Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 75-minute session, Ven Jamyang teaches karma as a natural law of cause and effect operating through intention. He opens by distinguishing the mind—clear and knowing, like empty space—from the emotions and qualities we falsely identify with, explaining why this distinction matters for practice. The session’s core addresses generosity: through extended dialogue with a practitioner, he explores how it operates through intention rather than amount, and addresses the guilt that often blocks authentic giving. He discusses how karma ripens gradually across lifetimes, why rebirth follows accumulated actions, differences between Western guilt-based charity and Buddhist practice, and common misconceptions about genetics and killing. Pitched at practitioners in a regular study group.
File metadata (for organising)
File: session 1 week 8.mp3
UUID: 1b5bc926-632c-42bd-a9ac-b9acc4171960
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 74.9 minutes
Words: ~11,014
Catherine. Yeah. Janice is having a break. Good. This is Elizabeth.
Hi. This is Helen and Helena. Sorry. Helena, Mary. Mary.
And Mary. And Judy. And Judy. And Sandy. And Sandy.
And Nick. And Why? I’m gonna check you out. We’ll check you out. I’m gonna put that a little bit down.
What is that? Asking how many people to the public meeting. We had on Monday about four hundred and twenty, and on Friday, three hundred twenty. Yeah. A lot.
We had sorry? Three hundred and twenty. Yeah. And in the weekend, we had eighty per day, which is quite a lot. Must have been exhausted.
Never stops. I was yesterday afternoon, I collapsed. So I was just actually, just kept on going, going, going, going, going. And then she said, can’t you keep up with me? Can’t you understand what I’m saying?
I know you’re going too fast for me. It’s amazing. She just the level of energy is so high. Did you enjoy? Yeah.
You didn’t go? No. No. I’m overwhelmed with boys and Were you? Have to see it.
Uh-uh. Made a DVD from Monday night, a DVD. We made a DVD from the Monday night, which we already have available, which is quite amazing, I think. We had a good team behind that. And maybe the Friday, also, they’re gonna they did film it, but we haven’t spoken about if that’s gonna be a DVD or not.
And Anything? Yeah. I thought she was amazing. She’s amazing. Okay.
Just for Elizabeth, whatever we are doing here, discussing here, we all feel that it’s good that it stays in the group out of respect for each other and for the privacy so that we feel safe and that we can share if we wanna share. And, also, when we speak, we try to give each other the space to speak and to say what we have to say. Some people are good speakers. Some people need more space to be able to talk, so we try to give that to each other. These were the rules.
Isn’t that is that another one or not? That was it. Just a respect for each other. Yeah. And acknowledging, you know, that we all have our own story and our own good qualities, qualities that we suffer from.
And that that doesn’t make us a better or a worse person. It’s just a quality. It’s not us who is experiencing the suffering or us who is we do experience that, but sometimes we feel maybe more superior if we have better qualities. Well, sometimes we feel inferior when we don’t have the good qualities. Then, you know, we try to see each other as a person, which is having these qualities, but not as these qualities.
You know, find that something came up the other day about anger. Well, you said something to a friend of mine. You know, you are not the anger. Yeah. And I I can understand that on one I can understand what you’re saying, but I can’t quite grasp it.
And Because we identify as social. In my my foot or but I’m just thinking, well, what part of me is that? Is that where the consciousness in that and yeah. You know, I’m I’m not the shoulder. I’m not the this.
I’m not the You understand that one? Sort of understand it. You know that you’re not the ham. No. Because if I take away the ham, you’re still there.
Yeah. But but I’m I’m fully aware that right now or it could have been something that’s been happening in the past time. But yeah. Yeah. So but it’s not more than that.
So Buddhism, very short, you know, before we’re gonna talk about karma. Buddhism says that the the we have all these experiences, these feelings, all these thoughts arising constantly in our mind. And what we believe is that it’s us. That all makes us up. That is what we are.
But somehow we make that more concrete than it really is. We believe it’s real. We believe it’s existing inherently from its own side. According to Buddhism, the mind is that which is clear and knowing. It’s like space.
It’s like if you imagine this room and we clean it completely out, that’s mind. And then all things appear into that mind. We put the chairs in here, the mats, the books, all that makes the room the gompa. That gives it a personality. If we would put here in the kitchen sink and a washing machine and cupboards, then this would become a kitchen.
So we all have that empty space which is the mind, which similar, that’s all the same with each of us. But then, certain characteristics arise that creates us, that creates the personality, that creates it is either the gompa or the kitchen or the bedroom. But the room in itself is just the room. What we believe is that we are the the kitchen. But what we don’t see is that we can easily change that into another kind of room, the bedroom or the living room or the gompa.
We could easily change it. Just take all the rubbish out and put something else in it, then it’s changed. So the same with us. We have all these feelings and thoughts arising. We believe that that is us and that it’s always going to be like that.
But according to Buddhism, we can remove whatever is unpleasant in there and we can change it in something that is pleasant and beautiful and a good quality that we can help others with. Can you see that? But we believe I’m angry. Sometimes we identify so strong that we believe that when we don’t have the anger, we don’t exist anymore. It’s not us really anymore.
We will be a completely different person. True? Problems that we say. Yeah. Yeah.
So Yeah. To understand it you so you understand it here on a on a conceptual level. On an intellectual level, you understand it, but you can’t feel it. So that means that you have to think about it again and again. And then slowly, slowly, you will sink a little bit deeper and then maybe one day you sit down and you think about it, which then we would call maybe more meditation.
But the more you think about it, the more you start to feel like the more it gets it starts to fuse with your feelings and with your emotions, I mean, the deeper levels of your consciousness. Alright? And then one can let go of all these things that you identify with. Buddhism is a concept that goes quite opposite to the stream of thinking that we normally have in daily life. It goes very sometimes against our own nature, what we feel as our nature.
So we cannot think that we just listen to it and we know it. It’s not like that. Because our whole body comes into like, hey. That’s not true. That can’t be true because, you know, we there’s this all this resistance coming up.
And we have to look at that and and check it if that’s correct or not. You know? That is what you do with Buddhism. You listen and you check and you listen and you check and you think about it. You find reasoning why things are true and you find reasoning why things are not true.
Then you filter it out and then it sinks deeper and deeper in your consciousness. It becomes you and then you can live more in accord with that and you stop making the mistakes that give us so much suffering. Okay, I’m just going to talk about karma. karma that’s right, isn’t it? That’s where we were.
Did you all do homework? A lot of homework or not? Did I not give homework? Meditating on the compassion, wasn’t it? And the taking and the giving.
Have you been doing that? Nick hasn’t been doing that. You forgot. I have. You have not consistency.
Consistent. Did things come up that you wanna share now? No. Wanna share. Yeah.
Oh, good. Good. Why talking about karma? karma is the law of cause and effect. karma means that every action that we are doing has a result.
If we look at the material world, for us that’s quite natural. That’s a very natural thing. If we want to achieve something, we know that if we want to achieve something, we have to go from A to B before we can go to C. We know that. We are very good in that.
Anything that we like to achieve, we know how to get there. Or somebody knows how to get there. Even going to the moon, have these unbelievable equipment, doing measurements in space, we know how to do it. Our mind is very, very, very good. If we think about, you know, I have all these disturbing emotions in my mind and I want to get rid of it, we have no clue what to do.
So the law in the material world of cause and effect we know perfectly. The law of cause and effect on an emotional level or on the level of experience, we have no clue. We forgot to look at that. We have not developed that. And I think in Buddhism, if you look at Tibet, on a material level they have not put much energy in that to develop that.
But on the level of the mind, they have put a lot of energy in it to really get a feeling and knowing and knowledge of ‘if you do this, then this is going to be the natural result’. karma is not a belief. karma is exactly the same as the law of cause and effect on a material level. It’s very logic. If you do this, then this is gonna be the result.
We cannot see karma because mind is like space. We cannot see the mind. So we cannot see karma. We cannot see what is in our mind stream. We cannot see why things happen to us.
It’s very, very difficult to grasp it. Right? In the in the material world, we we can’t see because it’s connected to our eye consciousness, but it’s also connected to, say, one life. If we would have told four hundred years ago that one day we would go to the moon, everybody would have said, That person is crazy. We have to kill them.
Many people were killed four hundred years ago because they said things that are now completely normal to us. So if we can’t see it with our eye consciousness, if we cannot imagine it, we think it’s rubbish, we think it doesn’t exist. But by tracing back, we know now that even if we could not imagine things four hundred years ago, they do exist now. So it wasn’t that stupid to have the ideas. True?
So I feel a little bit the same with karma. It’s like you have to it is such a different concept than we always have known. But if you think it and try it, then you will see that there is a complete logic in it and that if you go from step A to step B, you definitely can go the next step to step C. It is predictable. If you practice this, then this will be the result.
The result will not come overnight. Just as the space shuttle is not built overnight. First, there is the idea and then you have to think how you have to do that. And then you have to make plans and you have to check the plans and check the plans again. And then you have to find the right materials.
Then you have to same with karma. It’s not going to come overnight. You first have to think about it. Get through your own Is this really true and how would it work? What am I doing?
If I want to achieve that, what do I have to change for that? First, have to make that change in your own mind. For instance, if you’re very poor and no matter what you’re gonna try, no matter what wealth has come to you in this life, you can’t hold on to it. Buddhism would say being poor is a result of not practicing generosity or even stronger, being poor is a result of being miserliness. Miser.
Miser? How do you say that? Being miserly? Miserly. Why miser there?
Being miserly. Yeah. But then being poor doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. Doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. No, no, no, You don’t have to be miserable.
You been miserly in the past and that karma ripens now in being poor. If you want to change being poor, right, you have to practice generosity. In order to practice generosity, you first have to check-in your own mind, so what am I actually? Am I miserly or not? And if I’m miser, what what where where do I do that?
Do I do that with money? Do I do that with time? Do I do that with gifts? Do I do that with where is my area of doing that? I guess I just wonder if being poor is really relevant.
I mean, not having much money. Different I’m talking about you experience being poor. You and I don’t care if you have a million dollars on your bank account or you have a big debt. It doesn’t matter. You experience that you don’t have enough wealth.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay? You feel poor.
Maybe I should say that you experience poverty. You experience poverty. Yeah. I’m just saying that you can you can be poor but not feel poor. Guess that’s what I’m saying.
Yeah. I’m actually talking about being poor, having no money. I’m not talking about having money and feeling poor. I’m talking about having no money, no wealth. I will talk about that other one later.
Okay? So we have no money and we need money to survive. So what are we going to do? Buddhism says practice generosity. In order to practice generosity, you first have to know where is my mind staying at the moment.
And if you’re very, very miser and you have this grasping mind that cannot give, first you have to see that mind and then you have to relax that mind. Before you are there that you can start giving, you already have put in a lot of work. That is like making the plan of the space shuttle. You first have to think how do I do that? What do I have to change?
How do I have to put things in place? Before you have the conditions that you can start making it. So first you have to learn to relax the mind and if the mind becomes more relaxed then maybe when there is a lot of money, you can start giving it. In the beginning, maybe with a lot of grasping but then slowly, slowly you learn that actually when you give, you get a much better feeling in your mind. When you do that and you keep consistent in doing that, then at a certain time, the money will start coming back to you.
Right? So karma is not something also that we can change like that. We can change in every action but the results will not come straight away. It can come like that but sometimes it needs a lot of practice to do that. So why not come in one lifetime?
Well, normally it does come actually in one lifetime. Normally, when you start practicing, you see the improvement straight away, but maybe not that big as you want to. Maybe you only experience that you start feeling better. Maybe you only start feeling that much suffering from your poverty. You know?
That is also an improvement of your mind, isn’t it? Because then your grasping mind will become less and then in the future, you keep on working on that. True? I think every step you do, every action that you do which is opposite of the tendency that you have and which is going to lead you to a result that you would like to have every step is a condition that is leading to a result. Every step is a karma.
karma means action. Every action that we are doing with the intention to give will lead to the result of practicing generosity. Every action. Yes, you might not experience that completely in this life, but I definitely know that every action that you do will shift your mind a little bit. The most thing that we suffer from is from the state of our mind.
That is our suffering. It’s not the poverty itself. That is what Catherine said. It’s the state of our mind that we suffer from. So when we start to practice that, immediately, we will experience experience a result.
Oh, I feel actually much better when I open my heart and give. Why do I you know, we think I’m gonna get wealth. I have to keep it. I have to be very careful how I spend my money. But what you actually practice is miserliness.
Right? So if you can change that, straight away you start feeling better. Straight away you that you let go of the burden of holding on to things because it is a burden when we do that. Guess I’m just thinking in terms of giving if you don’t want it. It’s about opening up.
Giving is the wish to give. Giving is every every karma starts in the mind. So there are three levels of karma. One is the action that we are really doing with the body. One is the action that we’re doing with the speech.
But everything starts in the mind. Without a thought, the action cannot come. karma happens on the level of the mind. We can experience it on the level of the body, we can experience it on the level of the speech, but it happens on the level of the mind. Every action that we are doing is preceded by a thought.
The thought itself is karma. The thought itself is intention. If we have the intention to give, the wish to give, that is the karma. So you don’t need any money to do that. Oh, I wish I could give you hundred dollars.
Or I wish I could give you all the flowers in the world. Or I wish I could give you beautiful cakes and creams and whatever. The wish to give, that is the giving. Then if I have these resources and I wouldn’t give, I should check my mind if I really wanna give. But if I really wanna give, if I have the resources, the giving will come naturally.
But you have to check because if you, for instance, have a strong attachment to money, which we all have in the West, giving of money is very difficult for us. I don’t know if you heard Rinpoche saying that. The lama said, you westerners are so generous, but not with money. Right? The money we keep for ourselves.
I give you the time and I give you this and I give you that, but not my money. This is that fear thing of, well, what if I what if something happens and I try pay the bills? That’s right So there’s the fear and that is why we don’t give, but the fear makes that our mind closes down. And holding on to things because of fear is going to lead to the poverty consciousness that we have. Despite all the wealth we have at a material level, we have a poverty consciousness.
Me too. Oh, what if I can’t pay the bills? I better keep this money aside in case something happens. I need and I don’t know. With Rinpoche being here, she showed me the whole week giving, giving, giving.
She she taught me the stories about and she told it in her teachings too, I think. She’s having this Liberation Prison Project. She says her whole life, it’s very difficult for her to have money. There was never money. So then, listening to the teachings, started to give, to give very consciously, I’m going to give money.
She has to take care of all these prisoners. The only thing she can do is give. She has no money to do it but she made a promise, promise: I’m going to give everything they need.’ Now a time is coming that money just flows into her. People give her big donations. She doesn’t ask for it but she knows she created the causes for that by just giving even if she thought she didn’t have anything.
And she says, nice, I would wake up in fear and terror of, oh, I might not have enough or how do I get the money or how but she says, I just kept on doing it. Never ever stopped anything me from doing that. It’s very, very brave. We have to go against that fear. We need a brave attitude to take the risk.
Maybe there will be nothing when we need it. But maybe there will be somebody who helps us when we need it. It’s a risk. We feel that there’s a risk. If I do that, maybe nothing is going to come back.
So that’s a brave heart, despite that feeling, still give. But I’m walking too quick to think about karma. Let’s go back. Happens is that every action that we do, the thought that motivates the action leaves a kind of imprint on the mind stream. And that imprint will ripen in the future in a certain kind of experience.
That experience that is going to ripen in the future is very much related to the kind of cause that we created. For instance, if we have that practice of generosity, if we give, then in the future, that seed that is implanted in our mind, if the right conditions appear, that seed might ripen into either that the same kind of wealth comes to us or that we are in a situation where everything is freely available, where we don’t lack the resources. So is what happens on the level of the mind. Every action we do leaves an imprint on our mind that will ripen in the future. How that is going to ripen is we cannot tell.
karma has certain laws that it follows. But karma is very, very complex. karma is the most subtle topic in Buddhism. It’s the most difficult thing to understand. It’s the most difficult thing to see.
Even emptiness we talked a little bit about emptiness, isn’t it? Seeing the nature of reality is more easy. It’s less difficult than really understanding karma and seeing karma. So they say, only the Buddha can really see karma as it is. So what we have to do is we can think about the laws that are there and we can start putting it into practice.
The more wisdom we develop, the more connection we’re going to feel with that. The more we’re going to see how it works, the more faith we’re going to develop in that it really works like that. And the more you do that, the more you can practice what you want to achieve. If I want to achieve wealth in the future, then I have to practice more generosity. If I start doing that and I receive more wealth, then I get some trust and I get some faith in that law.
That gives me the courage to do even more and to do even more. Also, I really have nothing, then still to practice it. Because the basis of previous experiences, I have to trust that it’s going to happen like that or ripen like that in the future. So don’t stop giving, but you don’t have to But I don’t have to go along with every charity that rings me up or that what I what I have found. So giving is an attitude.
Giving is a is a is a wish. You can say, I wish I could give you a hundred dollars, but at the moment, I can’t. You know? I wish I could give you that. I really feel that.
I really wish I could give you that. But I guess there’s things somebody rings up that’s, you know, like, every couple of days you get something, and you may have just given, but all of sudden, you know, I’m just you know, I probably could say, oh, okay. Well, I can I can give you twenty dollars and pay it off my credit card? Then that bill’s gotta come in, which I, you know, I need to attend to. But I don’t wanna be bombarded all the time.
I wanna be able to give. So why can’t you say no? Well, I do say no. Yeah. So why you feel guilty about that?
Not feeling guilty. I’m just I’m just sort of because I know that I am generous in many in many ways. And there are times when I don’t wanna be bombarded with people ringing me up and asking But we can’t stop the people. No. No.
No. But but it’s dealing with my mind. You know, like, I don’t feel guilty, but I’m I’m just listening to what you’re saying, saying, we don’t give enough. We don’t give enough. We don’t give enough.
That is what you are hearing. Yeah. Who else is hearing that? You don’t hear it? You hear me saying that, that we don’t give enough?
No. Yeah? Yeah. But I know what you mean. I I understand.
Part of you hears it and part of you knows that I know something I mean something else than what you hear. Yeah. I know you’re not just talking about money. Yeah. You just said in the West, well, you can mull on to your money.
I mean, that’s even I did not say you have to give more more. I did not say that. I did not say you’re not giving enough. I said a Tibetan lama said that we are very generous in the West, but not with money. Right?
If you hear if you hear I never give enough, that is your mind making something else out of what you’ll hear for me. I heard what she said. Yeah. But you give it a different meaning. But I might have given to two, three charities the day before.
Yeah. And I don’t want that other person really being. And I’m just thinking, maybe should have, maybe I’ll I think that’s the word not going to because it could as I said, it could be that I go, right. Yeah. Well, maybe I’ve got an extra twenty dollars a day I can give you, but I don’t really want to.
But I think what I hear is that you can be you can do direct that when you want it to. Is that is that what you’re saying? So you do an honest answer. I’m sorry. You know, I do have my charities.
I’ve said that before. But giving giving money is not necessarily practicing generosity. I can give you money and I can give you money but actually in my mind I have a lot of pride and a feeling of superiority because I look down on these people that I have to give money to. That’s not giving. No.
I’m not saying that you’re doing that. I just want to show you that giving is not something that happens in the action itself. And I think in the West, you know, and maybe Christian background has a lot to do with that, is that we are very good in showing the aspect of giving but it’s not necessarily connected with something in our own mind. The motivation, we can question that. You know, so there can be people who show the aspect.
They’re very generous. They give their twenty dollars and their twenty dollars and then they take their But it’s a show what is really in their mind. So Buddhism doesn’t talk about giving twenty dollars. Buddhism is talking about what is in your mind. The wish to give.
The really opening your heart and the wish to give. It doesn’t say you have to give twenty dollars. Especially if you feel, I actually don’t want to give that. Your mind is not giving anymore. No.
I don’t think that’s What can you give so you really feel you want to give that? Maybe it’s only one dollar maybe it’s only fifty cents. That is giving. Can you see that? As long as that you have the feeling that you have to give that much in order to be a good person What would make you happy to give?
What would if you would give, you know, which amount would make you feel good that you could give that? I’ll use twenty dollars as an example. Yeah. But now I’m asking you the amount. That depends on the organization Yeah.
Where their needs are. Yeah. Yeah. But it also depends on what you have and what you can let go. Yeah.
Well, I could probably give more, I suppose. But I give I give to certain things because I know that there is a real there’s a need everywhere. But I know that there are some organizations that get no money from government or whatever. It’s purely through donations. There are some people who bring you up.
They are looking to expand, but they do get some some money from So you prefer to give to the really poor who don’t get from anybody else? In my idea, it’s like I give to the animal welfare. I give to our just to name a couple because I know that that I that that money will go to feeding some animals or or whatever whatever. I don’t direct where it goes. So why are not happy with what you are giving?
I’m just trying to, perhaps, settling my own But why are not happy? Pardon? You’re not unhappy, but why are not happy with what you are giving? I am happy with what I’m giving. Okay.
It’s the other it’s all the other things that you get bombarded with. Bombarded with. Yes. You know? So why are you not happy with saying no to all these other things?
No. I’m just asking here when you’re talking about karma. I don’t I don’t bring up I don’t hang I don’t go away and think, oh, I should have done this before, I should have done that.’ I’ll say to them, no, not now.’ But when you talked about karma, for being more generous I’m not saying that we have to be that would eventually help someone. I’m not saying that. karma is not about you should do this.
You should be more generous. I’m not saying that. I have not said that. Should is not at all in Buddhism. karma is very, very simple.
If I drop this cup, the cup will fall down. That the cup falls down is just a natural law. That’s gravity. I cannot change that. Nobody can change that.
I only have the decision if I’m going to let it go out of my hands or not. That’s my decision. If the breaks or not, if it falls down or not, that’s not my decision. It has nothing to do with me. This is my only choice.
I can hold it or I can open it up. True? karma is the same. I have the choice if I do something or not. And then there was a whole how do you say?
From being very miserly to being very generous, there was a whole range a whole how are set ups? Spectrum. Right? So when you notice that your mind is tight and holding on to things, you can use a practice of generosity to loosen up your mind which makes you feel more happy which will help you to get better situations, better conditions in the future. So, if your mind is very tight, then for you I’m not talking about you but in general if your mind is very tight and you can never give, then maybe just one time is helping that mind to relax.
In Kopan Monastery, which is in Nepal, which is the first monastery from the organisation where Buddha House is part of, there are monks and the monks are very tiny. When they do puja, they get a little bit of money, say ten cents. Get money. Twice a month there is a Guru Puja and with the Guru Puja you offer tsog to the Buddhas. Then there is this rule, you know, it’s good if everybody gives something towards buying the biscuits and the chocolate and whatever.
Some monks, they hold so tight to their ten cents, no, I’m letting go. You know they say, You have to give at least one cent and to let go of that hand. Very, very difficult. But that’s the practice, just to let go of that hand. It doesn’t matter if they give one cent or ten it doesn’t matter.
Letting go, that’s important. Some people are so tight, get We do water bowls. That’s the practice of generosity. Water doesn’t cost anything so we don’t feel attachment to the water. Then we put it in a cup and we give it away.
We give it to the Buddhas. That’s the practice of generosity. Open your heart. Some people can practice generosity by saying, I’m going to give this clock away. I’m going give it to my other hand.
Practice of generosity. There is the practice. It’s not about giving money. Although we are very stingy with money, it’s not about, so when I give twenty dollars I’m generous. It’s not like that.
Not necessarily. You have to check your mind if you’re really generous when you give twenty dollars Maybe you can be more generous when you give ten dollars Maybe you can much stronger generate the wish to give when you give less money. If you notice that you’re actually holding on and that you actually think you’re giving a lot, maybe you should give a little less so that the mind becomes really open and free. Christianity is about the amount and showing that you give to others. Buddhism is not like that.
Buddhism is about your own responsibility and you want to create the causes for something to happen in the future to yourself. You want to create a state of mind that you get everything you need in order to achieve the goals that you want to achieve. It’s not about anybody seeing what you’re doing. Do you understand that? We have the thoughts inherent about how to practice generosity.
It has a lot to do with Christianity and all the charities that have been set up. Buddhism is not about that. And it’s also not about supporting every charity organization that is out there. It’s not about that. It’s about a state of mind.
Oh, God. I should not be scared too. So And then there was the guilt. Oh, you never give enough. And that’s what I heard you saying.
And the feeling that we get, I never give enough. No matter what I give, it’s never enough. There is something underneath that has to do with guilt or low self esteem or you know? You are the one who determines what you can give and what you feel happy with. And that’s good enough.
That’s good enough. There’s nobody outside who’s going to judge you if you gave enough or not enough. Nobody has to do anything with that. That’s your private matter. You don’t have to show anybody.
You don’t have to tell anybody. You don’t have to prove anything. Nothing. It’s all up to you. And you have to make sure that you feel completely happy with the act that you’re doing.
If there’s something saying in your mind, don’t do it. Go back to that stage where you feel happy. Even if you give fifty cents, it doesn’t matter. Can you do something with that, Elizabeth? Well, I’ll see.
But it’s maybe I’m I haven’t I I misunderstood what it maybe you’re not under me. It’s it’s the phone calls. I’ll give when I want to give because I see a situation, and I think that will benefit others. I’m not gonna ring up my friends and say, oh, I gave so and so a hundred dollars. So what is your problem with the phone calls?
People actually ask him this money? It doesn’t And then what do you wanna say? What would you like to say to these people? Well, I said to him, not today. Thank you.
So what is your problem with that? Well, there’s no no. I’m only asking you in relation to what you were talking about, you know, the calm and being generous and then, you know, generous, then, you know, what was coming up in my mind. Well, am I not being generous by everybody that asked me for money on the phone? Am I not giving?
But that’s your question. So how would you answer that now after you have heard me talking? Well, I think I just go with how I feel Yeah. At the top. Good.
And then are you practicing generosity? Well, I’m not being on practicing. No. You judge. You you judge.
You you’re judge. Practicing generosity with the phone call. Yeah. You feel. You know?
If you had the money, do you still have to wish to give? Perhaps not to that organization. Yeah. I’m not sure what Rinpoche would say about that. Yeah.
I mean, that’s the sort of thing I’m like, you know, like, okay. But let’s say it’s a kidney foundation, which I contribute to and bought tickets and that all over the year, and I’m obviously on their database. Oh, friend advised me. That’s it. Not not at all.
Don’t feel bad. I thought, oh, you have got ten dollars, and, you know, a friend’s had a kidney, you know, kidney thingy. And then I just have to leave it Yeah. And I’m I I don’t feel I have that wisdom. I think Rinpoche says anything that appears in front of you, there is an opportunity to practice.
And I can imagine that if you have the tendency to give more than you actually feel you want to give, then it’s maybe good to learn to say no, I can’t do that’ without feeling guilty, without feeling all the mind games happening in your mind. If you have the tendency not to give, then that’s your opportunity to practice giving. Everybody has to look into their own minds what that is about. But I think, in the end, if you first have made sure that guilt is removed out of your mind stream, then you can use opportunities to give. What I’ve heard Rinpoche saying is that it doesn’t matter who is in front of you.
There is a sentient being who asks for help. Know that she doesn’t judge for what kind of goal you’re asking money. She says there’s just a sentient being asking for help. And if you practice Chenrezig, then any sentient being that appears in front of you asking for help, you help. That is where eventually you want to go to with your practice.
But that’s not where we are. Discriminating people and saying, I like your goal better than that goal, you know, it’s like you some people, you feel that they are valid with what they’re asking for, and other people, say you’re not valid according to me with what you’re asking for. You’re judging people. Yeah. True.
So I think the bodhisattva or they strive that everybody’s equal. It doesn’t matter why you need it. If you need it and you ask me, it’s my job to help you. That is eventually where you wanna go to. And I can guarantee you I’m not there.
Right? We are not there yet, but that is eventually where you wanna go to. So first, maybe you have to work with that you feel good with whatever action you’re doing. Don’t let do feel a guilt coming in there. Oh, can’t you even give ten dollars?
And you hang up the phone and then this voice keeps on going in your head. That is guilt. Where at the time, I thought, oh, well, someone that I know has had a kidney transplant. I probably could have given them ten dollars. But so so but that’s going back on making the decision at that time.
Yep. And, you know, maybe it’s the annoyance thing that comes with another phone call, you know, and you got bombarded and you may not know. But that’s your guilt and people tune into that. And then you say, They shouldn’t ring me. We can’t stop them from ringing you.
They will keep on ringing you until you remove that guilt from your mind stream. You can say very clearly, Sorry, not today. I would love to give you but not today.’ If you can say that with a very clear, clean mind, without anything echoing in your mind, you know, they won’t hassle you I don’t think anybody will hassle you anymore. They will stop because they can feel that. They know, Oh, there was the guilt.
Oh, maybe we can hook some money. People know that. Maybe not consciously but subconsciously they can feel that. So, think if you clear your mind and can say very brave without any feeling of guilt, without any echo lingering in your mind, sorry, but not today. I wish I could help you, but not today, you know, you’re free.
Can you see that? Thing that’s come up anyhow because I have said that before. Not today. Thank you. No.
Because in the bin With a open heart. With a open heart. What I’ve said. It’s just that this other thing that two weeks ago came up to sort of discuss it now. I wanna discuss it.
I’m taking everybody else’s time here. I’m sure everybody learns from this because we all have the same mind. You know? We’re not different. And you just express it, but we all have that.
So it’s good to look into that. And That doesn’t mean to I don’t want to say that, but that doesn’t mean to say if I see those people in a mall collecting for the same organisation, irrespective of what we’ve discussed today, that doesn’t mean to say I won’t go up there and buy something from them. But it was just at that moment. I didn’t wanna be bothered again with another phone. What’s the problem with that?
What? What’s the problem with that? That was just how I was on the day. So? But I didn’t say it nasty.
So? So? You felt nasty but you didn’t say it nasty? No. I didn’t feel nasty.
They agitate you. I hear people are agitating you with their questions. And you can’t say no. And you feel bad when you say no. That is what I hear.
And then you say, Please stop ringing me. They should not ring me because then I don’t have to feel that agitation. Then I don’t have to feel bad that I say no. It’s your struggle with saying no, not today, with clear, clean consciousness, without feeling guilty. They will keep on ringing you until you remove that guilt.
Has nothing to do with karma. Guilt is based on I’m not good enough’. It’s never good enough what I’m doing. It’s never good enough. That’s a voice inside a hand.
It’s a useless voice. They cannot contribute anything to your benefit, to other people’s benefit. Nothing. So you have to remove that voice out of your mind stream. Can we turn the guilt voice?
Yes. Just turn it off outside. Get it clear. Then you can say no without showing anybody, without saying anything, without feeling guilty, without feeling like I wish they couldn’t ring me. Maybe the next time you say I wish they ring me, then they can say I wish I could give you a hundred dollars, but not today.
Thank you. Yeah. Because that is every time I practice generosity, I wish I could give you a hundred dollars. That’s the practice. So maybe if at a certain point, you’re asking these people, please ring me, then I can practice without even I’m sure I’ll get other opportunities.
I know you will. Will. So every experience that we have in life, we have created the causes for that. That’s the consequence of karma, isn’t it? If we say that an action today is going to lead to a result in the future, that means that every experience that we have today is a result from the past.
True? So all the good qualities that we have, all the love that we feel, all the compassion that we have, the generosity that we already have, the rejoicing that we can do, all the effort that we have, all the patience that we have developed is all due to our own practice, to our own cultivation of these qualities. The fact that we have a human body is a result of practicing ethics. Must have practiced so hard in order to get a human body. It’s all coming from our own practice, from our own actions.
How does that sound like? Good? How do animals practice ethics? They don’t. So you just said we have to practice ethics hard to get a human body so that’s the animal No.
You can also practice as a human being. I can practice as a human being all the conditions to be reborn as an animal. You can see that very easily. Surely with evolution you can’t go backwards though. Is where I find this very strange.
Right. We evolve. We don’t So what about a person who kills and rapes and you think they’re going to be reborn as a human being and evolve further into higher up? No. I would say that you just stayed where you were until you learned the lesson.
But do you think a person can just keep on killing and raping until they learn the lesson? Is that what you’re saying? So what we do in the world is we say this person goes to prison to learn their lesson. We lock a person up. We not just allow that person to keep on doing until they learn their lesson.
So why would karma work like that? I find it very hard to believe that you can go backwards. Oh, yeah. And Buddhism is not backwards. In Buddhism, we just circle around.
You know? There are different levels of experience. And if you say that all our good qualities come from good actions, then we can also say that if we create negative actions we’re definitely going to experience suffering. What is the record kit? The records of what we have done?
So every action you do leaves an imprint on your mind. It’s like walking in the desert and leaving your foot imprint. Where does this you did the Where does this mind go where the imprints are in? That is more in the cosmic mind. Tell me how you Well, mean, like, we’re talking about karma, fruiting, or whatever you call it Yes.
This word. That comes to fruition? Fruition. And it could have been many lifetimes ago. Mhmm.
Somewhere, there has to be is it the Akashic records that have stored that knowledge? No. It’s in your own mind stream. So what happens in our own mind stream, we have this feeling of I, and we have talked about that in the past, isn’t it? About this strong feeling of I which is based on nothing.
If there’s no mind stream, stream though, if if we are a part of a whole Buddhism doesn’t say that. Buddhism doesn’t say that. Buddhism say we have a river of that our consciousness is like a river. A river of events. A river of experiences experiences that goes from life to life.
Buddhism doesn’t say that when you die you dissolve into the whole. That’s not what Buddhism says. You have that river of consciousness which is yours. We have that river of consciousness and then in that river we have certain ideas, certain thoughts, certain experiences. So in that river of consciousness we project on that river of consciousness that is my river of consciousness.
That is me. I experience the anger. I am angry. I am stingy. I am So all these experiences are connected with that feeling of I.
So that means that that karma will keep on coming to fruition as long as we hold on to that I. That karma is the seeds that If we do an action, that leaves a seed in the mind, that leaves an imprint in the mind. That imprint is connection with our feeling of I. The moment we realise that that I does not exist in the way we experience it or the way we perceive it, that moment you cannot experience that karma anymore. You cannot create karma anymore.
So as long as we hold on to that ‘I’ we are creating karma. As soon as I let go, soon as I realise that the nature of that I is completely empty, does not exist at all the way I perceive it, we stop creating karma. At that moment we are in control of where we rebirth. That moment we are not bound by the karma anymore. That moment we are out of that circle of experiences, which goes to the different realms of existence.
So is it better to lose a sense of what we perceive as the I or to work on your karma? Ultimately, I guess it’s to lose the I. Yes, exactly. As soon as we remove that one, the karma is finished. Yeah.
Because on the basis of that I the delusions come up. On the basis of that I, I get angry. I am jealous. So when we realise that that I is empty of existing in the way we perceive it, in that moment the delusions cannot come anymore. In that moment we cannot create any new karma anymore.
But in the meantime as long as we have that feeling of I, we keep on creating karma. So it is good to keep on purifying that karma. I’ll go into that purification later. So what we want is we all want to have happiness. We don’t want to suffer.
We’re all happy to hear that all our good qualities are coming from our own actions. It’s a little bit more difficult to hear that all our negative qualities are coming from our negative actions or all our suffering are coming from negative actions. We don’t like to hear that in general. What Buddhism says is if we remind if we remove these causes for suffering from our mind stream, happiness is naturally there. Right?
Our mind stream is in the nature of feeling happy. But because we believe in that I, we create negative actions because we want to defend the ‘I’, we want to take care of the ‘I’. Because of that misconception we create all these negativities. It’s like a veil on top of the happiness that is naturally there. So when we remove that veil, we naturally feel happy.
We see that? karma has different laws. One of the things is if you do an action, you definitely experience the result. In the sense of any action that we are doing, it’s not that that suddenly disappears. It’s like when I believed in God maybe even in the sometimes you do actions and you hope that nobody saw that.
Right? You’re hurt. Somehow you believe that that action is not going to have a result. karma is not like that. Every action you’re doing, even if nobody’s so.
Everybody recognizes that. That’s what you’re going to do. Every action we are doing definitely will come to a result. Every cup that I drop will naturally drop. There is not one cup that stays in the air.
Isn’t it? We all know that. But with karma, somehow we think we can get away with it. With karma, we can’t get away with anything. And then they say when you do an action in the past and you don’t purify that and you don’t acknowledge that, then that karma can become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
That can ripen into a very nasty result or positive result. So there are stories about a little boy saw the and he had nothing to offer but there was only sand near the river. And he got the sand and he imagined that it was beautiful gold from all the gold from the universe or something, and he offered that to the Buddha. And the result of that was that he in in next lives, he experienced unbelievable wealth due to just that one generous action towards the Buddha. We can have done a very negative action or a small negative action.
For instance, killing a mosquito ten lifetimes ago. That might ripen now into something, I don’t know, our own death when we are young. You know, we get a car accident and we die. A mosquito. A mosquito.
A mosquito. Just tell you the teachings of the Buddha. I did not make this up myself. If we don’t do the action, we can never experience the result. That’s also true.
Right? If we do do the action, we will experience the result. But if we don’t do the action, we won’t experience the result. Which means that if we don’t steal, we will not experience the result of that which is poverty. But which also means if we don’t practice generosity we will not experience the result of generosity which is wealth.
Wealth is not coming out of the blue. It’s not that God likes us more than somebody else and gives us more for that. But karma is also that even if you have the genetics, if you do your purification, you don’t have to get it. It’s not that that determines you but it’s the potency that is there and the potency that can ripen under certain conditions. But what what science also does is them blaming.
Oh, it’s because I have these genetics, I’m gonna get that. And that’s and therefore it’s gonna happen, which means that we we cannot do anything about it. We are the slaves or the the victims of our own DNA, and it’s not really like that. It’s also for instance, I don’t know. You know, people get older and they get pain in their joints and then they say, oh, that’s arthritis.
You know? It’s because you get older and have arthritis. Then they make x rays and they say Oh, there you have arthritis. But if you really look at the x rays, there are people who have hardly any problems on the x-ray. They have huge pain.
And there are people who have lots of problems on the x-ray. They have hardly any pain. Despite that fact, the scientists keep on saying because you have arthritis, you have the pain. And the x-ray doesn’t show any correlation but they keep on saying that because they have no other explanation. It’s not so clever what they’re doing.
If you really apply logic, it’s not so clever how they make certain conclusions. It’s actually dangerous. It’s actually dangerous what they’re doing. Oh, yeah. Because it leads to who will be selected to be born and who will selected not to be.
That’s one thing. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. But that’s believing that we have a power, believing that we you know?
It’s ignorance. Buddhism would say it’s ignorance. It’s just not knowing. To become a criminal or a murderer is could be even a BNI, which I’ve just seen it. But, obviously, that’s the common.
Not just yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they even say if you have your eyebrows going like that, and, you know, you have the predisposition to be criminal. It’s really true. That’s what they look at, psychologists.
Yeah. I had my eyebrows walking like that. And and I know that I met a psychologist, and she looked at me and it was I got this this this imprint like, why? You must be a criminal. So I plucked him up.
So you talk about karma and rebirth, and you look at some people who’ve come into the life too, steal and kill and rape and all the rest of it. Yeah. Then I could look at some you’re talking about the animal kingdom, but there are they’re not nasty by nature in the environment in which they live. And yet they’re they’re now in the animal kingdom listening to some sort of and bit of Buddhist music and they’re saying the old prayer. So nastiness is not a characteristic of the mind itself.
Nastiness is a quality that arises in the mind. Some children are born there and they’re torturing animals from this I’ll talk about what leads to an animal rebirth and what leads to a human rebirth. But then still, in the animal rebirth you have animals that kill much more than other animals. And in the human rebirth you also have humans that kill much more. I understand that if my animals were moving to my house, I would have to go out and and look for food.
Mhmm. Right? Yeah. But that’s not evil or nasty. That’s just survival.
That’s survival. That’s right. I think I’m just saying then you look at people, you know, Yes. How is that possible? They’re so bad and they come in as a human.
The fact that they come in as a human means they created a lot of merit in their previous life if you like it or not. They did. That is karma. It’s not about judgement. It’s not about good or bad.
It’s just: if you do this, this is the result. So you have to clean it from all the emotions. If I drop the cup, the cup might break or not. It’s a bad gravity if it breaks my cup. It’s not like that.
It has nothing to do with good or bad. It’s just a natural law. If I create virtue, practice ethics, that can lead to a human rebirth. If I have done other things in other lives that might lead to that although I have a human rebirth, I have the tendency to kill. These things can come together.
There’s not a judgement, oh this is good or this is bad or this creature is much better than that creature. How is it possible they have a human rebirth and they are born as a cat? It’s not like that. It’s that we judging about good and bad. It’s about that person has a human rebirth that must mean that person has practised ethics in the past.
That person has a tendency to kill that must mean that person has killed before because it’s in their nature to kill. The tendency is there, we can all see it. That must mean they have done it before. We never have the tendency to kill without having it done before. It’s not possible.
If I have the tendency not to kill, that means I have practised not killing before. It’s not possible that if I have the tendency to kill that I’ll be born in a body where I don’t have the tendency to kill. It’s not possible. It’s more like that. And it’s not a judgement.
What we do is we put our whole judgement and emotions on top of it and we have to try to remove that because karma has nothing to do with that. It’s clean, clear, natural. Water is always running down. Water is never going up. Well, there are many people who believe in genetics, but they don’t believe in karma.
No. If you look at it, it’s a very simple process. Yeah. I mean, it’s logic. Well, I mean, it’s a similar process, but you don’t have to believe in one to believe the other.
It can help you, you know, but it’s not necessarily there, that connection. Although you for you, it helps you. But somebody who who doesn’t even deny that we have a mind that goes from life to life, what we’re talking about is all rubbish. Oh, yes. I agree.
Yeah. Yeah. And and then we have a tea break. Murder. Yeah.
Do you get points for for the sort of different murders and creatures that you’ve murdered? Or but where I’m leading here before you answer is that we’re born onto this into the this this physical level. Yeah. And to survive, we must beat. Now Yeah.
Where do you draw a line between the mosquito and the next level down of the plant kingdom where we’re allowed to eat this and we don’t get any karma? Okay. As soon as we get to that mosquito, nobody knows with plant and animal foes. Buddhism has a certain there are many questions in what you’re saying. One of the things is like when is something killing or when is something just not killing?
What Buddhism says is that plants plants do not have consciousness themselves. In the plants, however, everywhere where there’s space, where there are rocks, where there are plants, where there are trees creatures live there. Spirits live there. Right? Everywhere where there are the four elements, creatures are living there.
But the plant itself doesn’t have consciousness. A mosquito is a sentient being, does have consciousness. A mosquito has consciousness. If you try to harm a mosquito, the mosquito will fly away if it can. That shows that it is avoiding harm.
If the mosquito smells blood, the mosquito goes there to feed itself. That means it is attracted to something that makes it happy, makes it feel good. That means it has feelings. To have feelings you need a consciousness to perceive that. So if you have plans, plans are also living but they don’t have consciousness themselves.
So then you can say when does killing start? If we eat, every action that we are doing in life somehow killing is involved. If we like it or not, it’s very very very difficult not to kill. If we eat meat, there is a killing involved. If we eat plants, there is a killing involved.
It doesn’t matter what we eat, there is always killing involved. That is what Buddhism means karma for every little thing that we Well, then there is a reason that’s the way how we create karma. But it’s like this this realm where we are living is in the nature of suffering. That means that every action that we are doing, part of this is connected to suffering. If we don’t open our eyes and don’t wake up, we naturally create a lot of negativities because of the harm that we do to other creatures.
That is in the nature of this realm. Killing is in the nature of this realm. In order not to kill we have to be very mindful. It’s not something that comes natural. If I drive in my car, many creatures are killed flying against my car.
I cannot stop that. Yes. Although karma is definite, there are actions that definitely lead to a certain result and actions that lead to other results. For instance, one result is that you get a body. In order to get a body, the action that you have created has to have certain characteristics.
Maybe we’ll go into that after the break. It’s not that every karma is capable, every action is capable of giving another rebirth to you. Some seeds are stronger, other seeds are weaker. So we talk about that maybe after the break. Okay?
Otherwise, I’m gonna miss out on meditation and I don’t wanna do that. So we have a break and then we’ll talk about this, what you’re saying, which makes what makes karma more heavy. And then we’ll talk about how karma ripens. Who keeps the scoreboard because you say, oh, Yourself. It’s in your mind stream.
It’s in your mind stream. There’s nobody out there who doesn’t. So who makes who who keeps the score? How many cups break when you fall? It’s like, it doesn’t matter.
It’s just there. It just happens. There’s no judgment. There’s nothing involved emotionally. Let’s have talk about it in break.
You’re running out of gas? No? That. I must have done that or something like that or some and then when you I’ll talk And for us, it’s very difficult to understand that because we are so programmed in the Christianity. You know?
You have to give. And no matter what we give, especially we women, Hello?