Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session on ethics, Ven Lobsang Namgyel teaches the three types of Buddhist morality: restraint from non-virtue, gathering of virtuous dharmas, and benefiting living beings. He focuses on the ten negative actions—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, gossip, covetousness, malice, and wrong views—explaining each in detail. Using vivid examples (mosquitoes, diaries, medicine fraud, warfare), he breaks down the four complete parts of a negative action: object, intention, motive, and delusion. He illustrates how even unfinished harmful thoughts create karmic imprints and environmental results (unfounded fear, violent surroundings), and stresses that moral awareness must extend from physical actions to mental ones. The teaching emphasizes personal responsibility, the power of regret and determination in purification, and why understanding karma gives freedom rather than victimhood.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 ethics 2.mp3
UUID: ec7743ec-e1e9-4ce1-8eea-afbd2c08795f
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~6,317
What sort of device do you use? Yes. An An iPod. So you you can jog without it bothering the iPod? It doesn’t matter.
Really? And can you put teachings and stuff like that into it? It’s great, isn’t it? Really, this is it’s an amazing time that we live in when you think of things like that. And then we used to have tape recorders, and the tapes used to get all tangled up, isn’t it?
And now now we’re up to iPods and all this sort of paraphernalia. Okay. So we have three main types of ethics. The ethics of restraint, the ethics ethics of gathering virtuous dharmas, and the ethics of benefiting living beings. These are the three main divisions of ethics.
The ethics of restraint, the ethics of gathering virtuous dharmas, and the ethics of benefiting living beings. Then I’ll tell you what each one is. So the first one is the ethics of restraint, and this is to restrain your body, speech, and mind from nonvirtue. And the fundamental level for lay people and ordained is to avoid the ten non virtues. Does anybody not know what the ten non virtues are?
Excellent. Another job. Killing. Refrain from the ten non virtues, then, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, of the body, then lying, divisive speech, Harsh speech. Gossip is speech..
And then mental activities, it’s covetousness. Love that word. We had so much problems with that word in in Mexico. Covetousness. And then malice and wrong views.
But this Uh-huh. I said wrong views can cover a lot. Wrong views can cover a lot. It certainly can. Yeah.
But particularly in Buddhism, we’re talking about not just wrong views in an ordinary sense, but in a particular sense. You know? In that, if you say, well, I’m not Buddhist. So and I don’t believe in karma. So therefore, karma doesn’t affect me.
So from a Buddhist perspective, that would be a wrong view because it affects everybody. And then you can say ignorance is a wrong view. Then there’s also some strange things like there’s people in India who bark like a dog as humans, thinking that in the next life they’re going to become humans because they’re barking like dogs. That’s a wrong view. There’s people who walk around with their arms like this all day, and their arms wither.
So you can’t use your arm anymore. Basically, in Bombay, there’s a sect like that. They just walk around like this all the time. And, again, they believe that the karma from that will give them a good rebirth. This is a wrong view.
So that’s particularly what we’re talking about. Lying on a bed of nails is going to get you to enlightenment. Yeah. So then, for you particularly, I’m going to define one of the negative karmas in its in its entirety. Okay?
Because you have four parts. In order for the action to be complete, the thinking of, you know, killing all the fleas or killing the ants or whatever it is. You need to know when the action is complete because that complete karma is a projecting karma. It takes you into future, hellish rebirths. Okay?
So then, for killing, the object is any other living being. So it’s not a human, but it’s any other living being. So the you need an object. Alright? This is the difference between actually doing something and dreaming of doing it.
Yes, Belton. You’re looking at me with that look. It’s a sort of you’re thinking about something. It’s usually when a question’s coming. So, you need an object, which is a living being, and then you have an intention.
And then as subheadings, as part of the intention, so keep intention as the main heading. Under intention, you have discrimination. And then discrimination is a clear and unmistaken recognition of the object to be killed. This is important because otherwise, you know, when people are asking about when I walk on the ants and I really didn’t mean to do it, when you’re hitting, flying insects and you’re driving, did you have the intention? So the discrimination is clear and unmistaken recognition of the object to be killed.
Then the motive, the state of mind in which you fully intend to kill a living being. Without that motivation, you still create a negative karma, but it’s not a complete negative karma. Okay? So you have a motive. And then we have a delusion.
Could you repeat the motive again? Sure. So the motive is a state of mind in which you fully intend to kill a living being. And then the delusion could be anger, attachment, ignorance. So anger would be killing an enemy or an animal that irritates or frightens you.
I can give the example of the mosquito. At night, when you’re trying to sleep, the I comes up. I must sleep. I’m working tomorrow. You know?
So that sort of I comes up. Oh, hello, body. How are you? So it comes up. And and you’re sort of flailing around.
You know? And so did you have the motive? Absolutely. You know, you felt you really wanted to kill this mosquito, but because by killing the mosquito, you’re going to be happy, isn’t it? You’ll think, I’m going to be happy.
If I kill that mosquito, I’ll be able to sleep. But the teachings on karma and ethics teach you much more deeply than just this temporary happiness in this moment. So the delusion, anger, attachment could be killing animals for their meat, their wool, their ivory, bodily parts. And then the act of killing can be in any way. So it can be weapons, poisons, black magic.
It can be any way. So it’s not a particular way. And the interesting thing is if you ask somebody else to do the killing for you, they get karma from it, but you also do. So don’t think you can get somebody else to do it. The loophole in Buddhism that some people might think is you can bring in the termite guy, you know, the the person that sprays the house, and because you don’t do it yourself, you’re not responsible.
Isn’t it? You’re still responsible. You hired them. And then the completion is when the object dies before you do. That’s when the the karma is complete.
The object dies before you do. So they’re sending out all these negative thoughts. Die, die. So you haven’t done anything. You mean, you’re you’re lying in bed, the mosquito goes straight past your ear, and you think, I just wish you’d die.
And really quickly because I’ve got to get some sleep. I mean, I know that the flies don’t last that long. Yeah. I know that both wait. If you wait long enough, they’re going to die.
Well, that’s a good way of thinking about it because it’s impermanence, isn’t it? You’re thinking about impermanence, how they they pass on. They do go to another another life, wishing them to die. I think there’s a difference between knowing about impermanence. All all situations change.
All beings are impermanent. But thinking die die die wouldn’t be a very nice way of thinking, would it? Yeah. Because, again, it’s nothing that you’re doing, but it could be something that you will do. If you think about the power of thinking, if you keep saying, I hope you die.
I hope you die. I hope you die. That would come into the the negative type of thinking that we can get into. You know, just wishing them to die. It’s like if somebody says to you, oh, you know, why are you wearing those clothes?
You know? And why did you do your hair like that? And why did you do why why you know? And that person becomes your enemy. Right?
And you go home, and you’re so upset, you’re thinking about them, what you’d do to them. You know. Well, if I got hold of that person in the right situation. And then you think all these negative thoughts. And then when you come out of that delusion, which is called by caused by anger, hatred, you come out of it, and then you think, oh, that was terrible.
But anyway, at least nobody knew about it. But from a Buddhist point of view, you’re not safe. Right? You’re still not safe because it’s harmful thinking, harmful thoughts. So where do the harmful actions come from?
It’s the harmful thoughts that produced the harmful actions of the body and the speech. So we’re not safe just by having it going on in the mind. It it can become something that we actually do. So that’s why it becomes more refined. Don’t start off thinking, I have to be perfect.
We’re not. You know? We we just become more refined. We start look at our actions of the body and the speech, and eventually, you come to the mind, and you think, oh, so that’s where it’s all coming from. It’s not external.
It’s actually internal. Yeah? So you need to gradually approach the cause of the negative actions. What is really causing it? And then you understand, oh, that’s where it comes from, the mind itself.
So do you do you understand the ten negative negative actions? Do you understand? Yes. Yeah. Covetousness.
You understand covetousness? If you say you understand, then I’ll ask you to define it. Yeah. Go on, Robyn. Can say, say, you read someone’s diary, and it’s not as if you’d go into doing them anyhow.
I think that’s number eleven, which is don’t read people’s diaries. Especially when it’s got one of those little locks and you have to get the the hair hairpin, you know, to open it. I think that’s number eleven. Could be. I mean Something that think is mine.
It’s about me, isn’t it? It’s about I. Isn’t it? self-cherishing, self grasping. So you have this self grasping.
You believe the I exists. You cherish the I. You want to take care of the I. And then as part of taking care of that I, we do many actions which we think, oh, dear. Shouldn’t be doing that.
But it seems like there’s more benefit than harm. Doesn’t it? So I know I shouldn’t be opening this diary, but because I want something for myself, you know, some information or something to know how that person really feels about you. If it’s about you in the diary, so you read it trying to find, oh, she’s a really good woman. I really like her.
And you think, oh, that’s nice. But say she wrote, I can’t stand her. You know, she’s the worst possible person in the world. Wouldn’t help you. So in one way, we read something nice, more attachment.
In the other way, we read something horrible, more aversion. So what does it matter? If we had wisdom, we think, what does it matter? We want to keep our ethical line, you know, our morality. We want to continue on our pathway to enlightenment.
But along the way, we make many mistakes. And, you know, maybe at the time of reading the diary, you think this is the right thing to do because you do it. Right? And then afterwards and but you know it’s wrong. But the delusion is so powerful.
Like the mosquito, you go, now I’m okay. Except when you have a short life and sicknesses, and then you think, oh, why me? Why short life? Why sicknesses? Why am I suffering from all these problems?
Then you can understand why it’s important, right, to protect your morality in that time. But say the delusion comes in like a storm that comes on the horizon, you know? And you see the storm off in the distance and it comes closer and closer. And eventually, it’s all in your mind. It’s all in there.
And you’re looking at that diary and you’re thinking, I’m gonna read it. I’m gonna read it because this is the answer. You know? This something that’s gonna give me whatever you think it’s gonna give you, which is all a delusion. It’s wrong.
It’s wrong. Don’t do it. Yes. Yes. Do it.
Do it. Right? So you go backwards and forwards between don’t do it. Do it. Don’t do it.
Oh, alright. I’m just gonna do it. And often it’s like that, isn’t it? That you think I shouldn’t be doing this. I mean, we’re talking about diaries, but what about the speed limit is fifty and you’re doing sixty?
You know, isn’t it? You know you shouldn’t. Or you you should allow somebody to go in front of you, but you just quickly go. We do these funny little things where there’s a voice that says, don’t do that. You could get caught.
And yet you do it. And then afterwards, you think, oh, dear. So I think the main thing is having the regret. Because if you have the regret, you’re not going to want to do it in future. Whereas if you defend the action because of, resentment or anger, you know, if I say to you, you should never read a diary ever again, you could get resentment and anger, and then you wouldn’t have regret for the action.
So you don’t want to defend the negative action. You want to let go of it. You want to remove it. You don’t want to cling onto it. So you want to have regret, and then you want to say, in future, would I ever read a diary ever again?
If it’s that particular situation, would I ever do that ever again? No. I make a strong determination. I’m not going to do that because I respect others’ privacy, and I want them to respect my privacy. Isn’t it?
Because what you put out is what you get back. Do you like it when you know somebody’s been in your drawers? That you go out and you come home and you can see somebody’s gone through your drawer. Would you like it? None of us would.
Right? Been through your papers, looked at all your private letters. Who would like that? What created that? Me looking at somebody else’s diary, me looking at somebody else’s letters in their computer.
I know somebody who did that. They lent their computer to somebody, and that person went into the private files of this person and found letters about himself and then read them all, and then got really upset. You know? I mean, she never thought that this person would ever read any letters inside the computer. You know?
So many things like this can happen, not just about diaries. Now it’s about online, many online things. What happens, if you go into your computer and that person didn’t sign out? And the inbox comes up and you think, oh, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity, isn’t it?
You know? Not in a nice way at all. What do you do? Do you sign out for them? Or you go into a cyber cafe and somebody’s chat thing pops up, you know, where they’ve been chatting and they haven’t signed out.
And so, you know, somebody’s name pop up, you know, Handsome Fred. You know, and you’re a woman and you think, oh, Handsome Fred. You know? I wonder what he’s like. You know?
So you just say, hello, handsome Fred. And you don’t even think about it, do you? Of that’s somebody else’s account. That’s somebody else’s friend that you’re chatting to, and then you start chatting. And then who are you?
So it says, gorgeous Susan or something. And you say, well, I’m gorgeous Susan. Now you started to lie. And that’s how it goes, isn’t it? That when you do that small negative action, somebody said, did you read my diary?
Who? Me? You’re accusing me? You know, as if you didn’t, but you did. Right?
So you can say, me, speed? I didn’t, oh, I didn’t park in that place when your husband finds the ticket. You know? I I don’t remember parking that play. It wasn’t me.
So you do something, and when you defend it, you start to tell lies and build a story around it, and it gets worse and worse and worse. So the main thing is when you’re trying to purify regret and decide the behavior that you’re not going to do anymore. And if you’re a Buddhist, you can pray in front of Buddha. You can say in front of Buddha, I promise I’m not going to do this anymore. And this is your morality.
This is what you keep, isn’t it? So lying, I think we know. Sexual misconduct, I think you all know. Maybe not firsthand, but I think you know what it means. Lying, divisive speech.
You know, don’t you? It’s it’s quite clear. You’re trying to divide two or more people. So it could be a community, you know, a larger group of people. But, generally, we’re talking about a married couple, brothers, sisters, a family.
You don’t go in and divide them. So if somebody comes to you for advice, about the family or a relationship, you don’t give the sort of advice that would break them up. This is divisive talk. However, then I’ll tell you the downside of this because I have all sorts of questions asked. What happens if somebody is being beaten?
This often comes up. Then what to do? I say then, you shouldn’t be giving advice. They should go to somebody professional. The advice should be, go to a women’s refuge or somebody professional who knows how to handle the situation.
Because you’re not professional, you don’t know how to handle the situation. So I think that’s the best advice to give. Isn’t it? Because I think you can get involved, and you start giving advice, and you start saying, try to do this and try to do that. And then they come back and say, well, I tried that, and that didn’t work.
I got beaten even more. And you say, oh, dear, that’s terrible. Try this and try this. And, actually, they should have gone to a professional in the first place. They know what to do, and they know how to help.
Whereas, we don’t. We’re not trained for this. So be very careful with divisive speech. Harsh speech, it generally refers to humans. It says any speech that can hurt.
Yeah. So if you say, you know, I don’t know. Why are you wearing that today? Somebody could be really hurt by it. But, generally, we’re talking about humans.
But I say, well, for sure, my dog could understand what I used to say. So if you say you’re the ugliest dog in the world, do you think the dog doesn’t understand? I think the dog actually does understand. They may not understand the words, but they’ll understand the feeling, isn’t it? So I think you should include all beings rather than thinking, I just don’t use harsh speech towards humans, and I’ll reserve it for the animals.
I think just generally all beings. idle gossip, the definition is something unimportant and meaningless, and you make it important and meaningful. Alright? You take something meaningless, unimportant, and then you talk about it as if it’s meaningful and important. My example is George Bush.
We talked about George Bush for years. What good did it do? You know? I mean, only the voters in America can change the situation. And then he goes.
And then it could be, now I’m starting to get emails. What do you think about Obama? I said, I have absolutely no idea. You know? I hope he can do good, but what’s the point in talking about it?
We can spend hour after hour after hour. You know, I used to go to school. My mother was Irish, so this help you to understand. When I would go to school, there’d be a pot of tea on the table, gigantic pot, and the neighbors would pop over. Tea, and they’d talk.
I’d come home, four o’clock, and all day they could just talk. And I said, what do you talk about? And my mother used to say women’s problems. And I said, well, what sort of problems do women have? And she’d say, you’re a boy.
You wouldn’t understand. So I never found out. So I don’t know whether it was meaningful or meaningless. I hope it was meaningful. But, you know, you could be that sort of person that you could be online all day chatting.
Doesn’t have to be sitting at home in the chair, does it, anymore? It could be SMSs, meaningless chat that just goes backwards and forwards. So I said on Thursday, think of SMS, meaningful emails rather than meaningless. Because then you’re using technology in order to be a benefit to others. Right?
Instead of just this chat, chat, chat, chat. And chat often turns into something negative. You know, you gossip, gossip, gossip, gossip long enough. It’s bound to come down to, and did you hear about Mary? And you No.
What happened? You know, and then you’re off, isn’t it? So you have to be very careful with gossip that if you use gossip, you can use it as a way of starting the conversation. I don’t think you can start every conversation with a deep and meaningful, what do you think is the meaning of life? You know?
So it’s often about the weather or how’s your mother and stuff like that, isn’t it? That’s how you start the conversation. But quickly try to get into something meaningful rather than meaningless. Don’t sort of challenge people with your opening question. What do you think about wrong views?
You know? And you just bumped in them at at Starbucks or something like that. Covetousness, the object is something belonging to somebody else. It could be in a shop. You know?
And you keep going back and think, I only had that, but you can never afford it. Covetousness can lead to stealing because you can’t afford it, or even there are people who can afford it, but don’t want to pay for it. So it’s that mind that’s becoming very sticky and starts to cling to the object. Right? So it’s a sticky mind.
Sticky fingers. If you think about the child who’s eating the the sticky bun. Right? And then it’s like sticky fingers. Everything gets stuck to it.
So it’s that mind of attachment and, grasping that keeps thinking more and more about the object. And if I get that, I’m going to be happy. This is the interesting one, malice. The object is a living being who would be hurt if your harmful thought were acted out. You didn’t do anything.
The the yeah. The object is a living being who would be hurt if your if your thoughts were acted out. So it’s just a thought. This is, when somebody said, what about if you’re thinking die, die, die? This is malice, isn’t it?
It’s that harmful thought that you didn’t do, and you think you’re safe because you didn’t do it. So still that needs to be purified. It’s really worth knowing this. Because if you don’t know, you think, well, it was only a thought, so therefore, I don’t need to do anything about it. But, actually, there’s a karmic result.
What about when people start having negative thoughts about you? Do you like it? So is it by intent? May maybe if I give you the whole definition of malice, it might be useful. Yeah?
So I gave you the object. The intention is discrimination, recognizing the sentient being as someone who would be hurt if your harmful thought were carried out. So you have a living being who would be hurt if your thought was carried out. Okay? That’s the discrimination.
Then the motive is a state of mind whereby you desire to harm others, one or more. Then you need a delusion. We always have ignorance, so we can always say ignorance is at the basis of it, the foundation of it. But mainly, I think anger would be the usual one because anger leads to these harmful thoughts. So you need a delusion.
Then the act, what do we do? We build on the thoughts. So you keep building. It’s an increasing wish to actually harm somebody. So you started out with that thought, and now you’re building the thoughts.
You’ve got a a stronger and stronger wish to harm somebody. And then the completion is when your wish to harm increases to the extent that you make a definite decision to harm somebody. No. It it will create an environmental effect. So when you have a complete action, it’s a propelling action.
It sends you into a future rebirth. Okay? The four parts complete. That’s why you need to know about the four parts. If they’re complete, it’s what we call a throwing action or a propelling action.
It gives you your future rebirth. If it’s not complete, then it gives you an environmental effect. Do you want me to tell you the environmental effect? Okay. So from malice, the environmental effect is you will experience unfounded fear and panic easily.
This is really interesting because so many people these days are experiencing fear and panic and don’t know why. So the result of malice is this happens to you. You just become panicky and fearful, and you don’t know why. And then you live in a violent, threatening place with wars and fearful plagues. Wars and fearful plagues.
So if you know the environmental effect, you wouldn’t want to create that for yourself. You wouldn’t want to experience that as a result. And so therefore, you say, okay, now I’m going to start doing something about malice. Would that happen in this life or the future life? No.
Usually, it’s future. But, if it’s in regard to a very powerful object, it’s possible to ripen in this life. You know? It’s possible. I think you shouldn’t you shouldn’t dismiss it because if it’s a very powerful object, like His Holiness, the Three Jewels, anything like that, it could very well ripen in this life.
Yes? From the past. Yes. They’re doing that. Yes.
To create more karma. Yes. To steal. Yes. Yeah.
Because if there was no karma to steal, you wouldn’t think to steal. You wouldn’t steal. Right? But when you have these imprints from the past of, this covetousness and attachment, grasping, you know, stealing, then because you’ve got the karma from the past, you’ve got the delusions from the past, you’ve got the imprints from the past, and then you see an object that you want, and the thought arises, I could steal that. And then you have no morality to counteract it, it makes sense to steal it.
I just did the karma of the person who’s, like, the object Who has the object to to have it stolen. Their karma. Also, their karma too. What in the case of killing the the karma. Of the person killed all for for that, for instance, abortion.
To be the the being who is killed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You have to have the karma to experience the result. You see, the teachings on karma say, if you’re experiencing a result, you can’t think that you’re like a victim, an innocent person.
You know? Why is this happening to me? Why are they doing this to me? karma is responsibility. karma is saying, well, I have created the causes to experience the result.
So anything that’s happening to me is as a result of something I’ve done in my past. The problem with karma is we don’t remember. We need to be omniscient. We need to be a Buddha before we fully know all about karma. But just from our own lives and what we see around us, I think many of of you, because you’re intelligent, you understand something about karma because of what you see.
You see that what you put out is what you get back, mostly. It it works that way, doesn’t it? Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair. You know? Have a nice day.
And sometimes it’s like, duh. You know? Why me? You Why did that happen? But mostly it works, doesn’t it?
You smile, they smile. You do something nice, they do something nice. So you can see in that. But a really good person, practicing generosity, generosity, saving lives, helping in the Dharma center, pouring the water bowls, cleaning, doing everything, they get cancer. They die.
Why? You know, you think why? Why that person? It’s not fair. It doesn’t seem fair.
But it’s the karma from the past lives ripening in a life where you could actually use it as a way of transforming your mind. You know, cancer doesn’t turn your mind into cancer. Sickness doesn’t turn your your mind into sickness, does it? Cancer can be the cause for you to become enlightened. So what creates the cancer?
You’ve harmed other beings’ lives. You’ve shortened their lives. So by shortening their life, your life is shortened. You have many sicknesses. And even when you find the medicine, it’s not very effective or it doesn’t work at all, or you live in a place where the medicine is not very effective.
I gave the example of, in the past, of Russia, where in Russia there’s a lot of, medicine that is not real. Same in India. You can be taking medicine for diabetes or heart problem, and it’s not real medicine. It’s a huge industry. And so a friend of mine in Russia had a bladder infection and he was taking antibiotics that were bought from the best pharmacy in Moscow, and my friend was getting sicker and sicker.
And so he called his doctor who’s in Italy, and the doctor said, are you sure this medicine is real? And he said, well, as real as I can get. He went back and he took another course of medicine. It still didn’t work. He flew to Italy, and when he took the medicine in Italy, it worked.
And there’s been many scams recently in India where there’s actually whole factories producing blood pressure medicine, diabetes medicine. Who would do something like this? What sort of thinking is that? To make profit and be harming the bodies of others, the health of others. But that karma will come back on them as, again, being harmed, short life, very, difficult environment, wars, plagues, that sort of thing.
So it’s really interesting to know the environmental effect of karma because if you’re experiencing the environment, you don’t think, well, I’m a victim. You think, I’ve created the environment. It’s not being done to me. I did it to myself. Then you’ve got power, isn’t it?
Then you’ve got the ability to change it. Oh, we’re heavy people. The Tibetans. The Tibetan people. Well.
We like to think. But actually, not not long before that, they were a warring nation. And that’s what as His Holiness says, what you see is the result of all our ethical practice. And also what we forget is those people who were warring with the Mongolians and with the Chinese are not necessarily the ones who were reborn in Tibet. It’s not that you’re always going to be Tibetan.
So those warring people would be reborn somewhere else. And maybe, if you’re experiencing the karmic effect of having been, a warring nation, you might now be Israel and Palestine. You could be on those two sides of the fence. So it could be Tibetans from the the seventh century or whatever, reborn now into Gaza. Right?
So we move around. We don’t need passports in the Bardo when we die. There’s no passport. There’s no visa. Your karma says, you’ve been a really difficult person in your life, constantly fighting, fighting, shortening other beings’ lives, making problems for them.
You need to go to a warring place. You know, congratulations. You get a first class ticket. You’re going straight there. That’s what your your karma does for you.
It guarantees you the result from what you’ve done. Yeah. No. I don’t think. And I think in the Bardo, it’s it’s an individual experience of of your karma, then you experience the the karmic result, which can be a collective karma.
You know? So together in Gaza, together on the bus, or together on I’m often on the plane and thinking, I hope I don’t have the group karma to die because it’s a collective karma. You know? So I hope I hope not this time. But, yeah, that’s it’s interesting to think about.
Right. And then you’ve got the collective karma. So you have to have you have to be, say, on the bus or the plane with enough people with the collective karma of killing to experience the result of the plane. It’s It’s complicated. Yeah.
So it’s just, you know, sort of linear like this, this, this. It’s quite complicated. That’s why Buddha said, karma is so difficult to understand. It’s so hard. And you need an enlightened being that you can trust and you can believe in in order to say it must be true.
Check all the other things that you can check. Everything the Buddha said that you can check, you check. And you keep looking. Is there a lie? Is there any deceit?
Am I being manipulated? Is that what you think? Right? You look you look in the teachings. Is he trying to manipulate you?
Is he trying to cheat you? Is he trying to lie to you? And if he was, wouldn’t somebody have found it in two thousand six hundred years? I mean, we’re clever people. Right?
So look, you can’t find it. The only reason he taught karma was to give you the ability to take yourself out of that karmic cycle. You know? Being reborn out of in suffering. Reborn in suffering.
Reborn in suffering. We keep coming back and back and back. And we say eventually, we say, why me? You know? Why do I keep suffering like this?
And somebody says, oh, Four Noble Truths, Buddhism. You should study that. That would be good for you. And then you read and you say, ah, there’s the answer. So incredible.
There’s the answer. But what does he want from from me? You know? What does Buddha want? He wants you to be happy, not to suffer.
Suffer. He must want more than that. No. That’s all he wants. And people often say, well, what’s in it for Buddhism?
What is in it for us? The fact that we can help others to purify and help others to be happier is the reward, isn’t it? When you see others happy and not experiencing so much suffering, we would be happy. If when I’m traveling around the world, I don’t hear so much about murder and wars and cancer and fear and all these sort of things. I’d be very happy to hear less of these things.
But while we’ve got this the ability to alleviate other suffering, we should. That’s what we do. That’s what what we’ve decided we are as Buddhists. That’s what we do. And it’s not a burden.
It’s not a problem. It’s what we do. It’s part of who we are, isn’t it? So we continue until we’re enlightened. And even after we’re enlightened, we continue.
There’s no end to it until all of saṃsāra, everything’s finished, and maybe we find other beings on other planets. And then we have to go and help them. So we just go on, just continually trying to be a benefit and never harm. And that’s the very bottom line, isn’t it? Always try to benefit, try not to harm.
So we should stop. We’re we’re very late. I’m sorry. So you have to eat quickly and then do your karma yoga. Good to give something back to the center, isn’t it?
Because the center gives so much to others, and if you can give a little something back in the way of you using your skills just to do something around the center, then you rejoice in it, then you can feel incredibly happy that you you offered to the center. So we’re going to use the dedication on page a hundred and thirteen. Due to this merit, may I soon attain the enlightened state of a Guru Buddha that I may be able to liberate all sentient beings from sufferings. May the precious Bodhi mind, not yet born, arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore.
May sentient beings who have all been my mother and father be completely happy, and may the lower realms be forever empty. May all the prayers of the Bodhisattvas in whatever places they live be immediately fulfilled. Whatever white virtues I’ve created, I dedicate as causes, enabling me to uphold the holy Dharma of scriptures and insights, and to fulfill without exception the prayers and deeds of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the three times. By the force of this merit, may I never be parted in all my lives from the four wheels of the Mahāyāna vehicle, and may I reach the end of the journey along the paths of renunciation, bodhicitta, the pure view, and the two stages of tantric practice.