Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Jampa Ignyen teaches the meaning and practice of karma in this 45-minute session on the white karmic process from Pabongka Rinpoche’s Lamrim. He begins by clarifying that karma is not action itself but intention—the mental factor that gathers mental states toward an object, functioning as a ringleader that directs anger, compassion, or other responses depending on whether the intention is negative or positive. He explains how to recognize the white karmic process: developing a positive intention through mindfulness and effort, abandoning the ten negative actions of body, speech, and mind, and understanding how intention ripens into results—higher rebirth, future positive mental states, and pleasant environments. The teaching includes the four parts of an action and a practical example of using pebbles to track positive versus negative actions throughout the day. Jampa Ignyen stresses that sustained vigilance over our intentions determines whether we are accumulating more white or black karma, with real consequences for our death and future lives.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 2001 04 05 LR.mp3
UUID: 7dcd8610-0a96-4b21-8609-b270bff2e742
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-04-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.3 minutes
Words: ~4,628
Section. Such an excellent text. Such an amazing teaching because, really, it distills so much so much practice into just a few pages. And, again, one of the great benefits is that it’s being taught from experience by. And so anything that comes from someone’s experience is of some benefit to us.
And so here, we’re dealing with this section on karma. And karma, it’s become an English word, karma, and it’s used in all sorts of contexts. It’s their karma that that happened or it’s instant karma or delayed karma or karma this, karma cola, karma that. And that’s not a bad thing. This word is makes people stop and think a little about the meaning of the word.
And so the importance of this section to begin with is understanding the word karma. Does anyone know what the word karma means? What karma is? It is something. Volitional action?
Exactly. Volitional action or intention. It’s not verbal or physical action. It’s mental action. And what type of mental action is it?
It’s the action which is intending to do something. The action of the mind or what leads the mind to doing something. In a sense, it’s the ring leader. It’s the culprit. karma is the one that it’s like the the one with the whip.
It’s one rounding up all the other mental states and directing them to a particular object. So that’s what happens when with us. We sort of our mind drifts along and then all of a sudden, we think of an object and then we develop a certain intention towards that object. What is developing the intention or what is gathering certain mental states to that object is the intention. So in that sense, it’s a bit like a ringleader.
It’s that it’s the very nature of intention itself. Although it’s often not clear to us that intention is there because often we have a neutral sort of intention. It’s not positive. It’s not negative. It’s sort of neutral, hard to see.
We don’t notice it. But often beneath that, there’s all sorts of intentions or there’s maybe even unmanifest intention and so forth. So this is what karma is. karma is this mental factor. It’s a type of awareness.
And this type of awareness is either white or black figuratively speaking. Because it’s awareness, it can’t have a color, but it’s called white or black depending on what type of other mental factors it’s marshaling to the object. So if the intention is positive, we know it’s positive because positive mental factors are being drawn to that particular object. Like if we have an object and then we start thinking, we have, say, a thought of compassion towards that object. That’s an indication that the intention is positive because it’s only through positive intention that positive mental factors can engage their object.
If on the other hand, we think of an object and it’s, oh, I don’t like that object. Bit of resentment there. Bit of impatience towards that object, then that’s negative intention. And negative intention is already there. And it’s the negative intention that allows or even not only allows, but it actually gathers, impatience or anger or resentment or wrath or whatever towards that object.
Anger only ever gets to the object or is gathered to the object through intention. And who’s responsible for the intention? Ourselves, of course. Sorry? Exactly.
We can’t blame the anger. It’s the fault of the anger. It’s not my fault. Actually, if left to myself, I’d have positive thoughts towards that object, but along comes anger and what can I do? Although it’s almost how we we tend to think about anger.
And when anger does arise, it’s, oh, well, the anger is just justified, I guess. Yes. Well, I deserve that. I should get angry with them. I’m justified.
And before we even we hardly even have to think about it. We have a dozen reasons justifying why anger is an appropriate attitude to have to that object. But, really, it’s intention that’s bringing these mental states to the object, gathering them, rounding them up like a herd of sheep, pushing them to that object. So this is what karma is. This is what intention is.
So when we talk about positive karma, we’re talking about that intention that’s bringing positive mental factors towards to bear on the object. On the other hand, negative karma is negative intention. So it’s intention that’s bringing with it harmful intent, resentment, anger, hatred, and so on. Without intention, those negative mental factors would not engage the object. So in this, this particular, section of the text, Pabongka Rinpoche is talking about, positive, the white karmic process.
So the white karmic process is just what’s happening in our mind at present. Whatever’s there, it might be neutral. If it’s neutral, it’s not really regarded as karma. That’s another thing. For it to be karma, it has to have some potency, either positive or negative.
So here’s a white karmic process is this process activated by positive intention. So whenever we have a positive intention, I’ll practice giving, I’ll practice patience, I’ll practice love and compassion towards other beings. I’ll, give something to that person. I’ll clean the room. I’ll do this.
I’ll do that. That’s positive. Then this is white karma. And from there, from having that, white intention or that positive intention, then we have, of course, positive actions of speech and positive actions of body. So if the mind is positive, then the speech will tend to be positive.
Of course, if the mind is negative, if the intention is negative, then the four negative actions of speech are possible such as lying, slander, harsh words, gossip. Whereas if there’s a positive intention there, then being honest, not slandering others, not using harsh words, not engaging in just talk for the sake of talk and so on. He’s engaged in. But this process is not easy for us to recognize because it happens very quickly. Even in one instant, many thoughts can arise and subside.
The mind is very precise and very, very fast, very rapid. One thought leads to another in very quick succession. We can have a positive intention that draws to an object many positive things. And then in the next instant, we can have a negative intention arising towards that object, which then draws to that object many negative mental factors and so on. Right.
So here in this section, we’re dealing with white karma, the white karmic process. So the white karmic process is the process of being mindful of what intention we have. And if it’s positive, then fine. We don’t have to change it. If it’s neutral, it’s better than being negative.
But if it’s neutral, we might as we may as well try and upgrade it to a positive. So really putting effort into developing a positive intention is the white karmic process. So this we can practice at any time. We can take any object and then develop positive, positive thoughts towards that object. Right.
Now we’re dealing with about page four fifty four. So from this section here, then it goes into various instances of white karma. So So right. I’ll just read out some of this section here. I think this is very useful.
Did anyone how did people go with this section? Was it quite straightforward or any any problems or very easy, very difficult? Useful? Any practical benefit? No benefit whatsoever.
Fantastic? Well, if it’s of some benefit, then it’s good. If it’s of no practical benefit to us, then we might as well leave it to one side. Oh, then being inspiring and then it’s really useful because we need as much inspiration as we can get because we do tend to sort of have a lot of inertia about practice. Even though we have an intention to practice, to actually manifest that in the present moment is not so easy.
At times, we lack a little bit of effort. What is effort? Anyone know the meaning of effort? No. It’s not right intention.
That’s intention itself. Yes. Effort is another type of mental factor. Positive mental factor. Yes.
It’s in a condition that can be initiated by right intention or positive intention. Okay. What in what effort is is liking virtue. Liking or taking joy, joyous effort, taking joy in the positive. That’s what effort is.
Doesn’t necessarily mean getting out there and straining physically with something. It’s just taking an interest in what’s positive, liking it, liking the positive, taking some degree of joy in a positive. And with that, then we’re able to endure all the things that come up when we’re trying to do something positive. Because we need a bit of endurance because because we got a a few black seeds in our mental continuum. There’s a few of them there.
We can assume that they’re there. Then we know at times these are gonna manifest. These are gonna awaken, and we won’t feel like doing much. So then we need to reflect on how much we like to practice what’s positive. And if if it’s difficult to generate effort, then sometimes a bit of fear is useful.
Then we can imagine we’re reborn in hell, die and revive. Everyone went went through the hells. Then that’s that can be useful. We can imagine we’re reborn in the hell of the first of the eight hot hells. And we’re being, you know, murdered or we’re born with weapons and people are killing us and so forth.
And then we can reflect that we’re in such a state because of our negative past actions. And in order to find leisure for us to practice, We need positive conditions. We need to manifest positive external and internal conditions both. And because we like comfort, we like a bit of ease, be able to sit down and put our feet up, have a cup of tea, not be too much bothered by the conditions around us. Because we like that, then we should also like what is positive.
Anyway, we need that sort of comfort in order to practice. Now right at the beginning, says, merely refraining from committing the ten non virtues will not complete the white karmic process. The complete process is assumed to be identifying the ten non virtues, refraining from doing them after seeing their drawbacks, and then having this thought of abandoning them, the ultimate form of restraint. So here again, we practice the ten positive actions by abandoning the ten negative actions. I mean, that’s straightforward.
In theory, it’s straightforward. In practice, it’s not so easy. Or another way in another way, it’s easier for the gross actions but more difficult for the subtle actions. In theory, we say, okay, I’m gonna abandon the ten non virtues. And in fact, if anyone has, has taken lay vows has anyone taken lay vows here?
All five? Okay. So four of the five are really dealing with body and speech. The last one, intoxicants, also is dealing with probably more body, taking physical intoxicant. So there are restraints of body and speech.
The actions of body is grossest. So therefore, they’re easy to comprehend, easiest. Speech is a little subtler, little bit more difficult to comprehend. The mind itself is very subtle, more difficult to comprehend, and more difficult to apply restraint to. And in fact, all the Prātimokṣa vows, everyone’s heard of the Prātimokṣa vows.
Prātimokṣa is the individual liberation vows or the individual emancipation vows. They are there as restraints of body and speech. All of them are dealing with how to restrain our actions of body and actions of speech so that we prevent as much as possible the completion of negative actions. Restraining the mind is more difficult, but restraining the mind is the goal of the bodhisattva vows. The bodhisattva vows are mainly focused on stopping our negative actions of mind.
So in other words, really stopping the three poisons that is wrong view, avarice or miserliness, and harmful intent, those three. But, of course, they’re more difficult. So that’s why we start with the the ones of body and speech first. And then gradually, we move to the mind itself. The tantric vows again are even more subtle, and they’re dealing also with the mind and in relation to the mind, also body and speech.
But certainly here talking about the white karmic process is abandoning the ten negative actions, it means as much as possible stopping all negative actions, body, speech, and mind. Abandoning these negative actions does take time. Stopping the grosser actions is a bit like washing clothing. In order to get out the really gross stains, it doesn’t take much effort. And we have some really dirty clothing.
If we take it down to a stream and we start washing it in the water, we get out the gross stains without much difficulty. Difficulty. But the subtle stains take a lot of hard work to get them out. That’s how our mind is. At present, it’s covered by all manner of stains.
Some really gross ones, then subtler, then subtler, and subtler. By stopping negative actions of body and speech, we’re able to begin to purify the mind on a grosser level. Then by purifying the actions of mind itself, we’re able to purify the mind on a subtle level. So here, the white karmic process is abandoning these ten negative actions. Does everyone know what the ten negative actions are?
Yep. Divisive speech. Yep. And Slander. Slander.
Yeah. Just divisive speech. Yep. Have I got them all left? No.
One left. Harsh speech. Harsh speech. Yep. And then there’s free of mind with Yes.
Half of the ten. Yep. And wrong view. Wrong view. Yeah.
Those are the ten. So here, the white karmic process is stopping those ten. The process of stopping stopping those ten is a little bit like building a dam wall. And the flood of the to in order to keep out the flood of the afflictions, so we build a dam wall. So in fact, it’s almost as if those we could almost say there’s ten damn walls there, you know, the the wall that stops killing, the wall that stops stealing, the wall that stops sexual misconduct, the wall that stops lying.
It’s in order to keep out the floodwaters of the afflictions. What are the afflictions? Our good friends, the afflictions, what are they? We’ve known them from for a long time. Ignorance, anger, attachment, pride, jealousy.
The six root ones. Does anyone know the six root afflictions? Sorry about all these lists, but it’s the Buddhists have become expert in making lists. There’s once a story of a monk who took ordination from the Buddha. And then after taking ordination, then his precept that told him how many vows he had to keep.
He had two hundred and fifty three vows to keep. And he was so upset by this that he went to the Buddha and said, look, I can’t practice two hundred and fifty three vows. It’s impossible. You know? Why?
Why should you have? Why should there be so many? And then the Buddha said, okay. Just practice no non virtue of body, no non virtue of speech, no non virtue of the mind. That’s all.
Actually, if something very simple like that is sufficient to for us to comprehend the meaning, that’s all we need. Why there’s all these lists? It’s just that if we don’t understand the simple presentation, then we probably have to progress to a more extensive presentation in order to eliminate our doubts about it. But if we understand it simply from a few words, then that’s by far the best. And if anyone understands the dharma from just a few words, then they should rejoice and we should rejoice in their understanding.
We should not make offerings to them, you know, because they’ve understood very, you know, simply, easily. For the rest of us, we have to go through lists and we have to think about things very extensively because we’ve got so many doubts about things. We got doubts in the beginning, in the middle, at the end. And when we think we’ve only got one or two doubts to begin with, the more we go into it, the more doubts we see we have. And so when we have numerous doubts, the easy way to deal with all these doubts is to go into the teachings in in some detail.
Almost that we have to go into detail until the doubts are exhausted all the way down the line, right to the last one, which is true because as long as there’s a doubt about anything or as long as there’s a doubt if one doubt about something we’re trying to understand, we can’t understand it. Is that true? So we just have to take them one at a time. But that’s good. No problem with that.
Having doubts is not a bad thing. And being aware that we have doubts about something is a mark of progressing with something. In the beginning, we’ve we have no doubts about something. And it it seems as if, oh, that’s that’s okay. It’s good.
And then someone comes along and starts talking about it, and then all these doubts come up and we think, god, you know, I had no doubts about that to begin with. And then this person comes along and starts talking about this, and then I started to have all these doubts. It seems from one perspective that it’s a we’re taking a backward step. Actually, no. It’s the opposite.
We’re moving a little bit because we’re becoming aware, becoming aware of the fact that we don’t really understand that thing, that object, that subject. So that’s a good thing. Some say ignorance is bliss. But now ignorance is never bliss. Ignorance can never be bliss because ignorance can never be a feeling.
We can give that answer. Right. So in the in the text here, it gives examples of how to practice and it also gives, an outline of the four parts of an action because you’re dealing with the white karmic process. We’re dealing with the mind itself. We’re dealing with intention, which is the karma itself.
Then we’re dealing with the basis of the action, which is the object upon which that action, is entered or engaged. And then there’s the action itself, which is sometimes referred to as the preparation. And then there’s the completion of the action. So there’s always these four elements. So these four elements also, they exist for the ten negative actions and the opposite of those, the ten positive actions.
It might seem that going into all this sort of detail is making a hard work of something that should be really easy. The purpose for going into this, the four parts of an action, are so that we can understand the steps as the action unfolds for us. Oh, there’s the intention to do that. Oh, that’s the object I’m thinking about. That’s the basis.
Oh, look. I’m engaged in the action. Oh, look. I finished the action. That action is complete.
Was it a positive action or a negative action? What was my intention? Often, we’re not aware. During the course of a day, we we complete many, many actions. But at the end of the day, it’s a bit of a blur.
Oh, didn’t how many positive actions did I complete today? How many were negative? How many were sort of neutral? No real positive or negative intention associated with them. It’s difficult for us at the end of the day to really be able to assess what’s happened during the course of the day.
And that’s why there’s an example in here given of one Geshe, who at the end of the day used to count up positive and negative actions. A white pebble for a white action, a black pebble for a black action. In fact, we should do the same thing. We should when we go out every day, we should put black pebbles in one pocket, white pebbles in another pocket. And anytime we have a you know, we complete a positive action or even the intention itself.
Oh, look. There’s a white one. I take a white pebble out and put it in my pocket. But this is necessary because here for practice on this level for the lower scope practice, intermediate scope practice, then we’re really looking at what we’re doing during the course of a day. And, therefore, we’re trying to understand where we’re at.
Where is my Dharma practice at? I got up this morning. What was my intention like when I got up? Was it a positive intention that I had when I struggled out of bed and I washed my face? What was that like?
Or was it a where was my intention? Was it a neutral intention? Was it a light, clear, positive? Was I taking into account other sentient beings early this morning? On the other hand, was I thinking negatively about anything?
This is, of course, very important because what our intention is determines whether things are white or black. And if our intention is negative, then we’re completing many actions with such an intention. And then it’s not clear to us. Actually, maybe our existence is not we’re in this existence. We may not be collecting more white karma than black karma.
Is it possible I’m collecting more black karma than white karma? It may be possible. It’s hard for us to really evaluate. But if in fact we’re collecting more black than white, then it’s not a good sign. Not a good sign in the present, not a good sign for the future.
In the present, we’re just reinforcing our negative habits. So that means that we’re becoming more and more entrenched if possible in our negative habits, which doesn’t it’s not a good sign for our for the moment of our death because the moment of our death is we’re probably gonna be in a pretty similar mind to the mind we’ve got at present. And if we check our intention at present, what’s it like? How easy it is is it for me to generate a positive motivation at present? Do I have a positive intention at present?
If we don’t know, then that’s not a good sign. It’s almost like saying, oh, well, maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s not. I’ll I’ll assume it’s good. Probably better we went the other way.
Maybe good. It may be bad. Probably bad. My intention in the present is probably not good. So then we have to question, why isn’t it good in the present?
How can I change it to a positive intention? Right. So this is the he is talking about this white karmic process. So then reading on. So we wanna develop a white karmic process.
So that means the mind itself is becoming white. That’s the definition of virtue. The producer of pleasant results of pleasant white aspect is the definition of virtue. In other words, the producer of happiness is what virtue virtue is. The meaning of virtue is that that brings happiness as its result, and that happiness has a white aspect.
Why is it called white aspect? Intentions are mind that can’t have a color. Yeah. Yes. Like that.
Yeah. Yeah. In its highest in its highest level. Yeah. That’s right.
It’s oh, in a way, it’s the mark of happiness itself. It’s coming from white intention or positive intention. It’s the result of that. So it’s also the name of the in a sense, the name of the cause is given to the result. A bit like we say the sun’s here.
When the sun’s shining, we say, oh, the sun’s out. But the sun’s not actually there. It’s the rays of the sun, the result of the sun that’s there. It’s a little bit like that. So all happiness is coming from virtue.
It’s coming from our intention. And our intention is what intention itself is neutral, but intention has the capacity to gather the virtuous mental factors to their object, and then that intention is positive. And if it gathers negative mental factors to its object, then the intention itself becomes negative, is negative. Right. So then we have these positive causes initiated by positive intention.
These give rise to result such as the ripened or the maturational result. So the maturational result or the ripened result is taking rebirth in a higher realm. And the result compatible with the cause or congruent to the cause is in future having positive mental states, the ability to generate positive mental states again and so forth, or the liking for positive mental states, the liking for love and compassion and so on. And then we also have environmental results that come about from white intention. And they’re like living in a pleasant place where there’s gardens and lots of fruit and things are pleasant.
Not too much pollution, one’s comfortable and so on. So all of these results come about from positive intention. In fact, the entire universe comes about through intention from karma. And then it goes on to the section of teaching about the doors that unintentionally lead to powerful karma. This has four sections.
So karma, positive karma being powerful because of the field or the object in relation to which one is acting. So if the object is one’s parents, practitioners of virtue, like the ordained lay or ordained bodhisattvas, Buddhas, and so on, then actions become powerful because of the object itself. So it said here that even a scornful look at one’s guru, who’s a bodhisattva, can be very heavy. It is much greater sin or much greater negativity to give a bodhisattva a scornful look than to throw the sentient beings of the three realms into prison, and pluck out their eyes. So it’s greater negativity to do that, even if we could throw all sentient beings into prison.
And even render them all blind, it’d be still even greater negativity to even look scornfully, look down on a bodhisattva, such as one’s teacher. So we have to be careful. These things are just not just to scare us, of course, but they can make us mindful of what we’re doing so that we avoid doing things that are gonna cause us pain in future. So therefore, in terms of the object, an action can be very powerful if the status of that object is that of a great being, like a bodhisattva and so on. Even one’s parents, even to have a negative intention towards one’s parents is very heavy because they’ve given us our current physical body.
So the kindness of our parents is the fact that we now have a physical basis in this realm. And not only that, then they’ve looked after us for first twenty years of our life, say. So because of that, to act in a negative way towards our parents potentially has great negative outcome because there’s no one in this lifetime that’s kinder to us than our parents. So, therefore, we need to be careful. Also, that the friends around us, we don’t really know.
We may have a pretty good idea, but we have to be careful there as well because our friends can also be