Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session on day thirteen of the Lamrim, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores why understanding karma—the law of cause and effect—is the most difficult Buddhist teaching. Using Pabongka Rinpoche’s commentary, he establishes that causation operates across vast spans of time and space, making it nearly impossible to trace how present suffering originates in past actions, perhaps from countless lifetimes ago. He builds philosophical conviction through logical arguments: anything impermanent must have a cause; the universe is beginningless; every moment is completely new. He then details the ten black actions (three bodily, four verbal, three mental) and introduces Pabongka’s visualization practice of imagining rebirth in hell—designed to wake practitioners from samsaric addiction and clarify the stakes of present choices.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 2001 03 29 LR.mp3
UUID: d677c36e-565d-47a6-9d4e-df6394c66629
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-03-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~4,602
Sorry. That’s it. Our mind is very fixed. Although it’s completely impermanent, there’s not one element in the mind that’s fixed, actually fixed, because it’s changing moment to moment, evolving, becoming. Still, we have these very strong habits that are very deep.
And we also have countless imprints that are laid down within our mental continuum by our habitual thinking. So we tend to think in the same ways continuously, follow the the same patterns of thought, and it’s not easy for us to step outside of those patterns. Sometimes Sometimes it’s almost impossible. Even when we know we shouldn’t, we can’t help thinking in a particular way about this subject, a particular way about we’ve created and which we continue to create in the present moment. So it is good.
It’s very useful for us if we can, at times, just stop and relax and concentrate on the breath and just let that whole process go for give it give ourselves a breather, give ourselves a bit of space, stop reinforcing the habits that we have. Because in general, the habits that we have are there’s some positive ones there, but there’s maybe more negative ones. And because tonight, the topic is dealing with karma, and here, black karma. And dealing with black karma, it’s dealing with these, really the negative habits that we have, both in terms of negative ways of thinking and then how those negative ways of thinking filter down to speech and then to physical action. And also how those negative ways of thinking actually affect the mind itself.
How they even in the present moment, how those our negative thoughts do in fact create imprints upon the mind itself. And those imprints remain there like seeds, just waiting for the conditions to arise to awaken those seeds. So here we’re dealing with black karma. Now this text of Pabongka Rinpoche is such an excellent text. It’s it’s very beneficial for us because it was only composed eighty years ago.
So it’s within our in the lifespan of ourselves almost. Whereas if we go back to the previous Lamrims, the other eight Lamrims, they were composed by Je Tsongkhapa who lived from three fifty seven to thirteen fifty seven to fourteen nineteen, so almost six hundred years ago. So much of the advice in this text is perhaps more modern, in a way more relevant. I think when we read it, we can sense the pertinence of what’s being said to ourselves. Also, is supported by a good translation by Michael Richards.
So as much as we can read this text, the better, the more beneficial it is for us. Also, we’re very fortunate that Trijang Rinpoche was present at the teachings and he copied it all down. He wrote it all out. Otherwise, there may be no record of this particular teaching. And Trijang Rinpoche only passed away in nineteen eighty, eighty one, I think.
And he was the junior tutor to the present Dalai Lama, and an extraordinary being. In fact, there were two tutors. The senior tutor was Ling Rinpoche, who passed away in nineteen eighty three, and Trijang Rinpoche, who was the junior tutor, who passed away in nineteen eighty one. And they were somewhat different in personality. Ling Rinpoche was incredibly powerful as a being.
He had an unmistakable presence. It was you really felt as if with Ling Rinpoche and even his current incarnation, very strong, powerful beings. They really make you sit up and take notice. Trijang Rinpoche was much more gentle and almost that you could do anything, and he would, you know, he’d be accepting. He wouldn’t be a strong disciplinarian, which is sometimes helpful for us.
On the other hand, Ling Rinpoche was almost very strict and almost intimidating in his persona. So we’re very fortunate to have Trijang Rinpoche write down this advice from his teacher, Pabongka Rinpoche. So now we’re dealing with day thirteen, and day thirteen is dealing with karma after having dealt with the Three Jewels and refuge. And, of course, the Three Jewels is the object of refuge. And we take refuge in the Three Jewels when we begin to understand the situation that we’re in.
And the situation that we’re in is the situation of karma. It’s the situation of cause and effect. That what we experience in the present is really conditioned by what happened in the past. What we experience in the present is the maturational result of past karma. Now the way we interpret that experience depends on the level of wisdom that we have in the present.
And so we need to generate wisdom in relation to the law of cause and effect. Because in understanding current results, in a sense, if we understand what causes the current results that we experience, then we can pursue those causes that produce the results that we want and eliminate those causes of results that we don’t want. But this depends on ourselves being mindful of the entire process of causation that exists. Of course, causation, as Pabongka Rinpoche mentions, is the most difficult of all things to do. It’s more difficult than understanding emptiness or selflessness or impermanence.
Understanding those things is somewhat easier. Understanding the law of cause and effect, it is an immense task, most difficult thing to do. And why is that? Understanding the law of cause and effect is extremely difficult because we’re dealing with such remote time and place. And in fact, what conditions our current experience, what we’re experiencing at this very moment may be coming from something that happened fifty lifetimes ago or a hundred lifetimes ago or a thousand lifetimes ago, or a million lifetimes ago, or a billion lifetimes ago, or a hundred billion lifetimes ago.
It’s so remote that it’s almost inconceivable. And it might have not happened in this universe. It might have happened in a place far distant, prior to this universe, far distant from this universe, and so on. So being able to understand causation on that level is very difficult. Only a Buddha can fully understand the law of causation, how things affect what occurs in the present, to clearly see completely all the causes and conditions that give rise to a result in the present.
For ourselves, we have much more limited vision. Something occurs to us in the present moment. We have a feeling of mental pain, for instance, negative mental feeling. We feel unhappy. No idea where it’s coming from.
Really, when we ask ourselves, why am I feeling that way? We don’t know. Really, we don’t know. But often we attribute blame to other beings around us or our situation or or to anyone else but ourselves. That tends to be our habit to do that.
Whether it occurs on a very gross level or a very subtle level, We have experience in the present, and it’s hard for us to see where this experience is coming from. And it’s the same for every other being. Every other ordinary being in the universe is just in our situation, same as us. Every moment they’re undergoing experience, feelings. Feelings are occurring.
And it’s difficult to work out the causes of those feelings. However, those feelings do have a cause. They’re not just spontaneous. Without cause, That we can establish without any doubt that they come from causes. Is anyone who doubts that they can have a cause?
As it is said in Abhidharma that we can establish the causes for things like feelings because they’re impermanent. No other reason needs to be given. If it’s impermanent, it’s a result. Anything which is impermanent is a result. Similarly, anything which is impermanent is a cause.
Anything which is a result is a cause. Anything which is a cause is a result. There are those three cause result impermanence are synonyms. So whatever we experience moment to moment is a result. Also, it’s a cause.
It’s hard for us to understand exactly what the causal process is, but we can establish without doubt that they are results, and they are causes of what will be experienced again in future. Does anyone have any doubt about that? Chaos is a result as well. Because why can’t it be random? That’s okay.
Random events also have a cause. They just appear to be random. They may appear to be without a cause, but actually they have a cause. They have a cause because they have a previous moment which influenced them. If you take any seemingly random situation, you can change it by adding something to it or subtracting something from it.
To change it. If it’s changeable, it’s impermanent. What is impermanent is changing. So therefore, it’s a result. The first moment of impurity, that type of thing.
That’s difficult to establish because if you establish the first moment of contamination or the first moment of impurity or the first moment of problems or the first moment of dissatisfaction. That itself is impermanent, so therefore it has a cause. Right? Yeah. So then you have to find an appropriate cause for it.
And an appropriate cause of the first moment of dissatisfaction is a previous state of dissatisfaction. So no matter how far you go back, it’s difficult to find a first moment in which dissatisfaction originated. Otherwise, you’d have to assert, you know, something like a first cause. Or then you get to the also the stage of asserting creator being and so forth. And that’s one of the problems with asserting a creator being, that you had, you know, no one existing begin with, then you had a creative being who comes into existence or has always been in existence and who then decides to create the myriad beings in the universe.
And so, therefore, they’re all created in the first moment as unhappy beings or beings with the potential to be unhappy. So that implies then that the cause itself, which would be similar to the result, would also need to be unhappy so that creative being would be unhappy. They wouldn’t be perfect and so forth. But then to assert that there is one being who could create every other being also has problems. Also, that’s not an easy assertion to establish.
Therefore, from the Buddhist perspective, it’s simply assumed that the universe is beginningless. Beings are beginningless. There was no creator, no first moment. But the being doesn’t end. Yeah.
That can end. Well, in a sense, you can say it begins every moment. That can also be said because it’s said that everything that’s impermanent in the universe is never existed before, completely new. Everything impermanent in the universe never existed before is completely new. So in every instant, everything is completely new.
Never existed before. A little bit different, but completely new. There’s not one molecule, not one electron, quark of matter that’s not completely new every instant. Similarly, there’s really not even a thought, no matter how subtle, that’s not completely new in every instant. Therefore, we as human beings are completely new in every instant.
We never existed before in this moment. So, again, humans also are impermanent. Their results, causes, and so forth. Has everyone read this section? I see everyone would have read it in the so this is an excellent discourse on the basic basic presentation of karma.
And here, Pabongka Rinpoche is also giving many examples of what can happen or how karma manifests and how we experience karma. And also the dangers of negative karma, the dangers of black action, and how black action is something that is an ever present, what, reality for us. We’re always in a situation or position to choose either black action or white action. So in saying that, then there are ten black actions and ten white actions. And if we choose black actions, then we have negative results ensuing.
We choose white actions, then we have positive, positive, pleasant, joyful, relaxing experience generated as a result. On the other hand, if we engage in black actions, problems ensue like the ones we have at present. But we have a certain level of problematic existence at present, but it’s not really too bad. It is quite manageable. And to that extent, we should rejoice very, very strongly because we can rejoice in the positive actions that we’ve committed that allow us have allowed us to take a human rebirth at present and to be in a situation where we have the leisure to investigate our existence, have a close look and see exactly what we need to do in order to progress and develop as beings, as human beings.
So having that leisure is something that we need to rejoice in, remind ourselves of as often as possible. Because otherwise, it it’s a little bit like water, waves of water coming in over the sand and washing that out again. You know, we see we see a bit of sand for an instant and the waters come back over and it disappears. Our mindfulness of our precious human rebirth and the opportunity that we have occurs from time to time. But the cares in this lifetime quickly move back in, and we get distracted to other things very, very easily.
So we need to rejoice in the virtue that’s generated this current rebirth that we have. So, anyway, Pabongka Rinpoche goes on through various sections such as in the beginning, there’s a short visualization that he gives in order to start to think about the law of cause and effect, and that is in taking refuge with or in the Three Jewels, and then developing the motivation for taking refuge. So in developing the motivation to take refuge, we need to contemplate a law of cause and effect and how negative actions can very easily carry us to places, situations where we don’t have the current freedom that we that we need in order to practice. And so, therefore, we take refuge in the Three Jewels in order to preserve us from developing negative minds that would act as a hindrance to our development. So, therefore, we can contemplate for instance, in the beginning on page four thirty, there, Pabongka Rinpoche is also talking about contemplating what would happen if we were in hell, if we’re, in hell of die and revive or, say, the first of the eight hot hells or the second or the third and so forth.
This is very beneficial. It is meant to scare us a little bit. Having a healthy fear of hell is a very good thing. Fear is not negative. There’s positive types of fear and negative types of fear.
It’s true, isn’t it? God. Or is all fear negative? Of the fifty one mental factors, where does fear fit in? Is it positive, negative, or neutral?
Well, in fact, fear is not even mentioned as a separate mental factor. But it it’s as if it were neutral because some types of fear are very beneficial. Some types of fear are not very beneficial. If we have a fear when we’re driving a car not to cross into the right hand part of the road, then that’s very useful. So we keep to the left.
If we have a fear of being run over, we have a look when we cross the road. So such a fear is very beneficial. Similarly, having a fear of being reborn in hell is very beneficial. There is a there may be a tendency for us to think that, well, we’ve heard this in school, you know, that hell was always brought up as a if we don’t do this, we’ll be reborn in hell, or if we act negatively, you know, the hell guardians are gonna come and take us away and so forth. And that if we have a reaction to that sort of presentation, it may be best not to to push it too far.
But if we can take it in a positive sense, then it can be very useful. As Pabongka Rinpoche mentions, that we can imagine that we’re reborn in hell, and we’re surrounded by hell guardians who are inflicting great pain torment upon us. The reason for doing that is to generate a degree of fear and anxiety about being reborn there. Of course, the reason for doing that is so that we we gain well, as he says, when we realize that we’re not actually there, we’re relieved. We’re still human.
My god. I’m still human. I still got some I’m not there yet. There may be a chance that I won’t be reborn there. Let me pursue the causes so that I won’t be reborn there.
It’s a way of waking us up. It’s as if we’re in a dream, a dream within a dream. And even though we may be told we’re in a dream, it’s very hard for us to wake up. It’s like we’re heroin addicts. We’re completely addicted, and we can’t see the danger of the heroin.
And people are telling us, you gotta give up. We say, yeah, sure. I’ve got we’ll give up. I’ll try. Ta da.
So on. But very hard for us to do so unless the reality of our situation, if we keep on taking heroin, we’re gonna die in a year, two years at most. If we really think about this and it’s really a reality for us, then we may develop the strength to stop. We’re a little bit like that at present. We’re so addicted to existence.
We’re completely addicted, attached to continuing our current existence. We’re attached to everything. Pabongka Rinpoche here is suggesting, just imagine if we’re reborn in hell. And really imagine we’re reborn there. We’re actually there.
And that’s enough to instill fear in us. We’re actually able to generate some even terror at being reborn there, at being in hell. Well, it’s hard for us to do. It’s almost it’s almost as if we’re impervious to it. The reason we’re doing it we are doing this is not just to frighten us for no reason.
It’s in order to generate a positive sense of fear that we exist in an ocean of the law of cause and effect. And what we’re doing in our in this very moment is creating our future for us. And if we continue to practice negative actions, then we’ll find ourselves in hell. There is no nothing more certain. But once we’re reborn in hell, it’s very difficult to extract ourselves from hell.
So, Pabongka Rinpoche here in the very beginning of this section is talks about us even visualizing that, really gaining a sense that that’s where we could be could be reborn. Must waking ourselves up a little bit, sobering ourselves up a little a little in the present. Not easy to do. It’s hard for us to wake up. Still, it’s as if we’re in a such a deep sleep.
There’s one Zen monk who used to a Chinese Zen monk who used to he had this practice of yelling at himself saying, sober up. Sober up. What are you doing? Come to your senses. Sober up.
That’s like what it’s how we are. Hell could be standing in front of us, but we’d still be, you know, oh god. You know? How can I get back at that person? You know?
Person? You know? God, how can I buy that thing that I wanna buy or you know, so forth? We’re just absorbed with so many illusory things. It’s hard for us to wake up.
And sometimes thinking about hell can actually help to wake us up. So that type of meditation can be extremely beneficial. But we’re not trying to use that meditation to frighten us without purpose. It’s we try to wake ourselves up to the reality of the law of cause and effect and develop a convictional faith, a believing faith in the law of cause and effect that what we’re doing in the present moment will have a result that every thought potentially will have a result. So when we’re talking about the law of cause and effect, law of cause and effect is, of course, huge.
Wherever we look in the universe, there, it’s completely governed by the law of cause and effect. The law the law of cause and effect is undistorted, nondeceptive, absolutely pervasive. And if we can develop a conviction in the nondeceptive nature of the law of cause and effect, That’s very also very important. But in fact, if that particular result is achieved, it comes definitely from that type of result. The way that the result is generated from the cause is nondeceptive.
So this the law of cause and effect in the physical realm is what we’re used to. We can look around us. We can see the physical reality of the world around us, and we can see that the law of cause and effect does pervade. So this is the external reality, the external world. And, of course, we live in this external world where where nothing occurs without this nondeceptive what’s this other word?
Nondeceptive, completely and non-distortable Nature of this type of causation, we can see it occurring around us. But the central element in the law of cause and effect is not the external physical reality, the physical universe. It’s the internal causation that is most important because it’s this internal causation that determines everything, even the external causation, even the way the external universe manifests. Manifests. So internal causation, that is the causation governing the nature of the mind itself, is most important.
And internal causation is completely governed by the nondeceptive nature of the law of cause and effect. So this we need to come to an understanding of. At present, it’s not easy for us to see that the law of cause and effect pervades the mind itself. In fact, it often seems to go against the law of cause and effect. We may commit a negative action, and yet we’re still happy in the following moment or moments later.
So it appears that maybe a positive result comes from a negative action. When you look more broadly, we see someone, you know, that commits many negative actions. And yet they’re very wealthy. Maybe they steal from other people, and yet they’re wealthy and so on. They, you know, they may kill many sentient beings and yet they live a long life and so on.
So it’s not easy for us to see the non deceptive nature of the law of cause and effect internally just by judging events in one life. Because the law of especially in within internal causation, the law of causation that pervades the mind, results may take a long time to manifest. But the nondeceptive nature of the law of cause and effect internally is that whatever positive result manifests anywhere, that comes from a positive cause. And if it’s a negative result, it comes from a negative cause. So even if a murderer has a long life, having a long life is not doesn’t come about from him or her murdering other beings.
It comes about through assisting other beings in a previous life and so on. So then also, Pabongka Rinpoche gives a number of examples in terms of the nondeceptive nature of the law of cause and effect. And then he talks about the nature of cause and effect in general. And then about these subheadings about to do with how the law of cause and effect or how karma is fixed. And so this here is dealing with this nondeceptive nature of the law of cause and effect.
Because whatever manifests is a product of this nondeceptive nature of the law of cause and effect. And that also how karma shows increase, that in fact, from a small negative action, a great negative outcome can come can arise. Also, from a small positive cause, then a great positive result can ensue. And there also, he gives numerous examples of these. And these are very important to read, these stories.
And then also that further point is what one does not meet with something that one has not created. So that whatever we do experience is something that definitely we committed in the past. And something we didn’t commit in the past, we can never experience the result of. And then karma itself survives for a long time. It doesn’t simply disappear.
It doesn’t fade away of its own, or it doesn’t go to waste. It doesn’t degenerate. Although it’s impermanent, it’s not like physical form, which over a period of time, will simply crumble away. karma or the results of karma are not like that. They remain.
They’re impermanent, but they remain until they’re either purified or experienced. And then when we those are the general conditions of karma. And then more specifically, then when we talk about karma, we talk about the black and white karma and then black karmic process, which is therefore dealing with negative motivation that gives rise to the ten negative actions, the three negative actions of body, the four negative actions of speech, the three negative actions of mind. So these are the ten ten actions that the Buddha the Buddha singled out as the as a summary of all all actions that are possible for a sentient being. And in in a sense, every negative action can be contained within those ten categories.
And so it’s very useful to be aware of what those ten categories are. The fact that we have three of body, killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, and then also of speech, lying, slander, harsh words, gossip. And then the three of mind, which is covetousness, malice, and wrong view, and then ill will or harmful intent. And then also, final one, which is wrong view, which is related also to ignorance. So those are the ten negative actions.
When we think about them, they’re very oppressive. They are very oppressive. And since we’ve indulged in them from beginning this time, we’ve got a a vast mountain of predispositions, black karmic seeds that come from them, that are reflected by them. And it’s only the fact that karmic seeds and imprints and latencies are not physical form that prevents us from having this giant collection of seeds, probably the size of the universe itself to carry around with us. But being unaware of what these ten actions are, these ten negative actions are, we still continue to engage in them.
And through those ten negative actions, we’re still reborn in hell. It’s as if we’re standing on an abyss, and we’ve heard that the ten negative actions will throw us into hell. We take one further step forward, we fall into hell. But we’re so addicted that it’s very difficult it’s almost impossible for us to stop committing negative actions. But even a slight negative action can generate a very large negative outcome.
So we need to be as careful as possible. So here, Pabongka Rinpoche then gives many, many examples of even practitioners who were far more knowledgeable and perhaps better practitioners than ourselves that have fallen into the lower realms by their actions. So we too need to be careful. We can’t be careful enough Stories like those that out of a negative with a negative thought, they’ll