other alternatives, we begin to, within our imagination, try to form some idea of the person I want to be, you know, five years from now, ten years from now.
And at least try to clarify for yourself what is important to yourself and who you could be, what you could do with your life. Then we have to begin by at least doing that for ourselves, and then we can call that a Buddha. Is the best possible story that we can, at present, imagine about ourselves. I want to be that. You know, this possibility of actually developing some kind of wisdom, some kind of understanding, some kind of real love beyond simple attachments, beyond our you scratch my back and scratch your back way of relating, which is the basis of most of our relations.
And real caring and compassion for others and the quality of some kind of inner strength. This sounds pretty good. And I could imagine that this would be a fulfilling way of life. And trying to translate these qualities of wisdom, love, and compassion, and personal power into actually doing something in the world beyond my own egotistical ends. And it is trying to help at least one other person altruistically, skillfully, developing those means to be able to do that.
So that’s why we’re here. That’s why we try to do it together in our in our in the best ways that we can, fumbling, making lots of mistakes along the way. But that’s okay. Maybe we’re we won’t circle back to quite the same spot. Maybe it becomes something more like a spiral.
We’re actually moving in some kind of direction. And over time, we can begin to notice some subtle changes that we’re actually beginning to, from time to time, express or actualize or be those kinds of things that we want to be, those qualities that we would like to live in our daily life. And that’s kind of an inspiration and encouragement for ourselves and become an example for others that change is possible. It’s just not something that was written a long time ago or something which has been invented in California at a new therapy session, that we actually can work with our problems and begin to develop our potential. That sounds pretty good.
That sounds like a good reason to do what we do, the motivation behind what we do. 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 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 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. May all sentient beings have happiness in the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering in the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that 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, mind. I present clouds of every type of offering that is actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during beginningless time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors 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. Meditate on is that loud enough? Is it okay? No. Maybe we could turn it up a little bit more.
No. Think if you just okay. Can you just turn up to about eight and a half? We’ll blow them away. Yeah.
We’ll have a rock concert. Is that better? Yeah. That’s getting better, isn’t it? I can hear it.
Okay. That is that good? Okay. So we were last week, we were meditating on on on death. I don’t know, maybe I’m coming on too heavy here.
No, I worry about that sometimes. We meditate on death in order to value our life, that we don’t allow our life to be wasted. It’s a closed in situation that we’re involved in. It’s not going to last forever. It’s definite that we’re going to die.
That’s what we meditated on last week. And this week, we’re going to meditate on the fact that, though death is indefinite, we don’t know when we’re going to die. The time of our death is uncertain. And we’ve gone through this in terms of we’ve looked at this that this is supported by three reasons. And the the first reason of which is does anybody remember?
I have an exam. I’m always telling you. What is there are three reasons which support the premise that death is the time of death is uncertain. Yeah, that’s not fair, is it? Okay.
We simply, you know, the human life expectancy is uncertain. We simply don’t know when we’re going to die, you know, if we look about us. And you know, these meditations, we have to use our creativity, our own experience, our own wisdom, the information that we’ve gathered over the course of our life. I can make suggestions, or our teachers can make suggestions and so forth, the texts can make suggestions. But these are like fingers, pointing at something.
Aren’t to get hung up on the fingers. We’re trying to see what is being indicated by the finger. So we have to I mean, this is part of the skill of meditation, isn’t Trying to develop the actual feelings. The words aren’t so important. That well, you know, when a penny drops, I don’t know when I’m going to die.
You know, I have this I have innate sense I’m always going to be here. But at best, if we were to discuss it and think about it, we’d say, Well, okay. I’m going to die, but not anytime soon, sometime in the vague and distant future. And that’s the feeling we harbor around this notion of our death at some level. And so this works against us.
We never have to become sincere with the moment. There’s always going to be plenty of time to do that in the future, to make the types of decisions and choices that we’ve been putting off in one way or another. This is why we wait in one way or another, waiting for that call, waiting for that letter, the knock at the door, is because we think we have plenty of time. It’s never it’s not going to happen too soon. So anyway, tomorrow maybe.
That’s time enough. human life expectancy is uncertain. We go through all the possibilities. Fetuses die in the womb, babies die at birth, infants die before they can crawl, children die before they walk, years old, twelve years old, forty years. You know, we could go on and on and on.
All the people, you know, the various deaths that you’ve heard about and that you’ve had happen in your direct circle of friends and acquaintances in your life. All those various ages, people die at any age. There’s no particular age that people don’t die. There’s no you know. And the fact that you’re young and healthy is no guarantee that you’re going to get it home tonight.
There’s no guarantee. The majority of people who are going to die this month, the majority, didn’t think they would die for a very long time, sometime in the far distant future, just like ourselves, who think that we’re not going to die anytime soon, that it’s going to be at some time in the far distant future. Most of the majority of people who die this month think the same way that we think. Just because you reject the item doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen. Second reason, there are many causes of death.
You know? You know? That the our conditions are are you know, there is a notion in physics, I guess it’s entropy, that things tend toward disorganization, that we have to create this continual need to create keep putting the energy, keep recreating the causes and conditions, you know, in order to maintain stability, organization. You know? I don’t know if you ever noticed it, but you have to clean up your house once in a while.
Otherwise, it seems to fall apart. It becomes disorganized as if by itself. You have to put energy into keeping it neat and so forth. All possibilities of ways our life could end in terms of little things, but also earthquakes and car accidents. Thousands and thousands of people die on the road every year.
But but we might feel safe from such, you know, tragedies, catastrophes, catastrophes. But for us, there is heart attacks and cancer and so forth. You know? And people die people die doing doing everything and anything. And they die, you know, going to work and coming home from work and cleaning the house.
And they die in their sleep. They die in meditation courses. They die during and receiving during the talk on Buddhism and so forth. There’s no situation or time that people don’t die. And finally, the third is that the human body extremely fragile.
You know, when when you see I don’t know if you you’re driving along and you see a road accident, a car accident, and you see all this glass and twisted metal. It’s nice, soft flesh. Doesn’t should have we should have big lots of padding inside cars. You know, we shouldn’t be riding around in such sharp, hard things. We should we should be riding around in Styrofoam balls or something.
And it it doesn’t I don’t know. It always strikes me as as contradictory, this this soft flesh, which just a little pinprick can can cause to break and and bleed. And here are all these this sharp glass and metal pieces sticking out. Anyway, this it doesn’t take much. Even a even a virus, which you can’t even see or an air bubble in your in your blood bloodstream.
You know, the the conditions are around us are such that it doesn’t take much for our life energy to flow out of ourselves. So if we if we you know, you you know, it would be good to actually have a I always thought it would to write a Lam Rim. You eat about, you know, thirty or forty people together, and you you all come up with these ideas of what works for you. You know, these these are some suggestions that you can think of, but we all have our own ideas about what is meaningful, what works, what makes you know, evoke some kind of feeling for us in terms of all these these points, for example, you know, that the human body is very fragile. You know, we’ve maybe you have some memory of something happening, and we could all write these down, and we could it could be a very, very useful meditation manual.
You know? All all of our collective experiences and wisdom and figuring out for yourself, you know, how you can evoke these feelings that And that to in order to come to some kind of determination, you know, that I don’t know when I’m going to die. You know, I’ve got to start using my life wisely and mindfully in terms of you know, start really working toward what it what it is that I want. Start making some choices now because I don’t know how long it’s going to be that I’m going to have this opportunity, that this my kind of life presents itself. The future is uncertain.
So we’re going to meditate on these things. So take a comfortable, firm posture. Begin by relaxing the body, bringing your awareness to these various areas and softening, relaxing, starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles of the brow smoothing out, the pressure in and around your eyes diminishing. The muscles of the face, the flesh of the face softening, relaxing. Your jaws relaxed And the muscles at the back of the neck perhaps gently turn your head to the side a few times.
Just loosening, stretching. Relaxing the muscles of the throat, The upper back, feeling the burden that you carry on your back that we carry on our shoulders beginning to move down through your body into the ground. And rotating your shoulders a few times. And letting them drop comfortably to the side. Your hands are soft.
Relaxing the wrists, the lower arms, The upper arms Your chest is at ease Relaxing the heart, the lungs, middle of the back, Stomach. Releasing your stomach muscles, allowing your belly to go soft. Intestines. Holding your body erect, relaxing the lower back muscles. Relaxing throughout the pelvic area, the genitals, buttocks throughout the upper legs, Lower legs.
Ankles. Your feet are soft. And bring your awareness to your body in general and notice that any tightnesses, any tensions within the body, focusing upon those areas, consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tightness loosen, the tension diminish, body becoming comfortable, at ease, a sense of physical well pervading your body. It feels good to be in your body. And then bring your mind to the breath.
Easy gentle in and out flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. We’re going to meditate on the fact that the time of death is unpredictable. We’re going to use three reasons. The first reason is human life expectancy is uncertain.
So thinking about all the various ages, whether from a fetus all the way up to your particular age and beyond, there’s no age at which human beings don’t die. It’s uncertain when a human being will die. That applies to myself as well. The second premise, the second reason, there are many causes of death. Just think all the various causes of catastrophes that you hear on television set, on the news, all the possibilities that you see within your own personal environment, all the And then the third reason, the human body is very fragile.
It doesn’t take all that much to die. And now one last question to ask yourself. Death is definite. The time of death is indefinite. What should I do?
Don’t look for an intellectual answer. What should I do? Death is definite. The time of death is indefinite. What should I do?
Just live with that question. Just let that question reverberate around your body and mind. Just feel the question. Don’t come up with an answer. Just be that question.
What should I do? And then bring your mind back to the breath. And then get in touch with your body, the feeling sensations with the body. In an easy and gentle, relaxed manner, slowly become aware of what’s going on about you. Just take your time.
There’s no hurry. So we’re looking at section on karma. Last week we began by talking about the four general principles of karma. And in the course of talking about those general principles, I mentioned the different levels of phenomena. I just want to clarify something around that.
Within Buddhist epistemology, the way we understand things, the way that we know things, there are there are said to be two ways that we can realize an object. And and by realize an object, I mean a type of understanding which is able to eliminate superimposition, superimposition, our projections upon things. It’s like when you see if you’re wearing sunglasses and you see a snow mountain as green because of the sunglasses, and you take them off, you remove the overlay of your own projections upon the object, and you see it in its true nature, the way it actually is. And you begin to relate with it according to its actual nature in a more appropriate manner. So the idea of realization is a stable understanding which is able to remove these overlays, these projections that we’re continually putting on the various phenomena around us, the eye, the world, and so forth.
There are two ways that we can come to these types of understandings, these realizations. Is by direct perception, like eye consciousness, which sees the bell, or eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, these sense consciousnesses. The other is by means of inference. And there are different there are three types of inferences. So I’m going to just want to mention these in brief.
These and I’ll I’ll mention what they what these are because they’re going to relate to the three types, the levels of phenomena that we mentioned last week. And I said that there were three levels of phenomena. There are manifest phenomena, or you can say obvious phenomena, like this bell is an obvious phenomena, manifest phenomena. The sound of the truck is a manifest phenomena. I can know these obvious phenomena through direct perception, through my my eye consciousness, through my ear consciousness, and so forth.
So the first time I understand them, I simply see them directly or hear them directly. And there are two other levels of phenomena, and these are levels of phenomena, and these are hidden phenomena. There is slightly hidden phenomena and extremely hidden phenomena. And slightly hidden phenomena, for example, are emptiness, emptiness, selflessness, subtle impermanence, types of phenomena which the first time that we come to understand them, realize them, we have to rely upon a line of reasoning. And then we use some logic, and we gain some an inference.
We gain an understanding of the object through a line of reasoning. We can’t know it directly for the initially. We have to know it indirectly by way of our idea about it, by way of reason. But there is a third level phenomena. And this is extremely hidden phenomena.
There’s no mystery about extremely hidden phenomena. But they are types of phenomena which we can come to understand, but we can’t come to understand them initially in dependence upon either our sense consciousnesses nor lines of reasoning. We have to rely in our initial understanding upon credible testimony, you might think or as abstract as you might first might first appear to you. The very fact of your exact birth date and where you were born. You can’t know that directly, nor can you reason it out.
You have come to but you do understand where you were born and what time you were born. How? You take someone else’s word on it, or you take the word of your documents, your birth certificate. And dependent upon your birth certificate, on your parents’ word, other people, you come to understand, I was born in such and such a town on such and such a day. Okay?
If there’s some flowers on that altar, that’s an obvious phenomenon. I can I can understand it through my eye consciousness? If I were to take those flowers and put them on the other side of that wall, it would be an extremely subtle phenomenon. There’s no way I can see it with my sense consciousness. I can’t reason that there’s a flower on the other side of the wall.
But if somebody came along and trusted, who had been always reliable in the past, been honest, truthful, had no reason to lie to me, and he said, oh, there’s some flowers out in the parking lot on the other side of this wall, I could come to validly understand that there are flowers on the other side of that wall. We use this kind of understanding, don’t we? We make use of reliable information, reliable people, and we come to valid understandings. Likewise, when it comes to karma, a lot of the things we’re trying to understand are extremely subtle phenomena. We can’t know them for the first time either directly through our senses nor can many of these points be reasoned out by logic.
We have to depend upon reliable information by a reliable person. It is said the Buddha is a reliable person. Many of the other areas, things he’s talked about, we can reason out. We can see it for ourselves. And what we’ve seen for ourselves, what we reason out for ourselves, are consistent with what he said.
So we can say, well, so far, he’s been reliable in these other areas, and he has no reason to lie about these areas that I can’t directly access at present. Therefore, we can use these as an operational basis. We can say, even though we can’t reason it out or see it for ourselves, it’s a way of understanding that this may in fact be the case. So, you know, I just wanted to using somebody’s testimony, using somebody’s what somebody says, using documentation and scriptures isn’t at all that abstract. It isn’t all that far fetched.
We do it quite a lot. So we went through these these these four general principles of karma. Happiness and unhappiness are invariably the respective results of positive and negative karma. There’s this correspondence between the two. Okay.
That’s the that was the first general principle. The second was the magnification of karma, that the results of a karma can increase. Third type of third principle is that if you don’t create the karma, the particular karma, you won’t meet the results. Or the adverse of that is, in order to achieve some type of result, experience some kind of result, you have to create the cause, the karma, which brings that about. And then the fourth principle of karma is that once karma is created, it’s not lost, it doesn’t away, deteriorate, dissipate.
It will remain and until it would remain until it meets with an activating condition where whereupon it will ripen and we will undergo some experience. So these are the four general principles of karma. You know, now we’re going to discuss karma in more specific categories, you know, a means to how we can actually apply these principles, how we actually put these principles into practice. This human mind of ours is capable of infinite varieties of thoughts, intentions, you know, and from all of these infinite varieties of thoughts come come a long of these countless actions. So in order to to to formulate this virtually infinite number of types of actions that we probably do ourselves but are done in general.
The Buddha condensed them into those which are most easily those which most easily occur and have the heaviest types of result. So if all of these infinite types of possible actions, karmas that we could be creating, that we are creating continually, he simply created a categorization. And he said, these ten types of karma are the most easily created. They’re probably the most relevant to ourselves. And moreover, they’re extremely heavy, and therefore, they should concern you because of these general principles of karma.
These actual karmas that you’re creating should be of concern concern to yourself. So he he he categorized what are called the ten negative paths of action, and they’re opposite the ten positive paths of action. Opposite the ten positive paths of action or karma. So we are ideally to abandon abandon the ten negative act paths of karma and to cultivate the ten positive paths of karma. So the ten positive paths of karma are taken, are cultivated as a means of opposing, as a means of preventing the ten negative paths of karma.
So the positive paths of karma are the antidote, the way that we can prevent the ten negative. We can oppose the ten negative. So merely so the point is, in saying that, is merely not creating one of the ten negative paths of karma is not creating one of the ten positive paths of karma. You know, if, you know, for example, the negative path of killing. The karma simply, we don’t kill when we’re asleep.
Okay? But we’re not creating the ten we’re not creating the positive action of non killing when we’re asleep. A stone would be creating the positive action of not killing simply by not killing. So simply refraining from an action, not doing action is not a positive action. So in order to create a positive action, you must first know what the ten negative karmic actions are.
Then you have to understand what are the consequences of those ten negative actions. And then, based upon that knowledge, you use your discriminated wisdom, and you oppose those negative attitudes and refrain from performing it. Okay. There is a negative action of killing. Okay.
You understand all of the aspects of that negativity, that particular action. You understand it’s it’s negative, what and what its negative consequences are. And then in within the context of that understanding, you oppose any tendency toward that. If the attitude or the intention arises to kill, you you apply you refrain from committing that action. That That restraint from which opposes committing the negative action of killing is the positive action of non killing.
Simply refrain just generally, it’s during sleep, you’re not killing. But that is not the positive action of non killing. Therefore, in order to commit or cultivate these ten positive paths of karma, we have to know what are the opposite, what are we to restrain to from? What are we to try to resist? Therefore, we have to know what are the ten negative paths of karma.
And that’s what we’re going to go through. We’re going we’re going to analyze what are the what are what makes up a complete action and trying to come to some sense of how we begin to lessen the heaviness of negative karma and also how we can begin to ensure that we create more and more positive karma. So we’re going to in beginning the discussion, we’re going to have to make a distinction between what we mean by karma and a path of karma. You know, you have a handout, most of you do. If you don’t, I have a few more copies, I hope.
Three. I’ve got three more. Oh, okay. There’s I have to make some more copies. These are some of the just some of the just some notes on karma, some of the types of karma that we’ll be looking at and working through.
There there are going to be more notes. There’s another couple. I’ll make some more. Okay? So if you note I don’t have one.
I’m sorry. Can I can I share can I share you? Sure. If If you notice, it says on page two, it says the ten negative paths of karma. So what is the difference between a karma and a path of karma?
So actually, it’s a little bit explained on the bottom of page one in the footnote there. Okay. But it’s useful. We’re just gonna go through this, and then then we’ll have some understanding about it’s useful to know distinction. We’ve discussed what karma is.
Is the mental factor of intention. Among the fifty one mental factors or functions of the mind, there is one which is intention. So this is is what’s driving the action. For, you know, if we take an example, the karma of killing. The karma of killing is intention.
It is the intention to take another’s life. It is a mental act. Okay? The actual karma is a mental act, the mental act of intention. On the other hand, a path of karma.
Okay? We’re talking okay. Now, karma is intention. A path of karma can be either the cause of the intention intention, or the object of that intention, the way in which it’s actualized, the way in which it’s carried out. So it’s like a path is a pathway.
From from the initial we have initial motivation to do something. This motivates our intention to actually do it, which is the driving behind force behind the action. And then we actually bring it to some kind of final completion. We actually actualize it. For example, and this is you you can look on page one of your handout where we we have what’s called the the branches of a complete path of action.
You know, maybe you get angry. Angry is a motivating force. Okay? It’s the initial motivation. It it out of anger, that is, you want to hurt.
Is anger motivates the intention. The intention says, is a desire to kill. Intention to kill. Motivated motivated by anger, there arises through intention to kill. Out of that intention to kill, one begins to actually carry it out, express it.
One actually picks up a knife and stabs someone, and the person dies. So was beginning with the initial motivation, the anger, there was a pathway through the actual intention, intending to kill, through the actual act the the carrying out of the action, picking up a knife, and to the completion where the victim dies. It’s like an outflowing from the initial cause to the carrying out, which is the object. So this entire pathway, this is called a path of karma. The the factor of intention is the actual karma.
The the initial motivation of the anger comes the intention, comes the actual acting out, comes the conclusion. All the rest of that is a path of karma. Is that is that okay? Okay. In we look at the ten negative paths of karma, we’re going to go through these, and we’re going to analyze them.
So this is just an introduction to this idea of karma and a path of karma. But the Buddha organized these types of karma which were most most relevant to ourselves, easily performed, most relevant to ourselves, and which have heaviest consequences in terms of our actions of body, body, speech, mind. Bodily actions, verbal actions, and mental actions. And three of body, four of speech, and three of mind. And if we take the karma of killing is the intention to take life.
But the path of killing begins with the motivation behind that intention and then flows on to the intention and then the intention moves on to the it’s it’s being carried out to its actual conclusion. All of the actions of body bodily actions and verbal actions, they are karma. They are intention. The intention to kill, the intention to steal, the intention to involve oneself in sexual misconduct and so forth. These all of the seven actions of body and speech are karma.
They are also paths of action. Yeah? They are they they are a path of action because they are the actualization or the carrying out of the intention. They are the object of the intention, the carrying out of the intention. We have intention to kill, or we have intention to lie.
We actually have to do something with our body. We actually have to pick up a knife. We have the intention to lie. We have to do something with our speech. We have to say words.
So these seven of body and speech are object or the actualization, the carrying out of an intention. Therefore, they are also a path of karma. So the seven actions of body and speech are both karma and they’re paths of karma. The three of mind are paths of karma. Why?
Because they are causes of an intention. Out of anger, you want to hurt, or out of attachment, you want to kill. Out of ignorance, you want to kill. So these are the motivating forces behind. They are the causes behind your intention.
But they are not karma. Covetousness, malice, and wrong view are not karma. Why are they not karma? They’re not actions. Why are they not actions?
Mind. Mind is a path of action. It’s it’s also a karma. Just thoughts. Thoughts.
So intention is a is a thought. It’s a karma. Not intention. Okay. So they are not in they are not the mental factor of intention.
Okay? covetousness is not an intention. It’s a different mental factor. Malice is not an intention. It’s a different mental factor.
Wrong view is not intention. Killing is an intention. When we say killing, we don’t we mean the intention to kill. It is also a path of action because it is the actualization of that intention, actual bodily killing. But covetousness, malice, and wrong view are are not karma because they are not intention.
They are the cause of intention. Therefore, they are paths of action. Okay. Anyway, I think okay. Because we’re going to analyze what constitutes a path of action when we go through these ten negative paths of action.
Not just the action, not just the karma itself, which is the the factor of intention, but the entire progression from its initial inception in terms of motivation to when the act is complete. The overall karmic potential exists in dependence upon that overall path, not just the factor of intention. You know? How you kill, for example. And if you kill painfully, the it’s not just the intention.
The intention to kill, which is going to determine the heaviness of the karma. But, for example, how you actually commit the action, how you actualize the action, the way the manner that you kill is going to determine the heaviness. So it’s the and whether the whether the yeah. We’ll go into all the details. The the intensity of the motivation behind the intention.
You know, for example, did you if you had strong hatred, then the karma is much more heavy than if you had no hatred behind the intention. So the overall heaviness or the quality of the karma is going to determine by this entire path of action, not just the factor of intention, which is karma. So, okay, let’s take a look. We’re going to we’re going to analyze each of the ten negative paths of karma using this a four-branch format of the four branches of an action. And these four branches are mentioned on page one.
It’s getting a little bit complex. The branches of a complete path of karma. A complete path of karma is made up of four parts. It’s going to we’re going to analyze each of these karmas in terms of a basis, a thought, the actual action itself, and a conclusion. So you have to keep in mind that when there’s a cumulative effect, if all of these four stages are there, if one of these stages is missing, the karma is less heavy.
So in all of these, in our discussions, we will eventually talk about the heaviness of karma, but in the present discussion, in our analysis of these four branches of a complete path of action, we’re always going to be analyzed in terms of what is the complete action? What is the heaviest form of that particular action? What is the heaviest form of killing? If all four of these branches are complete, that is the heaviest form. So we’re always going to be talking about action in terms of all four of these branches being complete.
We’re going to analyze it in those terms. It can be incomplete. Out of hatred, you can intend to kill. You can stab someone, and they don’t die. You’ve still committed a negative action, but you haven’t you haven’t created a complete path of action of killing.
There’s no conclusion. There’s no culmination to the action. It’s still negative, but it’s the heaviest form. The person didn’t die, even though you had the intention and so forth. So throughout this discussion, keep in mind that we’re talking about a complete path of action, the full form of these possible ways of acting.
Also, what we’re going to talk about isn’t most of this source for this discussion is coming from Asaṇga in the Abhidharma or his text on the Compendium of Manifest Knowledge. There is, in manifest knowledge, an area there are three baskets of Buddhism, a three categorization. There are the discourses, the actual teachings of the Buddha. There are moral discipline, the Vinaya. These are the teachings by the Buddha on setting out the various rules for the monastic rules, how the monks and nuns are to conduct themselves and so forth.
And then there’s a third categorization of the Buddhist doctrine into Abhidharma, or the way it’s sometimes translated as manifest knowledge. And this area takes up the workings of karma, takes up the area of discussion, the nature of the universe, psychology, the nature of mind. All It breaks up all phenomena into it analyzes all the various phenomena of universe, how the world evolves, the nature of karma, our actions, the nature of the mind, the elements, and so forth. So most of what is going to be presented here is in terms of a presentation by Asaṇga of manifest knowledge. There’s some differences of opinion upon subtle points.
It’s not so important. Okay. Let’s begin with the first of these ten negative paths of karma. Killing. And these are more or less, there’s some working definitions.
I mean, I guess it’s pretty fairly straightforward. Killing is intentionally, unmistakably kill another. Okay? We’re going to look at this in terms of complete path of action, these four branches. And I guess I neglected to mention that the second of the four branches, which is the branch of thought, is divided again into three, and we’ll go through that.
Okay. So killing. What is the basis of killing? That means the object. What are what are we actually working on when we talk about killing?
What what is what is the action involve in terms of an object? The action of killing must be a living sentient being. Okay. That sounds fair enough, does it? You can’t kill a table.
But moreover, this living being must be someone other than oneself. Okay. This brings us back to the point on why why I said a complete path of action. Why? Because killing yourself is a negative action, action, committing suicide, but it’s not a complete path of killing.
Why? You didn’t kill anybody else. You just killed yourself. Okay, there’s no culmination. The fourth branch is not complete.
You aren’t around when the person dies. Okay? You have to be around when the victim dies. It’s a little catch twenty two here. So it’s a negative action, killing yourself, but it does not satisfy the complete path of That’s right.
The person who or or another I mean, there’s lots of technicalities. If you’re into corporate law or something, then karma is your area. Know, it has all these details. Even if you were if you were to die before the victim dies, it’s not a complete path of action. The embodiment in which you did the killing is finished.
You committed a negative action of attempting to kill, but you died before your victim. Therefore, you would not accumulate the karma of a complete path of action. Anyway, these are some technicalities. There’s lots and lots of technicalities. Anyway, the point is that the basis is a human being not a human being, a living being.
Another point. And there’s a difference between as I mentioned my source for this discussion is Asaṇga’s Abhidharma, his manifest knowledge. For a monk or a nun who has vows, for example, of not killing, that vow says they’re not allowed to kill a human being. So this we we cannot we shouldn’t confuse the two. These are primarily primarily categorized in terms of the general quality of killing, not in terms of a person who’s taken particular vows.
Okay? If they were to kill a human being, they would lose their vow. We don’t have that vow. So we can say that this applies to this is the general categorization of killing, not in particular to any individual. So we have to kill another human being aside from ourselves.
That’s the basis. Then the second of the four branches, and once we get the we become familiar with these four branches, can work through them quite readily is the thought. And the thought has three mental aspects. Recognition. There’s a couple of different words we can use for this word recognition.
It’s you know, we still haven’t settled upon all the the translation terms. It’s gonna be another hundred years or so. There’s a word du shes in Tibetan, and it’s various ly translated. Duche, you know, you’re with the five aggregates, the third aggregate, it’s sometimes translated as recognition, sometimes discrimination, sometimes perception. Maybe you have some others.
I don’t know. Perception. Okay. And that’s a different possibility. So some of them work in different better translations at times.
All those three words are translating one single word in recognition, perception, discrimination. It’s the it’s a, you know, this is this. This is that. This is good. This is bad.
This is small. This is great. This this quality of recognizing or or discriminating, that’s a house. That’s that’s a house. You know?
This is green. That that recognition, that that quality, that that type of thinking, that function of mind. So thought has three mental aspects. The first of these is recognition. Or other times, we might be best to use perception or but, anyway, we can we can adjust that as we go along.
At the time of the killing, the killer must have a correct recognition. You know, if if if I, you know, I get I get angry as I get angry at Joe, I say, I’m gonna kill that bastard. You know? And I said, oh, here comes Joe. And I get my gun out, and it turns about to turns out to be John.
That’s improper recognition. Okay? John’s dead, but it’s still a negative action, but it’s not the complete path of action of killing Joe. Okay? It’s still a negative action of killing, but it’s not a complete path of action.
Why? Because it’s improper recognition. So, you know, these might seem like technicalities, but there’s possibilities where they, you know, we could apply. You you make a mistake, and so that karma can be lessened or can be greater. But, anyway, we’re always talking about complete path of action.
A complete path of action, to commit the action in its heaviest form, there has to be proper recognition. I have to kill the person that I intend to kill. Or another possibility, you know, there’s all types of monks and nuns in the monasteries, they argue and argue and argue with this little details. If you think, you’re a terrorist, I’m just going to go out and kill people. I’m going to bomb the World Trade Center.
You don’t have to recognize a particular person. You weren’t you weren’t you didn’t intend to kill a particular person. You just intended to kill people. Then it would be a complete path of action. Okay?
So there would be those two possibilities, two cases that you you intend to kill this particular person and you you kill that particular person or or you misrecognize you and you kill the wrong person, which case it wouldn’t be a complete path of action. Or you simply want to go out and kill. And that way, the recognition wouldn’t be a factor The killing of a person would be sufficient, not a particular person. Okay. It has to be proper recognition.
Then there’s motivation. The motivation is the intention to kill. You want to kill, the desire to kill, to take another’s life. If you kill someone unintentionally, there’s no motivation. Therefore, there is a type of negativity, but it’s not complete path of it path of killing.
Therefore, the the the the heaviness of the karma is less. Why? Because there’s no motivation to kill. And then the third is the afflictive emotion. All of these ten negative paths of karma have one of the three poisons, what are called poisons, three types of afflictive emotions as as the underlying force behind them, what we call the initial motivation or the distant motivation, either attachment, hatred, or ignorance.
You can kill through the you you have this initial motivation. You’re going to kill out of attachment. For example, you know, you like fur coats, so you go out hunting for I don’t know. You like you like meat. Okay.
Meat. So you go hunting. That’s it. You’re attached to that meat. You got your hatred.
Okay. Fair enough. And then you’re angry at somebody. You kill them. Ignorance.
I think we’ve mentioned this before. For example, they kill every year in Nepal, they kill thousands and thousands and thousands of goats and sacrifice them as a way of bringing about benefit. That would be that would be a case case of killing out of ignorance. Here, ignorance means ignorance with regard to the law of cause and effect. Thinking that somehow killing is going to bring about beneficial effects.
That would be a type of ignorance as far as Buddhism Buddhism is concerned. So the killing can be motivated by either by one of the three poisons, ignorance, attachment, or hatred. So one of these three is always the root motivation, which sets into motion the action. It is what precipitates the intention out of the hatred. Intention to kill arises.
So it is the initial motivation or the distant motivation. Then comes the motivation itself, which is the actual intention or wanting to take another’s life. So those are the three mental aspects of the thought. Then there’s the third branch of four, which is the actual action itself. So in terms of killing, we can talk about it in two ways.
One is the agent who performs the actual action. So in killing, you know, you could kill yourself, and that would would that would satisfy this branch, or you could order somebody else to do the killing. And that would that would be served to complete this branch as well. There would be no difference in terms of the actual action. So a president of a country, a general who tells his army, go kill, it is no different as if he actually did the killing him or herself.
The agent of the action can either be oneself, or you can have someone else do it in your place or order them to do it and so forth, pay them to do it. They both would constitute a path of killing. Or in terms of the nature of the killing, it does not matter how killing is carried out. Whether you kill with a gun or whether you kill by black magic or I don’t know, whatever you have, whatever. The nature of killing, as long as the actual action is carried out, it’s a complete path.
It’s a path of action. And then finally, the cOmination. It doesn’t matter when the person dies, whether the person were to die immediately, or whether they lingered on for a long period of time due to their wounds and they died at some distant time. At the time of their death, no matter how long the interval elapsed between the actual action and their death, at the time of their death, there would be the cOmination. That branch would be complete.
However, we mentioned, if you were to die before your victim died, this particular branch, this culmination would not be complete. But there’s a you know, if understand, if analyze in this way, we can begin to understand how we mitigate some of our karma. If for example, you know, you killed someone and you say, ah, what have I done? I wish I hadn’t done that. That was You you you’ve completely reversed your previous intention to to take this person’s life.
Then this you would mitigate the heaviness of the karma because there would not be the culmination, even if the victim were to die. Because you reversed your intention previous to their death, there would be a lessening of the karmic consequence. It’s a negative action but it’s not a complete path of action. So it’s not heaviness in full form of the action because this fourth branch is not complete. Okay, so we have some idea how we’re analyzing, how we’re going through these.
Should we do one more? Oh, maybe, Okay. That’s that’s that’s a good place to stop. We’re we’re gonna we’re gonna once we get the format, then we can the the the rest of them, we can work through them quite readily. It’s quite I think it’s interesting to analyze them this way.
Gee, I think it’s also useful. So okay. I’m gonna sit down there. Okay. So does anybody have anything you’d like to share?
And you have a good week. Any questions? That last point you made Yeah. About changing your mind. Wish I hadn’t done that.
Yeah. To mitigate that karma that you’ve you’ve caused by the. Or does it have to be genuine? We can’t you know, like, genuine sorrow. Wish I could know that.
Be be be be be before before they die. Yeah. Or could you just die? I think I or you just say, alright. You thought about it and think, hang on.
If I say I’m sorry, my car is not gonna be quite so heavy. That would probably double. Could be telling a lie also. No. It’s not that easy.
You know, there’s no there’s no big daddy up in the sky watching. He’s recording all this. It’s Demonstrate code. You can’t you can’t get around it with your general energy feeling and thinking. You can’t pay lip service.
Three mental actions. Surely, you can do do those three intentionally. How do you should you should you should have them you should not someone can probably try and tell you a great view about something that’s going on. You could intentionally not wanna know, so I’ll have to continue my way and not not listen to them intentionally have have I think create too. Or you could Oh, intentionally have a.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But purposefully, or you could intentionally create something and maybe not action not steal it, but you could you could wish to have someone’s other possessions. You know?
And you intentionally cause you say, you intentionally cause covetousness to rise. You think, I’m gonna cause covetousness to rise. And so yeah? Maybe relate to the attachment, hatred, link, ignorance as precipitants? Yeah.
Is that sort of the parallel? Mhmm. All of the all of these ten paths of negative actions, including including the three of mind, has have as their motivation behind them? One of these three, attachment, hatred, or ignorance. We’ll go through them.
Alright. And so that’s a. So back to your your question with with that intention to cover, can we talk about window shopping? You know, people purposefully go window shopping. In order to get in order to generate covetousness?
I know. I mean, yeah. I mean, the covetousness or attachment would be the motivation for going shopping. I mean, just window shopping. I want this to be appreciation of good design.
Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. When when we go through what we mean by covetousness, it means to that you you generate the I I I have to make that my own. Something something which is possessed by another or maybe even your own possessions.
But, anyway, I have to make that, you know, use it. It’s just, you know, like, some people can go to an art gallery and they really appreciate the art. Some people say, well, I have to have that in my room. You said it’s motivation to set up It’s mine. I made it mine.
So that that’d be intentional. So, yeah, you have you see, wow. I’d like to have that car. I’m gonna I’m gonna get that car. So the person comes in, the and then the intention.
So the initial acts of these three, can then be intentional. The the the mental and the initial? Yeah. They have they have one of the three motivations of it. One three poisons is their motivation.
And then the yeah. Intention. They are intention. Just with them comes a sense that I will be judged if I have this mask because it’s my choice. You know that I am I’m not making this clear.
And leaves the leaves the more action, you know, and and more change. It I’m just looking at the how it is working on my mind rather than how it’s what what it means or something. Think Oh, so, I mean, if if we were yeah. We we I actually tried to look up some more information. I tried to see what the I looked on the web on what the Dalai Lama had to say around some of these subjects.
And it’s really I mean, if we just look at in terms of these four branches, mercy killing. Okay? How how would how could we analyze these mercy killing in terms of these four branches? How would how would you go about doing that? Pardon?
There’s no hatred. There’s no hatred. So you have a basis? It could be. Okay.
We have we have another sentiment. So we have a thought. Okay? We we we have recognition. What is the motivation?
So is it one of the three poisons? It could be attachment attachment to their happiness. Could be could be attachment to your own happiness. Is. Depends who’s doing it.
So Well, we’ve discussed this last week, didn’t we, with the vet? Yeah. You know? And the vet is taking on heavy karma even though they might be doing it out of compassion the way you explained it last week. Yeah.
That’s that’s that was from what I you know, I tried to I couldn’t find. His His Holiness is yeah. I mean, he His Holiness I mean, I use I use him for, like, a contemporary source. And, you know, he talks about he’s talked about abortion, euthanasia. And he said it’s very difficult.
You have to you can’t make generality. You have to go individual. But he does say, you ultimately, you have to make it you have to make an individual choice. And what my impression was from what I read was you try to inform yourself as well as possible, and you you make a decision. And you you have to accept responsibility for the consequence of that.
You know what I mean? If if you’re compassionate enough to be willing to take on the negative consequences of that killing, you go ahead. Mhmm. It just comes down to your own personal responsibility. Responsibility.
However, the nun last week did say, because you used the Buddha example That’s right. When he was captured and killed the five hundred. That’s right. Even though he was there at that time, he went straight to hell. That’s right.
That was his consequence. He may well have known that that was gonna be his consequence, but his compassion was such that he had to resort to killing the one to save the five hundred because he didn’t want the guy Yeah. That was gonna kill the five hundred to have negative karma. But So he was willing still took on the He was willing to take that that responsibility out of compassion. Yeah.
But he still fell. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting because that for me verges on the on the Yeah. It’s like it’s it’s on TV yesterday that this guy was going through the bush there, and they’re pigs because the pigs were in the lambs.
And, you know, so they they tried to justify killing the pigs because they were killing the lambs. And the lambs are such lovely, you know, happy things. And the pigs, we’re all about pigs. You know? So K.
So so going back to. Yeah. And you’re saying if say, soldier kills someone, but they don’t recognize them. That’s So a soldier maybe say he’s just gonna kill the enemy. Yes.
He just recognizes them as an enemy. Yes. That’s proper recognition. Yeah. So but and we we but we would say if they kill civilians, I see.
So you you want to kill the enemy, but you kill civilians. I mean, it’s still it’s still maybe the recognition factor isn’t there, but the rest of it’s there. Maybe they do recognize it before. Maybe their mind stream actually knows generally like that. Could could killing civilians, probably.
Collateral damage is probably something he’s come to terms with. But once people when they are on the front line, it’s a new thing for them. There’s a lot of people leaving the Iraqi war now from a couple of weeks ago, and they just told me that they’re in Canada. And so they’re having some interviews with them. Just the shock of the brutalization under command.
Oh, yeah. And being forced to act. Those other things. It you know? And without I mean, a lot of soldiers don’t wanna be there.
They get to the stage where they don’t wanna be there, but they’re armed there. Yeah. And they can’t get out. Yeah. So you’re being coerced.
I mean, if you are actually being there’s no motivation to kill. So there’s yeah. So there’s no there’s the motivation factor. Among amongst these four branches, the most important the most that which is the we’re gonna talk about when the heaviness in terms of when one of some of these branches are not present and others are. But just in general, the most the most determinant of these branches is the motivation.
Depending on the intensity of the what type of motivation intensity of the motivation is going to play the greatest role in determining the. It that defense didn’t work choose to I mean, I’m saying it’s an easy choice, but, you know, there’s lots of stories about people that on both sides. I’m not just talking from one particular side, but they you will shoot that man, or I will shoot you. So they’ve got a choice. If they don’t shoot, they get killed themselves.
Maybe that will repair That’s their karma coming to fruition. But I say, I’m gonna shoot you if you don’t kill them. Therefore, you’ve got attachment surely to your own life. So, therefore, the karma is fulfilled. But then the The motivation’s there.
Intention maybe not to die, maybe not not. Through what now? Through attachment? I mean, they they doesn’t want to die either. They they they do talk about coercion.
That you you if you’re coerced, it’s not there’s no motivation to kill. You have you don’t want to kill. In your mind, you don’t want to kill. So you’re regretting it the whole way along. You’re changing your mind every step of the way.
I think that it just proves what you said. It’s even working out whether it’s a karmic path or karma is so complicated, and, you know, you keep and deeper. You know? Yeah. You need to be whether or not to able to really sort it out in your mind.
Of the things we do, if we could check up, we have mixed motivation. Yeah. It’s not it’s not single motivation. No. So it complicates it even more.
But, anyway, it’s we can make we can sort of make informed choices. We can get it’s we can begin to recognize them. There’s one question because the afflictive emotions that are precipitants, is there I mean, I just bracketed them together because that’s I looked at situations, but, oh, was all of them. But how it how did how did Buddha how did Tibetan Buddhism sort of see things? Would they see that you you for the purposes of analysis, would they say it was one or the other that was the primary or the recipient?
Do you know what mean? In the way they think about what motivated One of the one of the three. They would say one. One of the three. Not the three.
Yeah. Three. No. That that’s another. Yeah.
One of those three Yeah. Is always behind these ten actions. So with our positive motivation that we began the discussion with, we created a positive some positive karma, and we can dedicate that positive karma. May all beings everywhere, plagued by suffering of body and mind, attain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creatures suffer, commit evil, or fall ill.
No one be afraid or belittled with the mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms and deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored and finely repose. May the naked find clothing, hungry find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drink.
May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy. May the forlorn find hope, constant happiness, and prosperity. May there be timely rains and bountiful harvest. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all who are sick and ill quickly be freed from their ailments.
Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the fright ened cease to be afraid and those bound be freed. May the powerless find power and may people think of benefiting each other. Through these skillful actions, may I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to their awakened realm. For the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen, arise, and grow.
And may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. In the land and circled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain until the end of this cycle. Oh, wrong one. Is it?
That’s wrong one. That’s the one. Get the next thing to your. I’ve got I’ve got originals. Okay.
I just have to find yours. Murphy’s law. Be the last one. Almost right. Thank you.
Thank you.