Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A finding the Dalai Lama passed on from a Western psychologist — that ninety percent of anger is projection — opens this 128-minute session by framing the Buddhist path as the gradual closing of the gap between appearance and reality. Ven Jampa Gendun then explains the Tibetan rendering of “Buddha” as Sangye (clearing away negatives, fully developing positives), leads a guided role-playing meditation to break self-limiting self-conception, and works methodically through the four opponent powers for purifying negative karma: repudiation, reliance, restraint, and applying the antidote. A concluding section treats genuine ethics as the natural mode of a healthy mind, invoking Atisha’s image of a cool refreshing stream, and distinguishes inner peace from mere rule-following. Q&A covers meat-eating, bardo rituals for the recently deceased, and whether purification licenses further wrongdoing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 3PA 2007 06 18.mp3
UUID: 5ad1f5f5-2d3e-4d2c-93af-d010d4dccd57
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-06-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 128.4 minutes
Words: ~11,184
I think I saw a lot of you in Melbourne. You look familiar. In his Holiness’s introduction to the text that he was going to teach, he began by talking about, he was interested in the word Buddha and the way that it’s translated into, it was translated into the Tibetan language. In the Sanskrit the word Buddha means one who is awake, the awakened one. But it was interesting because the Tibetan translators kind of played around with it a little bit.
They didn’t translate it literally. They translated it as Sangye. And Sang means to clear way, to eliminate. And Ge means to expand, to develop. Fully.
And so the idea of a Buddha, you know, goal of the Buddhist path has the notion of having eliminated, it, removed all the negative factors, the negative states of mind, and having fully developed all the positive, all the beneficial states of mind. And he went on to say, so I think it’s useful to think of that. The situation is workable. What we’re trying to achieve, call that a Buddha, however we might conceive of it, a limited understanding about what a Buddha is at present. Anyway, that’s kind of the goal.
And that goal is simply brought about by the gradual elimination of the various negative states of mind, beginning to identify them, beginning to diminish their influence, their frequency in our life, and identifying what are positive states, what are beneficial states, productive states, and over time beginning to increase their strength and frequency. So, it’s you know it’s a gradual unfoldment isn’t it? It’s not you know we’re all there’s no unbridgeable gulf between ourselves where we are now, know, the schmoes that we are or whatever, you know, however we might think of ourselves, and this idea of the culmination of the path. It’s simply a process of, a workable process, something that we can do. You know, we can do that every day of our life, can’t we?
Slowly in some way offer some kind of resistance to the negative states and offer some kind of inducement to the positive state once we identify what are negative and what are positive. So, can, you know, we can be, as it were, you know, what does it mean to practice Dharma? I think I might have mentioned this. You know, the active opposition of these negative states and the active promotion of positive states. You know, we don’t have to, it’s not something that’s particularly done on our meditation seat, though that is a formal, I guess a very focused opportunity for doing that, but it’s something that we can do every day of our lives, in all the various situations of our lives, our relationships, our work, our family, and so forth.
There’s no time when we can’t if we’re mindful, if we’re determined in some way. And he mentioned another fact which I thought was quite interesting. The Dalai Lama, he was talking about a visit to some years ago to Sweden and he was talking to I guess it was a psychologist or maybe a neurologist. And this psychologist, whomever it was, said that with anger, that ninety percent of anger is projection, the way the object is appearing. And this is from a western perspective.
And this is very much in keeping with our understanding of Buddhist psychology. That all the various afflictive emotions exaggerate or depreciate their object in some way to some degree or other. That we have these various appearances and those appearances do not accord with the actual nature of the object. There is a disparity between appearance and reality. This is presume, what they call in Western psychology cognitive dissonance.
This disparity between appearance and reality. And as far as Buddhism is concerned that disparity is experienced as tension, as anxiety, as suffering in all its various forms. So you know the path is to a large extent, you know what do we, when we talk about afflictive emotions, sometimes we have a sense where we’re kind of making a judgment, aren’t we? Kind of a moral sense that hatred’s not a good thing to do and love’s a good thing to do. But hatred and all the various afflictive emotions, attachment, jealousy, pride, but most basically ignorance, all the eighty four thousand afflicting emotions, they all are relative enduring patterns of mind which cognize their object in a wrong manner, in a mistaken manner.
There is always this disparity. And it seems as if Buddhism is saying, the only, as long as our way of perceiving the world is mistaken, We will forever experience dissatisfaction, disappointment, frustration, suffering in all its various forms. So, what we call negative emotions, you know, we have all various types of emotions, don’t we? Negative emotions are not sustainable in reality. They’re not supported by the way things actually are.
On the other hand, positive emotions, you know, love and compassion, wisdom, empathy, generosity, openness, patience, joyous effort, they’re all supported by the actual nature of things. Beneath the superficial reasonings that we might be able to give for our anger, however we might be able to justify it and rationalize it at a deeper level, it is somehow we can always find it’s not in keeping with the actual nature of things. But, for example, compassion is. The deeper we understand the nature of our situation, the deeper that compassion and love are justified, are reasonable, are appropriate, are skillful. So, it’s interesting that the way I was impressed by, you know, the Dalai Lama is a tremendously loving person, isn’t it, compassionate person?
But it doesn’t appeal to our emotional romanticism or sentimentality. Even though somehow there’s this merging of reason and emotion, of love, compassion, but also precise analysis, wisdom, in what he says. It’s not as if he has to arouse us into feelings of emotion, sympathy and so forth, it gets to feel loving and compassion. Because I have a sense that those are only momentary, they’re only fleeting. As long as we have these specific conditions, we can feel loving and compassion.
But given when those conditions are no longer present, somehow our love and compassion fade away because they aren’t based in any solid reality. Having come to the understanding that all sentient beings, for example, you know, what is the deeper, more universal nature of sentient beings? It’s that all sentient beings want happiness and don’t want to suffer. That’s their basic reality. And if our love and compassion is based in that, then it can always be maintained.
It is always supported in the way things are. But if it’s only a feel good love and compassion, you know, when the sun is shining, we’re on a picnic, and we feel warm and fuzzy, you know, take away the sun, take away the picnic, you know, the warm feelings go away, don’t. So, that’s what’s, you know, one of the things that impressed me most about many of the things that the Dalai Lama said. Somehow there is this wisdom and real emotionality. I mean, no question, but it’s not sterile, it’s not unfeeling.
But somehow all of these very powerful emotions are imbued with wisdom. They’re supported in wisdom. They’re like a union of wisdom and method, wisdom and love and compassion and so forth. So I was quite, I mean, think everybody’s kind of inspired, aren’t they? I mean, it’s nice.
It’s quite easy to feel inspired around the Dalai Lama, think. Just kind of, in his presence, there’s some kind of field around him. So what do we do in the meanwhile? You know, it’d be nice to hang out with him, you know. But that’s not our karma, I guess.
So, we have to, you know, help each other. We have each other to remind ourselves of these important things, you know, to the necessity to keep our priorities straight, and to keep coming back to what is most important, what has meaning, and the direction we want our life to take, the person that we want to be sometime in the future. And to keep reminding ourselves, it’s just a matter, you know, the situation is workable. Today I can offer some level of resistance to my negativities. I can begin to apply some of the antidotes to my anger and my jealousy and my attachments, my pride and so forth, but also to my ignorance.
And today I can, you know, in some way I can go out of my way to foster some occasions, some degree, some level of feelings of love and compassion, generosity, patience. I think if we if we can remind each other, then we can weather through the darkness. Can we can stay on the path. We won’t get too far off. We won’t be completely lost.
So, you know, this is what we do together. This is the importance of Asaṇga. I know, you know, feel very inspired just by, for example, Carol, you know, cooking hot soup. And for the purpose of buying two pots. I think that’s quite inspiring.
So we can have a better Buddhist Bowl. So a Buddhist Bowl can make some money so that the money can go to build, maintain this place. So I think it’s, you know, we can inspire one another. Can act in all the various ways that a fellowship or a Sangha, this community can do, support one another in our path, inspire one another, teach one another, advise one another in whatever ways we can. So, this is like our commitment, isn’t it?
To being the best person that we can possibly become. And it happens within this kind of context. We need other people in this journey. Mental health is a social phenomenon. It’s not developed in isolation from others, you know, just gaining some kind of realizations inside this head of ours for ourselves alone.
But it’s like, it arises out of inter relationship, inter dependency with the world about us and our own internal efforts. So, I’d like to thank you for offering me this opportunity to share with you, you know, some of the things that my teachers have said. Think it’s, I don’t know if it’s beneficial for you, but it’s beneficial for me. And people like Carol, like to thank her for what she’s done in keeping this situation going and all the little things that people do. So, an interchange, isn’t it?
An exchange. And somehow we’ll get there together. So in this process, the inner focus of our life is the best person that we possibly can become. We’re going to call that just for the sake of giving it a name for Buddha. In Sanskrit, awaken one.
In Tibetan, someone who’s just simply removed all these negative factors of the mind and developed to the fullest extent positive qualities of the mind. That’s all. And what is it that brings that about that? It’s the truth, the dharma, the way things actually are. Removing this cognitive dissonance between appearance and reality, we remove all the negativities.
And by understanding the nature of what it means to be an ordinary human being and all that it entails, we develop all the positive qualities in developing our love and compassion, our patience and generosity and so forth. And it all comes about in the context of all of us, this fellowship, a spiritual community. So, keep reminding ourselves what is important and where it is we want to go. And trying to raise the level of our motivation, you know, the why behind and the purpose for what we do. Just as altruistically, you know, with as little self interest as we can, just for one other person.
I’d like to be there, if only a little more significant ways. Leave a little more benefit, little more kindness, understanding, you know, whatever it takes. Even for my mother, my partner, my child, to make their life a little bit better. And therefore, I’m going to listen to this talk. I’m going to share these ideas with them and myself.
I think that’s a useful motivation. I think we can be feel assured that our activity, however humble and limited our abilities might be, I don’t know, I’m only speaking to myself. It will be a benefit both to ourselves and to others. I go for refuge until I’m 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 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 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 is actually arranged and imagined.
I present and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings. Please remain to the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of Dharma for migrating beings. I dedicate all virtue, my own and other brothers, to the great awakening. So we’re going to meditate if you’d like to take a firm comfortable posture. Maybe we can, you know, is one of my themes I guess.
It must get boring sometimes to listen to me. One of my things about how we story our lives, and quite often the stories that tell ourselves about ourselves are self impoverishing. Know, we have a tendency to dismiss the good that we do, the qualities that we do possess, all that we have. Like in the Christian context counting our blessings. And quite often we, for one reason or another, focus upon what’s going wrong with our life or what we’re deficient with and what we don’t have or what we’ve done wrong.
So, we don’t quite often don’t feel so good about ourselves or at best we have a sense of a very limited self conception. You know we kind of set the thermostat of who we are to a comfortable position. Now we want neither too much success in our lives nor not too much failure. Either one would be rather uncomfortable to bear. So, in this way we often, I think, limit our own selves in what we try and what we actually achieve by that trying.
You know, I think there’s, you know, what if you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, you’re right. And somehow we have to overcome this tendency which perhaps is supported by a lot of our social values is believing that we can’t, that somehow it’s only what the goal of Buddhism and the qualities of being a Dalai Lama or a Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi, that these people are somehow special. That they aren’t like us ordinary people with all our problems and all our hang ups. And somehow they’re far far removed. They’re like they came from Mars or somewhere else.
And then we don’t see any connection between ourselves them. And therefore, we never really try or we never really believe we can. And our trying is something like just going through the motions, a pretense, but never really feeling at a deep level of being that we can change for the better. So, I thought we would do this meditation simply playing a role, role playing in our imagination. It all begins in imagination.
The life of the imagination is the source of our strength. So, we can begin to change our self conception within our imagination and perhaps begin to reform the conception that we have about ourselves and begin to find some way of breaking out of this imprisoning self conception that we confine ourselves to it. So anyway, you know, imagining yourself first thinking of a female, someone that you really admire, and what is it about them? And then in your imagination playing that role that you have the same quality to the same degree. The most important thing is to feel and then expressing it in your imagination and then doing the same with the male and so forth.
I think it’s a useful exercise. I think it’s an important meditation. So, I thought we’d try that, okay? So, taking a comfortable firm posture. We’ll begin by relaxing the body, starting at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out, the pressure in and around the eyes diminishing.
The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. The jaws relax. And the muscles in the back of the neck perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times. Very gently stretching, loosening. Relaxing the muscles of the throat.
Moving down to the back, the upper back and perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times, letting them drop comfortably to the sides, feeling this burden, this weight that we carry around on our backs beginning to move down and through your body into the ground. Moving down to your hands, loose and soft. Relaxing your lower arms, Upper arms. Your chest is at ease. Relaxing in the heart area.
In the lungs. The central portion of the back. Your stomach, releasing the the tensions that we hold in our stomach muscles. Just allow your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity And holding your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles.
Your buttocks, throughout the upper legs and the lower legs. And your feet. And bring your awareness to your body in general, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions within the body. And focusing upon those areas, consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tension diminish, the tightness loosen. Your body becoming comfortable, at ease, comfortable, at ease.
The feeling of physical well-being pervading your body. Feels good to be in your body. And then bring your mind to the breath, just the gentle, easy, in and out flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful, use the techniques of counting and noting the breath. Now, we’re going to begin the meditation.
First think of a female who you admire that you respect a great deal that you look up to. And what is it about them? What quality? What characteristic do they possess that you admire and respect so much? Now we’re going to play a role.
In your imagination create a situation where you yourself have the same exact quality to the same degree And create an imaginative situation where you express the same exact quality, where you are this quality, feel this quality. So imagine that you yourself have the same exact qualities of the same degree and create an imaginative situation where you express it, where you feel it, where you are. Be that quality. Just give your imagination over to the process. Now we’re going to do the same again.
This time think of a male who you admire, that you respect. What is it about them? What quality? Creating an imaginative situation, and then you play a role. Imagine that you yourself have the same exact quality to the same degree.
And feel it, be it, and express it in this imaginative situation. Now again we’ll do the same. And at this time think of something about yourself that you like, that you admire, that you respect, some quality. And now we want to imagine that that quality which you now possess is many, many times more developed, fully, completely developed. And again, an imaginative situation where you feel, where you are, and express this fully developed quality about yourself.
And then finally think of something that you don’t like about yourself, some quality. And now we want to imagine that we have the exact opposite counterpart of that quality, that positive quality fully developed. The thinking of a negative quality, imagining that you now possess the opposite quality. Completely fully developed and creating an imaginative situation where you feel, where you are, and express that positive quality about yourself. And then bring your mind back to the breath.
And in an easy and gentle manner, just slowly become aware of your surroundings. Take your time. So we’ve been discussing karma, The mechanism whereby our past actions both positive and negative bring about our future lived experiences, various feelings pleasurable, unpleasurable, neutral feelings as a culmination of these actions, as the far result of these actions. And that we’ve all committed both negative and positive actions, created both positive and negative karma, and that the residues, the karmic seeds of these past actions reside within our mental continuum, our minds. And then when, just like a flower seed, it meets with the proper condition, soil and water and so forth, the seed is activated likewise these karmic seeds are going to bring about some type of experience which corresponds to the quality of the action which implanted that seed.
And here we’re concerned with the negative karma that we’ve created, these types of seeds which will eventually ripen into unwanted experiences, suffering of one sort or another. And that we can intervene in the process, that we can, through applying these four powers, we can mitigate and actually eliminate the destructive effects of these karmic seeds. We can eliminate and weaken these seeds within our minds. And we do this by means of the four powers and we’ve gone through the first of the two of these four powers. The first was power of repudiation and we said that this was simply developing a healthy sense of regret.
We added one and one and made three. Okay, made a mistake. No matter how a catastrophic the consequences, under the influence of what, jealousy, attachment, hatred, anger, spite, basically ignorance, I made a mistake. I wish I hadn’t done that. It hurt myself and perhaps it hurt others.
And we can’t right the wrongs, we can’t go back to the past, that’s beyond our control. But we can regret what we’ve done as a part of the means of not allowing that future, that past action to interfere with our future happiness. The second is the power of reliance and this is in the case of having fallen down on the ground you rely upon that same ground to pick yourself back up. Likewise, when we commit a negative action, we commit it either toward the Buddha or we commit it toward sentient beings, the living beings aside from Buddhas. And, in this, as a means, remedial means to lessen the effect of that negativity, we recommit ourselves to the Buddha, essentially, you know, get ourselves our priorities straight again.
What kind of person do I want to be? What direction do I want my life to go in? Call that a Buddha. So, we take refuge in that. We commit ourselves to that.
Or, with respect to sentient beings, we commit ourselves to loving them rather than harming them. So, So that is the power of reliance. We’re going to look at the third and the fourth of these powers. The third power is the power of restraint. Restraint, have it, is the determined turning away from repeating the past negative action again in the future.
You know, having recognized even to some degree that this is the destructive nature of what we do, you know, as it’s harmful or detrimental to ourselves and to others, we resolve as best we can not to repeat the action again in the future. I think, you know, none of these, there’s no magic involved in any of this. We have to move the mind, and so there has to be something genuine behind all this, some degree of sincerity and understanding that we bring to this. To say, you know, we have to be honest with ourselves and realistically assess what we are capable of. You know, if I said, I’m not going to lie for the rest of my life, I might have the best of intentions, but it’s pretty, I think it might be fairly unrealistic.
On the other hand, if I said, well I’m going to lie for the next twenty four hours. Yeah, okay. I think we would have a, it would be a realistic challenge that we could set for ourselves. We require mindfulness and determination and we could practically meet that. You know, we could actually stay on top of it.
We could be that mindful for twenty four hours, I’m not going to lie. We could watch what we’re saying and we could have that determination, that kind of resolve for twenty four hours. After twenty four hours, you know, it kind of fades away, we forget. So, that would be quite useful, that would be realistic, that would be genuine. You know, I don’t know.
Maybe before you go to bed at night, I’m not going to lie in my sleep. Oh that’s it, maybe I’m making a joke maybe. Anyway, something that you could, something that a realistic challenge that you could use your mindfulness and determination to actually implement, something real, practical. So, through applying this power of restraint, we can eventually break the grip of these, of bad, what amounts to bad habits. And then when we talked about the four results of karma, we said that the third one was the result which corresponds to the cause behaviorally.
It’s simply a bad habit. Doing an action once facilitates our doing it again. Doing it again facilitates it that much more. It becomes easier and easier. The more we come, you know this works both positive and negatively and as Śāntideva says in his text, Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, there’s nothing that doesn’t become easier upon being accustomed to it.
And, it’s true of both positive and negative actions. So, here we’re trying to interrupt, intervene with these negative habits. And so, it’s like finding out that maybe that you’re allergic to a particular type of food. You know that once we realize that this particular type of food is making us sick, we we would definitely cut it out of our life and not eat it again. And initially this is going require a great deal of mindfulness and some self discipline, isn’t it?
I mean, you’re in the habit of maybe, oh yeah, okay, I have to cut down on your cholesterol. So what, I don’t know if you’re a meat eater, guess you just cut out lots of fat, don’t you? And you may be I don’t, yeah. What has a lot of cholesterol in it? Seafood.
Seafood. Okay, so you like seafood. You really like it? The doctor says, you gotta cut it out. So that means you take some kind of self discipline, some kind of mindfulness.
Otherwise, you’re going to repeat this again and again and again. You’re going to hurt yourself. So likewise with these various negative actions, once you recognize the negative action is negative, that is detrimental, that is harmful to yourself in some way, then it’s going to require some degree of self discipline and degree of mindfulness, being aware of what you’re doing so you simply don’t repeat it again. So, this power of restraint is especially effective in eliminating effects of this particular result. The result corresponding to the cause in terms of our behavior.
Simply stop, intervene, don’t repeat those same types of actions again, we break up the habit. The power of restraint. The fourth power is the power of applying the antidote. So, within the context of applying these four powers we deliberately commit a countervailing skillful action or positive action as a counterbalance that negative action that we’ve created. We go out of our way, we constantly commit something positive.
There are traditional lists of positive actions or skillful actions that we can involve ourselves in. I can name some of the traditional positive actions or skillful actions. For example, there is the offering of prostrations and the chanting of the names of the Buddha in connection with a particular Sūtra, which is called confession to the thirty five Buddhas. Particular sūtra which is chanted and people do prostrations, chant the names of these Buddhas. That’s a particular skillful action.
There is listening or reciting particular texts, for example, the perfection of wisdom texts, but these are all traditional examples. There’s the recitation of particular mantras, For example, the hundred syllable mantra of Vajrasattva or the mantra of Avalokiteśvara, Om Mani Padme Hum. That’s another traditional example. There is meditation on love and compassion. Meditation which is extremely powerful, meditation on emptiness.
But, so all, you know, these various traditional methods all have greater and lesser degrees of power as a counter force, yeah, with respect to that past negative action. But I think, and this is what some of my teachers have said, you know, we can, any positive action, you know, like you go out of your way, and within the context of applying these four powers, committing some kind of positive action with the thought that this is a counterbalance to that past negative action that I would create, thinking of it in that way, in that kind of context. So this particular power, the power of applying the antidote, is said to be especially effective in eliminating the result corresponding to the cause in terms of experience. Do you remember that?
There’s four types of results. For example, what is the result corresponding to the cause in terms of experience of negative action killing? Can you remember again? Remember? Corresponding to, in terms of experience.
Result killing. Right there, good. So you shorten your life for example. So, that would be the negative consequence or a result of, terms of experience. You have the same kind of, what you put out you get back.
You shorten someone else’s life, your life is short. So this would have, this particular power is specifically, especially effective in weakening and reducing that particular effect of the past negative action. So, it is said, so you know, we have some control, don’t we? No. We can do something for ourselves.
It’s sad, isn’t it, in a way? You know, we to help ourselves when we can, when we have the opportunity. When the karma is ripening, when we’re undergoing the experience, it’s too late. Was a translator for many years, for different teachers. And, you know, so I I I it’s a very it’s a good place to learn.
You hear lots of good stuff. I know, I’m not going to any intimate details, but anyway. You know, lot of students, when they come to the Lama, they say, oh, you know, this is happening, this is happening. And the Lama says, you know, what can I do? Isn’t it magic?
This is this is the result of your past karma. So, what we have to do is while we still have the opportunity, where we have some kind of control, we’re not undergoing the ripening effects of that karma, is to take responsibility and do something for ourselves, help ourselves. This is, no one else can do it for now it’s like we have to become the authors of our life. We have to take control of our life. And this education is trying to give us some tools to work with.
Some means, and this is one thing we can do for ourselves. So if we sincerely and diligently again and again apply these four powers. The power of repudiation, the power of reliance, the power of Good, restraint. I was just pausing to see if you knew. Don’t know, it’s not true.
I couldn’t remember. If we again and again apply these these four opponent powers, there is no negative karma which cannot be weakened and finally eliminated completely from the mind. You know there are many mechanisms whereby this occurs. For example, negative karmic seeds that would have brought about an extremely negative rebirth are transformed into causes for bringing about a slightly less negative rebirth. Maybe maybe even once having taken that rebirth, one doesn’t experience the degree of suffering or perhaps no suffering within that rebirth or the shorter period of time during that rebirth or even negative negative karma which would have brought about a great deal of suffering can be experienced in conjunction with this application of four powers as something as a slight discomfort like a headache rather than going to hell you have a headache.
Okay, I don’t know. Or maybe we don’t have to experience any result at all or maybe the karma is pushed far out to the distance. We talked about the order in which karma ripens, first the heaviest. Well, during that weakening process, it’s pushed out to a more heavily weakened to the extent that other karma will take precedence, will come, will ripen before this karma or maybe we’ll never be able to meet with the activating conditions which would ever ripen that karma. So, there’s all kinds of mechanism which seems for explaining how these effects are mitigated or lessened or destroyed altogether.
The degree of purification, and by purification I mean that these karmic seeds are being weakened or complete, their potency is being eliminated. Just like a flower, a seed, it can lose its potency and will never ripen. It will never germinate. So, the degree of purification depends upon a variety of factors. You know whether the purification is done in the complete context of these four opponent powers, the intensity of applying these four powers, the length and frequency in which these four powers are applied.
The point is in this discussion there is no such thing as permanent absolute sin in Buddhism. It doesn’t exist. Everything is dependent arising. Everything that arises is dependent upon causes. If we can work in such a way to eliminate the causes, there will never be a result.
That’s the law of dependent arising, which is foundation of Buddhism. So there’s no inherent sin or negativity. There’s nothing, no situation is always workable in some way, to some degree or another. You know, can’t undo the past, and that’s beyond our control, that’s not possible. But we can prevent our past from undoing our future, from bringing about negative consequences to our future.
That is in our control. If we exercise that control, if we don’t exercise that control, it’s as if it’s predetermined, isn’t it? It’s all mapped out. It becomes like a domino effect, one domino knocks the next one over and that knocks the next one over, you know. But in fact, you know the past only comes so far, it only comes up to the present.
The future only exists in probabilities. And we can exercise with awareness and determination we can begin to exercise some influence on which of those probabilities are actually going to be actualized, are going to be fulfilled. Otherwise, it’s purely deterministic, if there’s no awareness, if there’s no intervening in the process. So, in many ways, this law of, this description of this process of karma bringing about particular, know, specific variables bringing about predictable results can termed the law of ethical causality. It seeks, it’s seeking to describe the rules that govern the causal relationship in terms of the quality of our ethical conduct and the experience results of that.
There are certain laws or rules which seem to govern this process. This is why we call it karma. So if karma is to have any real meaning in our life, if it’s really having any significance, if it’s having a practical application in our lives, then it has to be reflected in the way that we live our life, in ethical quality of our activities. You know one of the greatest Indian Buddhist masters, Atisha. Atisha is one of the three most highly regarded individuals in within Tibetan Buddhism.
He was an Indian master, but he was, he rejuvenated. He reestablished Buddhism in Tibet after it had, it was first developed and then had degenerated. He reinvigorated it, that’s why he’s so highly regarded. And he said that the highest moral practice, the highest ethical practice is a peaceful mind. When our minds are truly at peace, then we can rightly assume that what we’re doing, that our acts are truly ethical, are truly moral.
That is to say that they are expressions conducive to, states of compassion, states of clarity, joyfulness, what is really positive. But how many of us are continually at peace, are self aware, and actually know the state of our mind, the condition of our mind, you know, the condition of our being. Most of us, I think most of the time, are very much unaware of the states of our own mind. I’d like to read a quote with regard to this. When a being is unaware, many of their actions are to their detriment and cause suffering.
These unwholesome actions create a burning division within your being. Śīla, Śīla is a Sanskrit term, and this is the word that we translated into English as ethics or morality. Silla is a description of how you should feel within a cool stream of consciousness which is refreshing. This is what this idea of ethics, what it means to have an ethical mind, act, to be, for one’s being to be in a moral state, ethical state, a sense of a refreshment, of coolness at the core of your being. Unfortunately, many think they are being refreshed when actually their innate being is burning in conflict.
Look into the interior state to judge the wholesomeness of your actions. Do they unfold and refresh you, or do they produce states of turmoil? Your actions are known by their fruit. A truly moral being is in the flow with the cool stream. We are not concerned with making moral judgment about an action, but what we are concerned with is the resulting state.
Are you refreshed? Is there a washing of your being with a greater feeling of life, or does produce conflict, blockage, and suffering? Unwholesomeness is not defined by the act, but by the result. Your task is to be more and more immediate, to see instantaneously the fruit of your action. Does the action feel refreshing?
You can’t live by the voices of the world. You have to look into the action itself, beyond the voice of mommy and daddy and society. What are you directly observing? What are you experiencing? You cannot come to certainty until you reach the core of your being and read the message without the taint of conditioning.
So, you know, we talk about ethics, we talk about morality, various rules and so forth, but maybe when it comes down to it I think what we’re talking about ethics or morality is simply the way a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being normally acts. What we call ethical. Someone who’s at peace with inside themselves, whose being is refreshed and cool. Those ways of being, those expressions, those ways of thinking, speaking, and acting out are ethical, are moral. They bring about benefit, welfare.
They do harm neither themselves or others. So, you know, this type of person doesn’t need any prescriptions on how they’re to act. They don’t need lots of rules, vows, and precepts, and commitments, and all. The natural mode of being is of its very nature beneficial, is conducive to states of compassion, well-being, and joyfulness, helpfulness. So, you know, the problem is, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.
When I say this, this is not to say that it doesn’t mean the what would you say? The usual slogan that we have these days, if it feels good, do it. I don’t mean that at all. I mean, you know, for what feels good for a confused mind, for a mind attachment, for a mind of anger, will more than not be hurtful, will more than not be detrimental in some way or another. And it will cause both immediate and long term suffering in one way or another.
Normally what we feel is not based upon inner wisdom or inner peace, inner caring, but in some way or another is based in, I think if we admit it, if we see, if we look in terms of our preoccupations with the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. That’s our criteria, isn’t it? Or how we act in the world. Our preoccupation with the pursuit of gain, the avoidance of loss, pursuit of praise, the avoidance of criticism, pursuit of fame, avoidance of notoriety. These are what we call the eight concerns or the eight worldly preoccupations.
These are our criteria, and this is what we’re mainly concerned with. These are what we’re acting out of, more than not, more than not. These are the criteria for supporting and extending our problems, not for deciding whether our actions are skillful or not, whether they’re positive or not, whether it feels good, whether it brings me pleasure or not. That’s not a criteria for deciding whether your action is positive or negative or skillful or unskillful or or skillful or unskillful or not. So, you know, though at times our minds are healthy, you know, we have, I mean that quite sincerely, I think our minds are clean and clear as Lama Yeshe would say.
You know, we have as if all the wisdom of the Buddha and we can trust ourselves and we can act out of it. But how many times are we actually in such a state? You know, how often and what we do in the meanwhile? Like I was saying about not being around the Dalai Lama, what do we do in the meanwhile? We have to take care of ourselves, our own minds, when our minds are not clear, are not wise, are not caring.
When we don’t know whether our minds are actually at peace, whether our minds are being refreshed or being cool. For most of us there’s a great disparity between our noblest ideas, our aspirations, what we would want for ourselves in our finest moments in the way that we seem to be living our everyday life. Sadly enough. More often than not, you know, it’s pleasure pain, it’s gain, loss, and so forth, which determine what it is that we do in our life. So, you know, if ethics is simply the way a healthy, loving, sane human being thinks and speaks and acts, then maybe it makes sense or it would be skillful to temporarily prescribe for ourselves such a way of acting and speaking and thinking as guidelines for ourselves.
So this is the basis behind all of the various commitments and vows, precepts. There’s lots and lots of them within Buddhism. Generally, you know, when we talk about commitments and vows, commitments and vows, they’re taken as an aid to assist us in observing some kind of general principle. You know, what it is that we want for ourselves, the direction that we want for our life, we want to be, the person. But rather than them remaining, you know, kind of lofty aspirations, we can find some way to begin to make them an integral part of our daily life.
And we have to take these ideals out of our hearts and find some way to act them out in a very practical way. So, you know, for example, killing. Maybe for one reason you’re moved to think it’s harmful. I know I don’t want to suffer. I value my life.
The life of every sentient being is the most precious thing they have. Whether it be an insect or whether it be a human being. And how can I kill? So maybe you decide, wanna make that that principle, that understanding an integral part of how I act in my everyday life. So therefore, I’m going to take that.
I’m going to bow. I’m going to, you know, this moment of sanity, this moment of clarity that I feel like I’m expressing at this moment. I want to find some way to have that as a guideline for the rest of my life. A training rule. I’m going to vow not to kill.
Or maybe barring that, okay, barring I’m not going to kill for sport. I’m gonna give up fishing. Fair enough. It’s the way that we can translate these noble ideas when our mind is clear, when it’s inspired, when wisdom is operating, when compassion and caring are manifest in our mind. And find some way to extend them over these dry, barren moments over the course of our life, most of the time of our life.
So the main point is that commitments and vows are the means to a greater end of awareness and greater caring. Kind of finding ways to express healthy principles in our everyday life. They’re not rules to be obeyed for their own sake. They’re not, they are intended as a means for self liberation, not self oppression. So the function of commitments and vows is to get us to look at and see what it is that we are thinking, what am I saying.
It makes us more aware of our actions. To see whether they accord in what we’ve committed ourselves to. You know, it requires some kind of, we have to inquire, look into what we’re doing. You know, open mindedly whether really what we’re doing is working or not. Whether our minds are being refreshed, whether our minds are being cooled by what it is that we’re doing or not.
Whether actions are expressions of our basic sanity, you know, what it is that we want most for ourselves, whether they are tending toward the direction that we want our lives to go, our deeper values, and whether what we are doing is harmful to ourselves and or to others. So there number of different levels of vows within Buddhism. Know, there’s the vow of going for refuge and so forth. And there are lay vows. There are vows of individual liberation.
You know, for example, many people take vows of lay person’s vows. There are five, some people take one, some people take two, three, four, five, not to kill, not to steal, not to involve oneself in sexual misconduct, misconduct. Not to lie and not to take intoxicants. So you know these are like training rules which help us to, as guidelines, to help us to stay in contact with the type of person that we want to be. And within the Mahāyāna, the great vehicle, there is within the perfection vehicle, vows of the Bodhisattva.
And, these are simply training rules to help you to create the internal ecology of mind to support the development of love and compassion and ultimately the awakened heart, bodhicitta. It’s kind of supportive of, and it takes one in that direction internally. And then within the Mahāyāna, the division of the perfection vehicle, but also the division of the tantra vehicle, and there are various sets of vows within tantra that in order to support this particular state of mind and to prevent those states states which would interfere with the production, with success of one’s practice. You know, I guess these are things that we can do for ourselves. These are the ways that we can help ourselves.
I mean, you know, we try to help ourselves, don’t we? I mean, most of our life is dedicated to that one way or another. And we work, and we gather together money, we buy the things that we want, and we try to develop relationships, and we have a nice home. This is another way, an important way that we can help ourselves lead a successful life in conjunction with all of what else we do. Merely wishing to be happy of itself is not sufficient to be happy.
Merely wishing not to suffer is not in of itself is not sufficient not to suffer. We actually, we have to help ourselves. We have to help others, we have to begin to take responsibility for ourselves. And this is the way the karma, the education of karma has some kind of significance if we actually take these teachings and find some way that they can actually help ourselves to find happiness and not to suffer. So the real, you know we’ve talked about, I guess we’ve gone on with karma’s lasted about two months at least.
We can help ourselves by as best we can abandoning the ten negative actions. Yeah? The three of what are the three of body? What are the three negative actions of body? Killing.
Which one is counted? Body. Okay, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct before speech. Mind, divisive speech. Lying devices, harsh speech, and what do we say, what do they call it, meaningless speech or idle chatter, lots of different words.
And the three of mind. Close, no bananas. Misinterpreted. So what? Covetousness?
Maliciousness, malice, and wrong view. Okay, okay. So these are bad, you know once we’ve been looking at these and the various consequences of these types of actions. Again, there’s no moral judgment being made if what we’re saying is true. And these are very hidden.
These are what we talked about the fact that there’s a particular type of phenomena which is called extremely hidden phenomena which are not directly accessible to ourselves which we can’t even rely on logic. Logic. We have to rely upon the credible testimony. And the Buddha has a pretty good track record. You know, like if the Buddha, if this is the Dalai Lama said if the Buddha said about emptiness is true, and emptiness is like the central focus of Buddhism, and it can be reasoned out, and we’re gonna talk a great deal about it.
And these other As, we can assume for the time being as an operational basis of our life, that they’re probably valid. Probably valid, we don’t know yet, okay? But the Buddha has a good track record, so we’re gonna take his word on it for the meanwhile, unless we can disprove it along the way. So, we looked at these ten negative actions and we tried to see that they bring about specific outcome And they’re all types of outcomes which none of us want. And they’re all various specific types of outcomes.
And we can think, well, you know, having seen that, we can begin to restrain ourselves. Whether you take a vow or not, it’s secondary. It’s simply abandoning as best you can to begin to diminish frequency of killing as best you can. Stealing, of sexual misconduct, all of these ten. And that’s, this is a practical way we can help ourselves.
You know, there are all these very high realizations, you know, tantric emptiness, you know, which we should strive for. But this is a very immediate practical way that we can actually begin to take responsibility for our happiness. Helping ourselves and maybe being able to help others a little more too. And this is something we can do immediately. It’s not somewhere down the road.
So this karma is the activity of shaping, forming our lives. Our lives are not something separate from our karma. The real significance of karma is that we are responsible. And this is what it’s saying, essentially, that we are not victims unless we allow ourselves to be victims. We can do something.
We can begin to reshape and reform our lives, create the kind of life we want for ourselves. We have a choice that’s very empowering. What we are now is what we have done and what we do now is what we will become and we have a choice in what we do now if we are aware and if we determine enough. Okay. So maybe you want to talk with any questions or anything you’d like to share some ideas and thoughts?
Tricky one, isn’t it? No. I mean we could, there’s a lot of debate around this to be honest with you, but anyway, I’ll just give you the traditional explanation. There are three times when you if you have taken a vow that you shouldn’t eat meat. If you’ve killed the animal yourself, if you ordered it to be killed specifically for yourself or if you’ve seen it killed.
Other than that it’s not contributing you’re about to kill, to eat meat. Having said that there’s a lot to be said isn’t there? Yeah. I don’t have an answer for you on that one. Yeah.
Traditional most Tibetans eat meat. I mean, yeah. So, I I can only say that, I can’t justify it. I mean they lived in climate where there were very few vegetables, a short growing season, high altitude and so forth. So, maybe out of necessity it’s said that they had to eat meat and they became accustomed to it as part of their meditative stabilization.
I can’t, I’m just repeating what I’ve heard myself. Yeah. So it’s a choice we make. For someone who’s died. Yeah, so they’ve already died?
Think again it’s just a matter of, I can only speak the little that I know about it, I don’t know very much. But anyway, this one I even know less. Traditionally the intermediate state can last a maximum of forty nine days, human days. And that there is what’s called a small death. So the being born, takes birth in an intermediate state, it has a mental body, it’s searching according to its karmic propensities, its tendencies, it’s searching for a fit, a rebirth site appearance.
And if after six days it doesn’t find the karmic fit, there’s lots of, you know, conditions have to be satisfied. The parents, you know, the prospective parents have to be certain, have that karma to have this child and so forth. And on the seventh day the being undergoes a small death in intermediate state. Now this time, so this is why they perform a ritual on the seventh day. It’s said that the being will, that those who have some kind of strength of mind or realization or those who have a very strong karmic affinity, closeness, through various rituals, prayers, can influence the being at this point when they’re going to take this small death in the course of their immediate state.
And then, so making prayers, rituals, I mean, practical matters, if you want, these rituals can be done for you. And if you’re actually talking about the practicalities of it, there are some texts and so forth which are recited on this particular day. And then the being is reborn, if it doesn’t take rebirth, it is reborn within the intermediate state, takes another immediate state body, and again searching for a rebirth site, and again that rebirth site is not found, and then it goes another small death. This occurs up up to six more times making it says total forty nine days in the intermediate state. So at these particular junctions at the on every seventh day ritual is performed.
So I’m not very familiar with these rituals which are performed, but they can be performed for you in practice. Like you know the monasteries will perform that for you. So this is what’s normally done. But I, you So it’s said that the being, the karma can change. We haven’t talked, but we will talk about a particular type of karma called projecting karma.
And the projecting karma of the intermediate state being and the actual eventual rebirth being generally one karma. But it said that the karma of the being according to Mahāyāna interpretation that the karma of the being can be changed in the immediate state. And that someone, that the mind is, that the being is very susceptible to the influence of other minds. Those who have a very close karmic affinities, but also to, it’s said to highly realized beings who have a powerful, have a power of mind, and that they can guide this being and prevent certain karma from have influence of what karma ripens and therefore what type of rebirth they take. If they don’t have the karma, nothing can be done.
If the karma is so strong, there’s nothing that can be done. So it’s not as if it’s, you know, it is a matter of karma, but that karma isn’t, is still workable by others. It’s they can, because of the subtlety of the mind in this intermediate intermediate state that that mind can be influenced and determine which of those karmas will ripen. So there are the rituals which are performed every seven days for forty nine days. So, I don’t know if that helps.
Not much. What can we do? You can do this, there’s influence. So they do these rituals every seven days. They do that because his being is going to go through this death process.
I don’t know if this is getting an area that I don’t know even very little about that. So I’m not sure what that would mean outside of outside of this particular time. Yeah? Okay. I know it’d be a good question for Geshe la.
Geshe la would say. It’s best not to create new negative karma but also purify the past negative karma that you’ve already created. Yeah, that would be a good way to go. Probably, yeah, if you can. Yeah.
It’s not saying, well, you can do whatever make you want to. Yeah. I see what you mean. No. And, yeah, I mean this is sometimes brought up in that world.
If I can purify it then I can do anything I want. So if you have the attitude that you can always purify then you probably don’t have very genuine, probably wouldn’t generate a very genuine sense of regret is what it comes down to. And it’s, but there are also technicalities. Even though the negativity and these are, you know, I don’t know much about. Even though the karma is purified, there’s still certain hindrances to your progress along the path.
You won’t be able to attain certain attainments in that particular lifetime, but maybe we don’t have to worry about those kinds of things, I don’t know. But yeah, so you probably won’t develop a very genuine sense of regret and therefore you probably won’t, if you have this attitude, it’s kind of becomes kind of escape clause you’re trying to use. Know it’s a pretend thing. Yeah. It’s not real.
It doesn’t really have any, you know, it’s a karma. Yeah. Virtual suffering is come. I don’t know, that’s a good one. Think it does.
I mean it wouldn’t be complete karma because we talked about the fact that complete karma there has to be a basis, so there has to be, like in killing, has to be, you actually have to have a sentient being, And there would be, we talked about the thought where there was a motivation and intent and the affliction. So, and there wouldn’t be a conclusion because there’s no sentient being involved, but still there may be the affliction and the intention. So it’s probably not very healthy actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like when the army, they go on maneuvers and they kill, you know, toy bullets, you know, rubber bullets or whatever, don’t what they do, toy bullets, not toy bullets, blanks, and they shoot colored paint at each other, so that when they come to the actual situation they already have done the physical enactment of these actions, and they’re already prepared, so I think maybe as you said, I think they were accustomed to them to be disposed to this and more likely in the actual situation they would act it out.
It wouldn’t be unusual. I mean, there’s sort of a a subset that still applies to everybody, and then you to work around the edges based on your perception and feel. But I was you know, is there a guideline for what actually generates negative karma? You know, do you have a barometer, you know, inside yourself? Is that what if you if you don’t feel good about it, you know, it’s not right, it’s not your truth, but you do it anyway, then then you probably have a good idea that you’re generating negative action.
Yeah. You have these vows but some people will like to take some of the vows. Or if everybody takes all the vows, they’ve got an awful lot and vows and only Buddhists don’t do all of it. That’s a good question. I think, generally the basis of ethics is harm.
That which brings harm to oneself or others is unethical. And so I don’t know, maybe that’s is that I don’t know if that’s that’s helpful. Yeah. I think that should And or? And or others, yeah.
I think A little white lie that doesn’t harm anybody. It might bring about a negative consequence in the future. Yeah, think, I mean, lying creates some kind of split. You want to, you know, there’s a there’s a why do people lie? Attachment or fear of some results of that lie.
Would lying slide in your crisis of the likeness? I would think so. Sorry? It depends, it’s not quite, sometimes it’s not easy. For example, you know if you were living in Nazi Germany, you had some Jews down your basement and the Gestapo knocked on your door and said, have you seen some Jews?
He said, no. So, that would, that That’s probably not the context of a lot more. So, I mean, there is a certain relativity to it. There is a certain context that you have, what your motivation is, is all important. Probably if you have skills you can avoid lying because it’s Jews that you could say, Beautiful.
Are looking for? Oh, see that then. Obviously you’ve been Yeah. Yeah, so when we discussed the, we went through actions and there were four components to an action. There was a basis, I mean for an action to be a complete complete path of action we said there has to be a basis, a sentient being, and then there was the thought which was the intention and the motivation and a fixative emotion and then the actual execution of the action, and then there was the conclusion.
For example, the being dies. And depending upon whether all four of these are complete and the strength of each of those, strength of whether the motivation was positive or negative, and how negative it was, and so forth, would determine the overall ethical quality of the action. So, there’s certain, so there’s different components which have to be summed up, but the most important, as you mentioned, motivation in terms of all these components. What your motivation is. So, we can’t say absolutely this is wrong, this is right.
It’s very much dependent upon motivation. So it’s hard to know one’s motivation. Quite often it’s mixed. So that’s why people take vows and so forth. Okay.
I keep asking myself that. Does anybody know what the difference between How’s that? Everything’s included with the lack of morality. If we’re the the moral foundation has proved to be somehow inadequate, an ethical standpoint or status is then overlaid to compensate for what hasn’t naturally generated. Morality is more fundamental than ethics?
Yeah, and ethics is the, like, a conscious supplement to that which probably shouldn’t have arisen, but it hasn’t. Can you give an example? Probably, actually, any workplace or profession. Like, I said, lead profession has an ethics board or an ethics component like to be admitted as a solicitor, you have to pass ethics and you have to do that as an ongoing basis, take course in ethics. Now, arguably, there’s sufficient morality there in the first place, never have to take a course in ethics, would you?
So what I’m saying, perhaps there’s the the primordial part, and that the ethics is imposed by virtue of what is deficient in the way we we translate our lives and how that morality that isn’t in us is communicated. So, therefore, we need to put this superstructure of ethics around it. Uh-huh. That’s good. Very complicated, isn’t it?
Thanks for that. So we can dedicate the positive energy we’ve created, the positive karma, The ethical, the positive karma. Male beings everywhere plagued by suffering with 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. May no one be afraid or belittled with a mind weighed down by depression.
May the blind see forms and deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose. May naked find clothing, the 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 harvests. 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 frightened 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 that awakened realm. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more.
In the land so called of snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain to the end of cyclic existence. Thank you. Good night.