Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid image anchors the opening of this 148-minute session with Ven Jampa Gendun: life as a boat drifting toward an unseen waterfall, perhaps only metres away. He guides the group through a meditation on the second root of the nine-point death contemplation — the uncertainty of when we will die — building a felt recognition that death can come at any age, from any cause, given the body’s extraordinary fragility. He then reviews the series’ karma teachings: the four general principles, the ten paths of action across body speech and mind, the four types of karmic result, and the four powers of purification. The session closes by moving through the three types of suffering — suffering of suffering, suffering of change, and pervasive conditionality — including a lively exchange with students on pleasure, moderation, and the distinction between goals and values.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 26 3PA 2007 10 07.mp3
UUID: 0966fc9a-a1e1-4eb6-be3d-52949f56480e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-10-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 148.2 minutes
Words: ~11,602
How is everybody? Would you tell me if you weren’t? Can you can you hear me in the back, Becky? One thick turn up a little bit. That’s okay.
Yeah? Okay. For the time being. Okay. So we begin as we usually do in terms of adjusting our motivation, the why behind and the purpose for.
So it’s something that each of us has to do within our own hearts, within our own minds. Finding some keys, some ways to move our mind to, you know, to take our mind from perhaps a feeling of indifference or a neutral feeling. Maybe you’ve had a busy day unlike myself. You have lots of important things to do in the home or outside the home in one way or another. So we get out of touch, don’t we?
So this process of reorientation, getting back in touch with what is important to ourselves, some central focus that we would like to see our life as an expression of in one form or another, in one way or another. Something we like to see our life stand for which has meaning for ourselves, which we feel good about. We feel like we’re in touch with some deeper parts to ourselves. Getting back in touch. So whatever this might be for each of us, whatever holds value for yourself.
Generally, we talk about a Buddha, don’t we? And I guess this is like taking all these possible values and just giving them a name or a focus, a metaphor to this best story that we could possibly tell ourselves about ourselves and what we could do with our life and who we could be and how we could relate with others in the world about us. So we call this a Buddha, a happy, healthy, and loving, sane human being. Clothing, good food, a nice house isn’t quite enough to make a good life, a successful life. You know, what is the measure of your success in life?
I think, you know, sometimes we have to stop acting, stop speeding, and, reflect, on is where I’m going, where I, you know, is where I’m heading actually where I want to take my life. And maybe we need to make some adjustments, re orientate ourselves, get back in touch, and work out some strategies, you know, both short term and long term about, those ways in which we’ll bring about what it is that we want for ourselves. So we are educating ourselves. I think we’re quite fortunate in that. We’re learning about other options and ways that we can another story that we could tell ourselves about what a successful life might look like.
You know, something beyond the normality which is all that most people know which isn’t really much of a life. What we could do and some methods and some you know some tools to work with to bring that about. And again and again we try to raise the level of our motivation. And I ask you to take the time and make the effort. I know it takes effort.
But I think it’s worthwhile to, you know, within your own hearts as we’re sitting here adjusting our motivation. If only to think of one other person and imagine that person in front of you, you know, just in your mind’s eye somebody whose happiness and suffering is connected to your own and that you would like to sincerely and genuinely be there for in some more significant ways in your life. You know, we at the end of this evening when we leave, when we go home and the next time you see this person that you might be that much of a better person, not just for your own sake and finding your own happiness but, you know, that’s justifiable, that’s legitimate. Stopping there, but also considering if only one other person. Maybe when you see this person you can be a little more patient, a little kinder, a little more understanding.
In some way be able to be of support in helping them define their happiness and helping them to solve their problems. And in that way, you know, our being here together, our sharing what all our teachers have taught us and what these profound teachings that have been handed down to us. And it becomes a great meaning. It becomes a tremendous value. It can bring about the kinds of changes we would want.
Even though we perhaps can’t see all the details of that change, we can find, we can have some reassurance that we’re going to be better people leading a better life in a better world because of what we do now. We can change the future by how we participate in the present. That’s the only time that we really have to work with right now. So, you know, taking this gap, this pause, and adjusting how you’re going to participate in this present moment in terms of your motivation. 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 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 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 detachment for some and aversion toward others. Reverently I prostrate with my body, speech speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, those actually arranged and imagined.
I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during the beginningless time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings. Please remain at 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 awakener. So we’re going to meditate and last week started to meditate on the nine-point death meditation. So there are three roots: that death is definite, the time of death is indefinite and uncertain, and beginning to understand that it’s only the development of our own mind and the positive imprints that we’ve made on our mind which are going to benefit at the time of our death.
And last week we meditated on the first of these roots, that death is definite, and I thought we’d carry on with our meditation on death. Meditation on death is to help us to live a better quality of life, to cut through a lot of what is superfluous, what really is really if we were to look at what is important to ourselves, really holds very little value. But somehow, we get caught up to take the essence of our life while we still have the opportunity. So it helps us to adjust our priorities. If you know if you thought you only had one year to live, how would you live your life other than the way you’re living it at now?
You might make some adjustments. You probably would. I’m not saying that you should do that by all means but you might consider it in that light. So we’re going to look at the second of these three routes that the time of our death is unpredictable, we simply don’t know when we’re going to die. And this is supported by three reasons which we’re going to reflect upon, which we’re going to meditate on, that the human life expectancy is uncertain.
There’s no guarantee, you know, guarantee that tomorrow or the next week that your body won’t be racked with pain, that you won’t be weak and possibly be near death. There’s no guarantee that that’s not the case and no one can give you that guarantee. We simply don’t know how long we have to live. You know, babies die in the womb. They die at birth.
They die at infancy. They die as children. Young people, children, forties, young adults, middle aged, older adults, older adults, you know, the elderly. People die at any age at any time. Just because we don’t think about it or we irrationally reject the idea doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen to ourselves.
The is that we can die at any time. And then the second reason supporting this root is that there are many causes of death. And this body, this nice soft body held together with this film of skin encasing our life force. It is quite fragile. Anything could happen.
You know, each time that we go outside or even in the home when we walk down the steps, maybe there’s something left on the steps or we walk outside. Maybe there’s a driver who isn’t watching where they’re going. We visit a sick friend, maybe there’s a virus and something that we can’t even see. There’s forest fires and earthquakes and wars. And then, you know, even if we were to feel safe and protected from such types of death, then there’s simply, you know, the more natural ways, what we call natural ways of dying.
You know, there’s heart attacks and cancer, the way many, many people do die. And then there’s old age, you know. People die in their sleep. They die going to and from work. They die in school.
They die at home. They die probably there’s been many who have died while they were listening to talks on dharma. Why not? We should have a nurse standing by at all times. So, you know, there’s no place and no time that people don’t die.
You know, death will find you or you’ll find death in one way or another. The point is that there’s no place, no time, no circumstance where we are absolutely safe. Nothing is safe is absolutely safe in life. And then finally the third reason that supports this is the human body is very fragile. Life depends upon some very subtle processes both in turn within our body for example even within a single cell the various way in which the internal components of a cell are operating getting down to almost the level of DNA, the molecular level.
And then there’s the chemical balances of the body and the various organ systems of the body. It’s like this choreographed dance that’s going on within ourselves. And if one of one of those dancers gets out of step, then the whole thing falls apart in one way or another. Our life can end. You know, there’s a sense that we’re of you know, it’s like we’re on a boat journey down this I kind of picture it like the Amazon, you know, like the jungle, maybe the Murray.
I don’t know how much water is in the Murray anymore, but anyway. And you’re looking over the stern of the boat, the back of the boat, and you’re watching, you know, scenery, the landscape recede behind you as it goes by. And you forget, you know, there’s a sense you’re headed towards something, there’s a destination that you’re traveling to. But even if you try to turn around, you really can’t see where you’re headed. You know, we can’t know the future.
That’s not possible for us. But it may be the case if you were traveling down the Amazon that you’re you’re quickly approaching this huge waterfall, you know, hundreds of feet high. And you’re not you’re blissfully unaware of it, or maybe not even blissfully. You just wanna unaware of it as we’re moving down through the countryside watching the landscape we see behind you. And you feel, you know, you may be caught particularly caught up in the in the scenic wonders of what’s about you.
And all the time, this waterfall is approaching closer and closer. And it only may be one hundred yards or fifty yards or twenty five yards. We don’t know. And then when the boat reaches that, it tips over the edge, and life is finished. We don’t know when that waterfall for ourselves is going to happen to ourselves.
We can’t tell. So within the light of all this, in the light that human life expectancy is uncertain. We don’t know. People die at any age, that there are many causes of death, then finally that the human body is extremely fragile. Coming to, you know, it’s in working with these teachings, it’s we try to direct the mind to some try to open the mind or work with the mind so we develop some feeling.
There’s Like the penny drops, some and beyond words. And the words, if it were given words, that is I could die at any time. That feeling. You know it’s not a very pleasant feeling perhaps but it’s a reflection of the truth of our reality and it’s quite necessary part of our education. It’s, you know, these there’s what’s called experiential avoidance, avoiding uncomfortable feelings.
And you develop, like, a comfort zone, and you don’t want to know anything outside of that comfort zone. And therefore, in that way, the those things which lie outside of that are never explored. We never grow. We never change for the better. So some of these understandings, some of these these teachings, you know, they’re not meant to make you happy bring immediate pleasure.
But they are designed to help us to grow. They are like the legitimate suffering which growth inevitably entails, getting in touch with the way things actually are. It seems like it’s an inevitable part of the path, a necessary part of the path. And coming to a conclusion to begin to practice developing our minds now, we simply don’t know how long we have to live. This opportunity that our precious, you know, this one precious wild life that we all have, we don’t know how long we’re going to have it.
We really don’t. We really don’t. You know, someone in this room is going to be the first amongst us to die. That is not a very pleasant thought, is it? But it’s that’s the the reality of our and we don’t know who.
But there will be one of us will be the first, and it could be you. Either we don’t know. There’s a certain not only a necessity to practice, but a degree of urgency in the beginning of practice and practicing well. So we’re going to meditate on that. So would you like to stand up for a moment and stretch and then we’ll sit for meditation?
And it’s Sometimes I talk about, you know, talk about what meditation is, and I think it’s useful to look at it from many, many points of view so you get a rounded picture of meditation. And I think one useful way of looking at meditation, it is a way of refocusing our attention toward perhaps objects that we often avoid or we normally don’t consider. And here we’re paying attention to something that we normally don’t consider. We may, in fact, avoid it. The fact that we’re going to that we could die at any time.
So taking a comfortable, firm posture. Posture. And we’ll begin with relaxing the body, starting the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around your eyes diminishing. The muscles of the face relaxing, softening.
Your jaw is relaxed. Moving to the muscles at the back of the neck perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times just gently loosening, stretching the muscles at the back of the neck. Moving to the upper back, shoulders. Perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times. Raising them and allowing them to drop comfortably to the sides.
Feeling this this burden, this weight that we carry around on our backs beginning to move down and through your body into the ground. Like some weight, some something that you’ve been carrying around on your back all days has been lifted off your shoulders. And moving your awareness all the way down to your hands. Your hands are loose and soft. Relaxing the lower arms.
The upper arms. Your chest is at ease. Relaxing throughout the heart area and the lungs and the central area of the back. Stomach, releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles just allowing your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity.
Lower back muscles. The buttocks. Throughout the upper legs Lower legs. And your feet and bringing your awareness to your body in general, scanning through the body, noticing any tightnesses, any tensions within the body, any areas of discomfort. And focusing upon those areas and consciously relaxing, softening, feeling that tension diminish, the tightness loosen.
And those areas of discomfort, breathing into those areas, accepting the discomfort without struggling against it. Breathing in and dissolving the discomfort. Just allowing it to be. Feeling your body becoming comfortable and at ease, a feeling of physical well-being pervading all the parts of your body. Just being with your body, comfortable and at ease.
Being with your body. And we can practice the six part breath exercise, breathing in comfortably normally, breathing out extending the exhalation, pushing all the air out of the lungs, breathing in comfortably normally again extending the exhalation and doing this six times individually on your own. And when you’ve completed the breathing exercise bringing the mind to the breath just the easy gentle and not flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful using the techniques of counting and noting the breaths, noting whatever the distraction, whatever your mind wanders to and patiently and gently bringing the mind back to the breath. If your mind wanders, is distracted gently and patiently bring your mind back to the breath.
Bring the mind back to the breath. So we can take as a primary object sound as if you were a scientist investigating something that you’ve never heard before. We can take as our logic sounds. Just paying careful attention to sound, listening to sound. So it’s focusing on sound.
Just curious, open, interested. So now we’re going to meditate on the uncertainty of the time of our death. And the first reason which establishes this is that human life expectancy is uncertain that we simply don’t know when we’re going to die. That we can people die of every age from in the womb up to the elderly. There’s no age at which people don’t die.
So you can go through all the various possible ages and thinking that people die at this age and that they die at this age. And whatever age you happen to be there’s no reason to think that they don’t die at that age as well. There’s no certainty. And the second supporting reason is that there are many causes of death. No matter how cautious we may be, we cannot see foresee all the possible ways in which we might die.
And I’m just driving home from Buddha House tonight and all the various possible ways we could imagine. Accidents and earthquakes and fires. And then there’s heart attacks and cancer. Life is a risk. And then the third supporting reason, that the human body is extremely fragile.
It depends, our life depends upon a delicate balance of almost inconceivable numbers of independent parts all the way down to the cells and the molecules of within the cells of the body, all the systems of the body, the organs of the body. That’s the nature of our physical life. Infinite number of internal processes which can easily go wrong. But also from the outside and the external world, our bodies aren’t made of steel. They’re not made of stone they’re susceptible susceptible to being easily injured they’re vulnerable to all So see if you can come to some conclusion, some feeling to begin to use your life wisely, as mindfully, living out your values as best you can from right now onward to begin to really take serious the development of your mind because we don’t know how long the opportunity we have.
And then bring your mind back to the breath. And getting in touch with your body, know perhaps the feeling of your buttocks on your seat, your cushion, your feet on the floor, where your body parts are, your position of your hands, your arms, your legs. Just get in touch with the sensations and feelings within the body. And then in an easy comfortable manner slowly become aware of your surroundings. Connect with your surroundings.
So we’re doing a review of the first principal aspect of the path, developing the will to awaken, this determination to be free. So we’re trying to adjust our priorities. And we’ll begin with the verse where Tsongkhapa says, thinking again and again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects and the sufferings of cyclic existence will alter the priorities that you give to future lives. So thinking again and again about relation between actions and their effects, you know, we went through quite a lengthy discussion around karma. Our actions of body, speech and mind act as causes bringing about a corresponding type of effect in terms of ethical quality.
The nature of the cause, the nature of the action bringing about an experience of pleasure and pain and the various all our various experiences. So we said, you know, we’re just going over some of the brief points just to remind ourselves and you know as we go along if you have any questions or anything any comments you’d like to add as we go along please. It’s open to discussion or whatever. Okay, so just going over some of the important points that we covered when we went through our discussion of karma. So we said that karma, you know, one of the central, principles of Buddhism, one of the important areas of Buddhism is that, that of dependent arising.
Everything is a dependent arising. I’m a dependent arising. This table is a dependent arising. This universe is a dependent arising, and so forth and so on. And what things are what we mean by dependent, can vary according to different levels of subtlety.
Here we’re in terms of a present discussion of karma, we’re talking about dependent upon causes and conditions. Everything is dependent upon causes and conditions. In the future when we talk about dependent arising we can talk about other levels of dependence that everything is dependent upon its parts and then the most subtle level of dependence, everything is dependent upon language and conceptuality. Everything is dependent upon mind. So there’s different levels.
But here in the in the context of karma, we’re talking about so karma is subsumed within this overall category of the area of dependence in the cause and conditions. Everything arise, all products arise in dependence upon cause and conditions, but we can make a distinction between those products which are outside the human continuum or the continuum of sentient beings, you know, the mountains and so forth and trees and those within internal to sentient beings. The, the process of nature, which operate within the law of cause and effect, aren’t, aren’t termed karmic. Karmic cause and effect requires a degree of intention. It is the intentionality of the being.
The being acts as an agent because they are the agent of the intention, and the agent will undergo as a result of that action, undergo some type of experience. Experience. So we’re talking about the law of cause and effect that process internal to sentient beings, not outside of sentient beings. So that mechanism, that process whereby an individual’s intention can lead to a particular way of speaking or way of acting, and the seeds or the which are left or the impressions or the imprints which are left upon the mind due to those intentions is what we mean by karma. And we went to talk, we went into a discussion of, we can discuss karma in terms of, in general terms, but also in particular very specific areas of karma.
In terms of, the general discussion of karma, we talked about the four general principles of karma and we said the first of these is that the certainty of karma. So there is a correspondence between nature, the ethical quality or ethical nature of the cause, I didn’t say the quality of the action, its ethical nature of the action, whether it’s the way we think, the way we speak, or the way that we act, and the nature of the quality of the end result of that. The end result will be some type of experience, and this will come down to basically a type of feeling. From positive actions arise positive feelings, feelings of pleasure. From negative actions will arise eventually, you know, through this long chain of processes will ultimately come about the culmination of that process is a negative feeling, a feeling of unhappiness of some sort, a pain.
So there’s this invariable relation between the ethical nature, the quality of that cause in terms of our actions, and the quality of a felt experience as a result. The magnificent, the one of the second general principle was the magnification of karma, and this is, you know, this is, I don’t know of any way we can reason around this and we can use analogies but this is simply the fact that even from minor causes, minor actions can bring about highly magnified or increased results, you know, just like an acorn. Acorn seed can bring about, can grow into a huge tree likewise with our actions. The third general principle is that of if an action is not performed we will not experience the result and you know this almost sounds simple minded but in a way it’s not simple minded because we often overlook this simple minded fact and sometimes common sense isn’t all that common. If we don’t create the causes for a particular result we want to experience its effect.
So in terms of how this practically applies if you if there’s some type of result that you would like to experience then it’s necessary that you engage in its causes to bring it about. On the other hand if there’s some type of results that you don’t want to experience then you you should consciously avoid creating the causes which bring about that unwanted effect. Then finally, the fourth of these general principles is that actions once done do not dissipate. You know it’s easy to think that okay that’s finished or you know I did that and I can move on. But that’s not quite the case.
Our actions are precipitated due to our intention, the urge, the impulse to engage in ways of thinking or acting and so forth. And these intentions, which are karma, would leave some kind of residue on the mind that condition the mind. Our past experiences, past ways of thinking, speaking, and so forth, condition the way we presently experience, the way we presently speak. You know, we build up habits. We build up ways of perception, ways of organizing our reality, habitual ways of seeing things and reacting to things.
And therefore, these are the conditioning factors within our mind. And these seeds, what we call karmic seeds, these potentialities which, you know, ways of experiencing do not dissipate. They just aren’t lost in the shuffle of lifetimes, nor that they decay over time or whatnot. They will maintain their integrity until they meet with a particular activating condition. So actions that are once do not dissipate.
Then we begin to so that was the general principles of karma we went through and then we talked about is there anything around those I could bring up. Yeah. Is there anything around those four general principles of karma that yeah. Okay. And we talked about some of the particular areas of karma and we said, you know, we have over the course of a day, you know, we have infinite numbers of thoughts, infinite, I don’t know infinite but lots, big, big number, Lots of intentions.
So, in order to most, the Buddha categorized these various types of karma that we’re continually creating into those which most easily occur and have heaviest results. And he categorized them into ten categories of actions. These he categorized in terms of positive paths of actions and negative paths of actions. And I guess it’s important to, I guess, to qualify. You know, talking about the in a way we’re talking about the ethical quality of what we do.
The ethical quality as a measure of the outcomes in terms of our own experience and I think the foundation of practice is ethics. And ethics comes down to, you know, if we simplify it to what is essential, is that it is, in terms of, the ethic of not harming. Negative action is simply an action which harms. Positive action is that which not only does not harm but helps. So that is the basis of practice.
So that is the basis of practice. So in terms of our practice, you know, we’re going to harm. We may harm intentionally or unintentionally but we’re in such condition, we’re in such a situation that we’re going to bring about harm. So I guess what is simply the most important thing to do is to try to minimize the harm that we do do in our life as a basis of practice, as a basis of ethics, and to take responsibility but try to for the harm that we do do intentionally, but try to minimize it. So when we talk about these, you know, we’re talking about these ten categories.
Know, just think that, you know, this is a These types of actions most easily occur and they’re the heaviest types of actions but nonetheless, you know, what I’m thinking of was what came up in a discussion another day, the other day in another class and it was quite right that, you know, if for example that you were if you were in a place where there are a lot of insects, I’m just taking a simple example, then, you know, even though you don’t have the intention to kill them, if if you were to be careless, you know, if, you know, in how you walked. So you should take care. Okay. And when we drive over here we kill insects. Kill.
We can’t. That’s the nature of our situation. You don’t have any intention to do that. But not having the intention is simply, you know, that’s maybe that doesn’t, you know, that doesn’t qualify ourselves as having one of these ten negative actions of not killing since we don’t have the intention, but that doesn’t qualify us from not having being mindful of trying to minimize the harm that we do. You know, if you if you have a fire and you have a piece of wood and it’s an old piece of wood, know, may may be looking at it to see if there’s any insects be you know, before you put it in the fire.
A simple practice of mindfulness in that way. That’s part of our practice. Maybe it doesn’t fit in with these ten. But nonetheless, it’s not to say that these are simply the categorization of those which are the most easily occur and heaviest. Know, putting a log in a fire which has insects in it, maybe you have no intention to kill those insects, but it doesn’t excuse you from not being mindful mindful of trying to minimize the harm that we create in our life by, you know, by just checking it out.
That’s all. So there are ten positive actions, and these ten positive actions or paths of actions are taken to prevent or act as antidote to the ten negative paths of actions. And we went through each of these ten negative paths of action. This is a way of categorizing our actions of body, speech and mind in terms of the body. There were the three of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and the four of speech lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and senseless speech, and the three of mind of covetousness, malice, and wrong view.
So we went through each of those, and we went through them in terms of what are called the four branches. The way that we can break down an action. A way we can begin to minimize the harm that we do if we’re going to involve ourselves in one of these. Because the overall heaviness of the action is accumulative. The more of these branches complete, the heavier the action will be.
For example, there was the basis. For example, if we take the action of killing, the basis was a sentient being. That’s the first branch. The second branch was the thought branch and it had three components or three parts to it. There was the recognition, you know, accurately recognizing the object that we’re going to kill.
The second was the motivation, that is the wish to take the life of that being. And the third was one of the afflictive emotions of hatred or attachment or ignorance. So that’s the thought branch. And then there was the the third branch was the actual action itself, know, the actual committing of the action, the shooting or the gun or the whatever it is, know, the spraying of the mortein or whatever you’re going to do. And then finally the culmination, the being dies.
So, you know, we can begin to to analyze the various actions that we do and begin to see whether, you know, we can prevent one or more of those branches from occurring. In the case of driving over here this evening, the thought branch wasn’t complete. You know, there the motivation. There wasn’t I don’t think so, but you have to check out for yourself. There wasn’t the afflictive emotion and so forth, but there was the, the actual action of killing.
But we said that, in in terms of, whether karma was definite or indefinite, if there is no intention, then there will be either minor or no consequences or results of that. But that having said that, this is my point. It doesn’t mean that we should not act mindfully in trying to reduce, minimize the harm that we do create. And just because there’s no one, you don’t mean to kill, it doesn’t mean that you can act carelessly as if it didn’t matter. That’s my that was my point around that.
Then we discussed the, you know, that was those are the causes of the creation of karma through our body, speech, and mind and through these ten negative paths of action and their antidotes or the prevent ways that we prevent them by practicing the ten positive paths of action. And then we said, what are the results of those actions? The actions are our causes. What types of results can experience and we said that there are four types of results. An action can produce a variation of types of results.
The first of the types of results was the fruition result. Okay, so this is the the main result, the overall realm or level of rebirth in which we find ourselves in. From the lowest level of the hell realms up to the level of the celestial beings, the gods. Those are called fruition result. human realm, the human level is a fruition result.
The the the main cause for taking taking rebirth as a human being is practice of ethics, non harm. Practicing ethics, trying to not harm, will have as its main result in terms of fruition result being reborn as a human being. Then the second type of result is that the causal the result corresponding to the action in terms of experience. So this was the general notion that like begets like or as we sow, so shall we reap. The taking of life corresponding to the cause in terms of experience is that one’s own life will be shortened.
The on the contrary, saving life, it’s a way of lengthening one’s own life. That in terms of the result of miserliness or stealing others’ possessions is that one will be born into poverty, one will have very few possessions, and moreover, your property will be stolen yourself. So there’s a correspondence between what you did to others and how what you experienced yourself. That kind of notion. The third type of result was result corresponding to the action in terms of behavior and this is simply the tendency to keep repeating the same type of actions again and again and again.
If, you know, someone was mentioned the other day that their little she noticed that her little boy enjoyed stepping on insects or he appeared to enjoy it. He went out of his way to step on insects. I don’t know. Anyway, you know, taking pleasure in killing this result which corresponds to the cause in terms of behavior is that you enjoy repeating. Those ways of acting come quite readily, quite easily.
And there’s some kind of you feel comfortable and enjoy doing these. This is also, know, quite often we talk in negative terms, this is also probably positive terms. If you know, if you take a practice generosity, then you enjoy giving in the future. You find ways that you can and this will know, in a way, you find ways and go out of your way to give. You have a predisposition toward that way of acting.
You have a natural tendency to be generous with sharing what you have. And then finally, the fourth of these four types result is the environmental result and this is the type of result which is not within the continuum of the being. It’s in terms of our immediate environment, know the type of the place that we’re born, the nature, the area that we’re born, but also in terms of possessions. You know, for example, in terms of the environmental result of killing is that one will be born in a place where life forms have difficulty in developing and growing, medicines will be ineffective, food will lack nourishment, you know, it’s that kind of environmental effect. And then we said that, you know, in terms of that fourth general principle that we just went through, you know, that the actions that are performed do not dissipate, they’re not lost and we said well this would this requires some kind of qualification.
Positive actions, the positive seeds, the seeds of positive actions that we’ve created, which have been planted in our mind can be weakened and destroyed by the forces of anger, by the forces of, misguided regret, and by wrong views. And so this is, you know, one of the, you know, people talk about, well, what are some of the ways I can work with anger? This is one of the, the disadvantages of anger is that can actually destroy all the, the positive actions that have positive seeds within our mind, if one has some kind of confidence in this process of cause and effect of karma. But on the other hand, there’s a certain advantage to this also because we’ve created negative actions in the past and there are various negative seeds in our mind. And so we can these negative seeds, they aren’t going to go away by themselves.
They’re going to remain until they’re activated, come in contact with a condition which will cause them to, which will act, which will nourish them and cause them to express their whatever potent potentiality they have. And so we can, we can destroy or we can mitigate the effects of those negative actions that we’ve created in the past. These we can we can weaken and destroy these karmic seeds within our mind and this is by means of the four powers. We went through these four powers, so this is an important part of our practice. A great part of our practice is said to be in terms of the accumulation of kind of a positive potential merit on the one hand, on the other hand the purification of past negativities.
These negativities they only they not only, bring about negative effects in all these various ways that we described in terms of fruition effect, in terms of our behavior, in terms of our experiences and so forth, they also act as obstacles to, the development of our mind. They obstruct coming to new understandings, having insight. So they have both immediate effect but also long range, negative consequences. So, we can mitigate those effects and purify them. So, to purify means that we are creating a complementary condition through the practice whereby these seeds will not be able to be activated.
We create a condition. We’re reconditioning these factors of the mind such that no matter what the conditions we in contact, those conditions will not be able to activate these seeds within our mind. I guess we need an analogy, one way of looking at it, is as if we take a seed and we scorch it, and it loses its potency. No matter how much water and earth it can no longer germinate. So likewise with these seeds, and we can actually remove them from the mind, mitigate or weaken the effects that they take in various ways.
So there were first of these four powers. So this is an important part of our practice. These are the ways that we can help ourselves. It’s our responsibility isn’t it? I mean somebody says here’s some medicine and you say okay I’ll put that on my shelf and you’re complaining about your illness and all the time there’s this medicine on your shelf and you don’t take it then it’s not the medicine’s fault it’s not the doctor’s fault.
We have to take responsibility for it. So these four powers the power of repudiation The idea of repudiation means I don’t want anything to do with that. It’s almost like a sense of aversion. So we call to mind various negative actions that we’ve created in the past and we develop a sense of regret, a healthy sense of regret. And we talked about, you know, the difference between guilt and regret.
We’re constantly focusing upon the action, not ourselves. And, know, we we we understand that we we come under the influence of attachment or anger. We got angry. I really lost it last night. I’d whenever it was.
Wish I hadn’t said that. I wish I hadn’t done that. You know, in our in our clearer moments when our wisdom is operating, when our compassion is operating, when we’re not in the throes of these conflicting emotions and we’re able to think clearly then we can develop a healthy sense of regret around what we did. I think that makes sense. I think that’s intelligent.
So this is the most important of these four powers without this sincere regret there’s no purification or there’ll be a minor purification at best. So I added one and one to make three, I made a mistake. I wish I hadn’t done that. You know we can do that quite readily I think, for many of our actions maybe not all of them sometimes we can’t see the mistake but if we harm somebody it was probably a mistake. The second is that the power of reliance so in the power of reliance, we’re using the same object for, that we’ve, as it were, fell down upon to pick ourselves back up.
And what are the objects toward which we can fall down on? It said in terms of our vows we normally in the process of taking a vow whether it’s lay vows or, you know the eight Mahāyāna precepts that we take for twenty four hours or whether it’s a monk’s vows or nun’s vows and so forth. They’re generally taken before unimagined Buddhism, Bodhisattvas who are who are before us, you know. And we but also, I think in I think the Buddha with inside of our own minds and hearts, our own basic sanity, you know, there’s some clarity in that moment, hopefully. And you’re making some kind of commitment to actualizing that sanity.
And when you act unethically, when you harm, then you have gone against that vow in one way or another. And then you’re taking a direction that in your better moments you’d rather not follow. And so, you know, when we use the power of reliance in terms of the Buddha, then we we are as if getting back on track, you know, getting our priorities straight again. You know, lost sight of what is important to myself, you know, Buddha. And so we we go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
In terms terms of the general committing negativities towards sentient beings, know our job is not to harm sentient beings, it’s to help sentient beings and so you know, to act unethically is to harm so we commit ourselves to helping not harming you know like the Dalai Lama said, you know, we can sum up all of Buddhism in two sentences, you know, if you can help, at least don’t harm. That’s a pretty good simple advice. It’s hard to live up to, I understand that. So we generate, we get back on track. You’ve hurt somebody you recommit yourself not to harming them but to helping them you develop love and compassion as best you can at least you know wishing them that someday maybe not in the immediate future but someday you’d like to be able benefit them.
See if you can develop that in a heartfelt way. That’s the power of reliance. And the power of restraint. You know one of the effects that we just mentioned of karma was the result which corresponds to to the cause in terms of behavior. There’s a tendency to repeat our actions again and again. Having done it once, it’s easier to do the second time, it’s easier to do the third time, it’s even easier to do the fourth time.
We develop these pathways within our brains, within our minds, and they become easier and easier to follow and we have to begin to intervene. And so the power of restraint is simply saying, you know, I’m not going to repeat this action again for a specific period of time and, you know, we have to be realistic and honest with ourselves and then making some unrealistic commitment, is really not much worth that you can’t fulfill. But if you said, you know, I’m not going to kill. Not going to intentionally kill for the next twenty four hours then you could mindfully and realistically try to implement that that commitment and then you could keep that in mind for twenty for twenty four hours you could keep that mindfulness working and that would act to, to, that would precisely interrupt this habitual, you know, this, this reflex action as it were, you know, of not valuing life, of, unthinkingly taking life. That would interrupt that unthinking tendency, predisposition to disregard the value of life and and to take life in that way.
And finally the power of applying the antidote. And so there are various types of antidotes that, you know, we’ve talked about, for example, you know, the recitation of the hundred syllable mantra of Vajrasattva. There’s the practice of praises and, prostrations with you making use of the confession to the thirty five Buddhas. These are quite, you know, traditional practices. But, there’s recitation of the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum.
But we can say that, you know, any any type of countervailing action, you know, some action that you that you consciously engage in as it were to balance out that past negative action can act as a as an antidote. So again and again, applying these four antidotes, the degree of intensity and the frequency that you implement these four powers is directly proportionate to the degree of purification. So but it’s not a magical process. We’re not asking God to intervene in our on our half where there’s no absolution being given. You know, we created these actions with our mind, and there are these impressions with our exist within our mind.
And through our mind, we can remove these impressions. It’s it’s the law of cause and effect. But what kinds of so we’ve talked about karma. What kind of karma in fifteen minutes? What is the outcome of karma?
We talked about all these various types of results, but in terms of our actual experience, and this we talked about our experiences are by three marks: the marks of suffering, impermanence, and selflessness. And we talked about the mark of suffering and, you know, trying to get this in some kind of perspective you know that the reason that Buddhism places so much emphasis on coming you know this is the very first teaching that the Buddha gave. There’s some significance to this. After his awakening, he taught to his former, ascetic companions that, after his awakening when he went to, Deer Park in Sarnath, after his awakening when he went to, Deer Park in Sarnath, was the Four Noble Truths. And the first of the Four Noble Truths is the truth of suffering. It’s, you know, we have to be motivated to change.
It has to be something more than, you know, curiosity or speculation. Wouldn’t it be nice? It has to be, as it were, some kind of necessity, you know. Necessity is the mother of change. You know, I have to change.
And the only way that we come to that is by the degree of dissatisfaction we feel about the status quo, the way things are going now. Is this not good enough? And then there’d be some determination to to make things different. Otherwise, there won’t be. There’s always going to be some resistance, some some sabotage sabotage of our efforts that we always maintain the status quo in some way or another, keeping our comfort zone so we won’t be willing to take up the legitimate suffering that change necessitates.
So you know taking a look at the actual lived experience is quite necessary to overcome our conception that it’s okay, it’s not so bad, it’s not okay, it is bad. So there are three types of suffering that we talked about. The suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and the suffering of pervasive conditionality. The suffering of suffering is I think the analogy, this, the analogy that we use to, it’s not actually an analogy, it’s probably an example we use to exemplify these three levels of suffering are useful to keep in mind that you can kind of store this in your file and bring it out from time to time and see how it is being expressed in your life. We talked about the fact of having a wound, an open wound and when this wound is being irritated, you know maybe you brush up against something or somebody bumps into you or maybe some of you you put some kind of medicine which stings, which hurts, you know.
So the the wound is being irritated. It’s vivid, and very intense experience of suffering. That’s an example of the suffering of suffering. But then we have with regard to the same wound, maybe we put some kind of anesthetic on it or we put some soothing lotion of some sort of, some nice cool clean water which takes away the pain, relieves the pain temporarily and that relief of pain is experienced as a feeling of pleasure. That’s what we call the suffering of change, that feeling of pleasure.
Then staying with this as a basis this wound that we have even when that wound is neither being irritated nor being relieved of its suffering it’s in a neutral state. There’s no stimulus, particular stimulus that we’re experiencing in terms of feeling. That neutral state is what we call the state, the suffering of pervasive condition conditionality. That is to say we have this raw, this raw wound and it’s even though it’s in a neutral state is that not undergoing any either pleasure or pain in terms of it. It’s we’re vulnerable to the vagaries of life, you know.
Just the slightest bump would precipitate pain. You know, sensitive and that’s the nature of our our life. Anyway, we’re going to talk about we’ll go through we can go through this very briefly. So the suffering of suffering and we said this was all the, you know, just all the various physical, you know, we can go through every day of our life. There’s some minor, almost some insignificant physical suffering that, you know, some some stomach aches or earaches or muscle aches or scratches or bruises or, you know, we get tired in the body.
We get sore. Almost every day, we’re going through some physical experience. But, you know, that’s that’s kinda the background physical experience of our bodies, you know. We almost take that for granted. Almost it goes almost almost unnoticed as it were.
We just take that as the norm. But then there are the, you know, major physical difficulties that, you like when we have accidents and various diseases, great, you know, when we have major pains and sufferings of the body, deterioration of the body. The body grows old and the muscles grow weak and so forth. But for most of us it’s mental pain which is for most Westerners at least it’s not the body but that’s not always the case obviously but for most of us it’s mental pain which is the most significant source of suffering in our life and in all the various ways in which we experience that. So we went through all the all the various possible, you know, I don’t I don’t know if it’s necessary for us to listen as as we did.
I think, you know, that’s kind of your your job you can begin to do. All our hopes and fears, you know, and being separated from that which we want and being come in contact with what that which we don’t want. Not getting what we want. All these afflictions arising, anger and hatred and jealousy. It doesn’t feel very good, does it?
Loneliness, worry, frustration, disappointment, you know, I guess we could go on and on but No, I was thinking in general, roughly speaking in terms of mental proportion of mental or physical suffering I think is predominantly mental sufferings whereas I think in in the East, I mean, I’m thinking of India predominantly physical suffering predominantly but that’s just a rough, you know. Think so. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you see lots of people with, you know, people have been crippled, you know, where it’s, you know, harmed by diseases where we would they would have been cured or gained health in the West due to our, you know, our medical system, but they don’t have that. They, yeah, due to the advancements of the materialism in the West, we our life, our physical life is relatively speaking, comparatively speaking, is much better.
So but we still have a great suffering of mind, whereas I’m not dismissing the, you know, there’s no fun in being poverty, you know, to but still, I think they don’t I think maybe maybe there’s a general generally happier in the in the East mentally. But yeah. But that’s it. That’s very roughly. And I I was people might wanna argue that.
I don’t know. Suffering of suffering. Then there’s the suffering of change. Is a hard one. Is the psychological, this underlying psychological process.
What we’re saying is even our pleasures, the feeling of pleasure is in the nature of suffering. We’re not saying pleasure is not pleasure. Pleasure is not suffering. It is in the nature of suffering. Pleasure is not in the nature of pleasure.
Pleasure is not in the nature of pleasure. If it were in the nature of pleasure, then it should be able to as long as we indulge in the causes of that pleasure, we should experience pleasure. But we know that’s not the case, that that pleasure cannot be prolonged indefinitely. Invariably, it must change into pain. If you indulge in the causes of pleasure long enough invariably it will turn into pain.
If you keep eating that what let’s see what’s what’s what do I like with it? That piece of chocolate cake. It’s really delicious, really pleasurable, the first first piece. Second piece is pretty good. Third piece is well, I’m not scared.
Well, I’ll I’ll force myself. When you get about the fourth piece or fifth piece, say, well, it’s getting a bit uncomfortable. And after that, you just is I I once read where satisfaction is a very fine line between achieving the goal you’ve set out. But once it’s achieved, there’s that very fine satisfaction. And then you’re looking for the next one.
The something, and then you think, right. Okay. But it is there is that very fine arrival of satisfaction. And I suppose then you could say dissatisfaction because you have to find another another goal. Yeah.
If this is just humans, we always have to have goals. Or can you get to a stage where you I think I’m almost answering my question now. Uh-huh. When you can be satisfied with what you’ve got? To be content?
Yeah. I think it’s a I think it’s a it’s a it’s a skill, isn’t it? Yeah. Think you can. Because then you have to recognize that the goal is not really what you want.
It’s gotta be something Perhaps it’s that achievement but not the beginning of it. It’s just that searching that’s wonderful. Yeah. Think that’s, one in, in, yeah, we can make this distinction between values and goals. Goals are things goals are things which you can actually achieve.
Once you achieve them, they’re finished. But values are an ongoing process in your life. If being a loving parent is the value Yeah. And it’s not like one day, well, I’ve achieved that. It’s an ongoing process.
It’s something that’s an ongoing process in your life. So yeah. That’s right. That’s why I particularly liked when you spoke about checking the wood, the insects before you Yeah. Put on the fire.
I think by really thinking of being considerate can teach you to be a better person because you’re also closed in a little world, but just to Yeah. Reach out and and and look for So respecting life respecting life is a high value Considerate of others Yeah, and that’s an ongoing process I guess I’m mindful of that. I was living in Spain, I depended upon a wood fire and had to be careful about the wood I was putting in the fire. So I always think I think of that there. So here we’re talking about this underlying psychological process that so that you know we say well some people say well you know, that’s, you know, we’re talking about the suffering of change.
That’s, you know, we should live in moderation. We should eat in moderation and all our pleasures should be in moderation. And I think there is some truth to that. But that very acknowledgment is acknowledging that our pleasures are not in the nature of pleasure. If they were in the nature of pleasure, we have to consider moderation.
That moderation is simply a strategy for limiting our suffering. So the nature is you know, we’re talking it’s not as if, you know, I guess, taking this back to the context or the perspective, we’re trying to orientate the mind toward finding stable, lasting happiness, real happiness that isn’t bound up in this process. You know, there is a there is a stable, and Buddhism is saying that there is a possibility of stable, lasting happiness, which is simply not bound up in some way with which is not relative happiness, which is which is not part of the is not in the nature of suffering. So, you know, if if you begin you know, we we we are it we are yeah. Where we are kind of enmeshed in a particular way of looking at pleasure, in our understanding of pleasure.
And as long as we’re enmeshed in that, we’re always going to we can’t be free of what, in fact, is as pain. It’s, you know, only by seeing the disadvantages your mind will kind of, you know, there’s a, this is trying to, there’s a sense that the mind is by its very nature intelligent and caring. Caring. That if you can present the way things are to the mind, if you can focus one’s attention on that, the mind will begin to reorientate itself. You know, we there’s two paths our minds can take.
One is to try to to try to change the world. You know, when we experience some kind of discrepancy, some experience of dissatisfaction, we can either try to manipulate the world about us in order to bring it into line with our expectation of what will bring us happiness. Or we can we can we can begin to explore, you know, the the our expectations themselves, the mental maps by which we are, the way in which we’re approaching our life and begin to see, you know, begin to alter those mental maps. So we either, you know, be externally orientated and be trying to manipulate the people and things and situations about us in order to bring them in line with our expectations, how what we see as what will bring us happiness, or we can begin to try to change our mental maps, you know, those values and opinions and ideas, our belief system by which we which guide us in how we relate with the world and these people and things and situations about us. One way simply leads to the repetition of the same mistakes.
Mistakes. The other leads to to, realignment of our understanding and to to new ways to new ways of experiencing the world to, and therefore, we we can there’s we’re being there’s some kind of evolution, some kind of new understandings. Things change. So there are these two pathways open to us whenever we experience some kind of challenge. So here, you know, here we’re trying to say, you know, we’re continually things aren’t quite right in our life, you know.
And it’s not in maybe if we keep, you know, holding out the hope that we can find lasting pleasure in these things and these situations about us, that we’re holding out that great hope. That’s and that we have that expectation. And so we keep, you know, as it were, hitting our heads against the wall and trying to reshape, manipulate the world about us, to find pleasure, that lasting stable pleasure that we all want. At some point, if we’re to leave our our lives intelligently, intelligently, we have to maybe begin to look at the alternative is maybe we have to begin to adjust to realign our mental maps or our own expectations about what is the nature of pleasure. You know, whether the you know, where can, in fact, these things about us bring us what it is that we want, or is there an alternative?
You know, if if we are dissatisfied, it’s not reality’s fault. It is our fault. So all of our of our feelings, all our all of our feelings of pleasure are termed contaminated pleasure. They are instances of the of the change of suffering. No, suffering of change.
Within conditioned existence, there simply is not the type of happiness that a reliable, lasting, stable happiness is what we want, and that’s what we want, but it’s not there. But we keep trying. And then maybe I’ll just mention the I’d hoped to complete this review but maybe I’ll just mention the suffering of pervasive conditionality then we’ll stop for the evening. So this is, you know, was the analogy or the example that was given was simply having a wound. Whether it’s not undergoing any pain or pleasure or the relief of that pain, It is simply a life lived under the control of karma and afflictive emotions.
You know, we we are like leaves blown in the wind. The winds of karma pick up and we’re blown along. You know, no one none none of us none of us here chose to be born. None of us choose to become sick, to grow old. None of us will choose to die.
But we are vulnerable creatures, susceptible to forces beyond our control. That’s the nature of the human condition. It’s pervasive. That’s why it’s pervasive conditionality. And, I think there’s some underlying anxiety that this is not mentioned specifically within the within this context.
It’s almost this is my own notion is that this anxiety about the the unpredictability, the uncontrollability of our lives is such that it almost takes the form of a neutral feeling. It’s like it’s always there. We’ve never known we’ve never known the cessation or moments when that anxiety has not been there. So it’s normality. And I think, you know, this is the most subtle and most difficult to understand level of these three subtypes of suffering.
What it means to be an ordinary human being, susceptible to forces beyond our control. People die on us. People get sick on us. People leave us. There’s nothing we can do about it.
This is a human condition. So this is the three marks of this is the mark of suffering, this mark of suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and the suffering of pervasive conditionality. So if you like to we’ll stop there. If and if you like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion. But before we we do that, I’d like to two quick announcements.
This Thursday is is one of the three significant, days on the Buddhist calendar. It’s the it’s called the the Buddha’s Descent from the Heaven of Thirty-Three. The Buddha’s mother died shortly after his birth. He was raised by his aunt. And, upon his enlightenment at the age of thirty five, he he, went to visit her in her place of rebirth, which is in a particular celestial level of being, and he gave her teachings on the Dharma to help her on her path, repaying her kindness for being his mother.
And he he and then he spent some time there teaching her, and then he he returned to our planet or whatever. I don’t know. Anyway, this is considered a significant occurrence and so this day is a significant holiday on the Buddhist calendar. This Thursday, Geshe Pema Tsering will be giving precepts, the eight Mahāyāna precepts, I think at five thirty, five thirty, and you might, you know, we talked about one of the heaviness of karma is such that if we don’t do anything positive, if we enter, we can mitigate the heaviness of karma by doing something really positive from time to time. This is something very positive that you can do.
It’s just for twenty four hours observing these eight Mahāyāna precepts such as not killing, stealing, and so forth. I guess one of the the the distinguishing precepts would be not eating after the noonday meal. So, you know, and okay. And then in the evening, there’ll be a special, Guru Puja offering to the spiritual master. So you’re all more than welcome to attend that, the offering ceremony.
And it’s that is at six six o’clock in the evening. So you’re all welcome to come along to that. And then the yeah. The second announcement was next Monday is Venerable Robina Courtin will be giving a talk Monday night at the ballroom in the Burnside library or Burnside complex. And, you know, I I would really encourage you to attend.
I think she’s a very good teacher and I think you’ll you’ll you’ll find it very valuable. So there won’t be we won’t have class next Monday night. Okay? So if you’d like to get a cup of tea.