Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 84-minute teaching, Ven Margaret McAndrew explains karma—understanding cause and effect—as the working practice following refuge in the Three Jewels. She establishes four foundational principles: karma is definite in its results, expands infinitely unless stopped by regret, requires a cause for every experience, and is never lost. She then walks through the ten non-virtuous actions to avoid—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct (body); lying, divisive speech, harsh words, idle gossip (speech); covetousness, harmful intent, wrong view (mind)—emphasizing that motivation determines weight and impact. The four opponent forces (reliance, regret, a commitment to refrain, and applying antidotes) form her framework for daily purification. Throughout, she stresses mindfulness: spotting non-virtuous thoughts as they arise before they become action. For practitioners beginning formal Buddhist study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 K 1999 08 19.mp3
UUID: e333bd05-0ab1-4906-87d2-b792f398738d
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-08-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 83.9 minutes
Words: ~9,999
Of, not just being about ourselves, to liberate as many others as possible. And, if we think of the infinite number of beings who are suffering compared to ourselves then we’re nothing compared to all these others and so this sort leads to the thought of how to attain to the ability to help others because we have to understand that at present we don’t really have the ability even to free ourselves from suffering we have very little ability to help others at all even in ordinary everyday mundane activities with their ordinary problems and we know that if we solve one problem then they’re going to experience another problem and so this is no final answer for their problems. Have to look at who has the qualities and only enlightened beings or Buddhas have the perfect qualities to be able to help an uncountable number of others. If we comprehend the qualities of Buddhahood thoroughly then it would be something really amazing. We’d have no doubt about the necessity of working for the attainment of this state.
We have to begin by just taking small steps but we can start off by making this decision to set motivation on this thought and as we keep on practicing it then it can become more and more powerful and more and more spontaneous. We just think that we want to attain this state of Buddhahood and the only reason for attaining Buddhahood rather than the state of liberation is to be able to help others. This is our motivation. And so the topic that we’re talking about tonight is understanding karma and this is a topic that we’ve been leading up to over the past couple of months and we’ve been doing the preliminary meditations, teachings and topics of study that lead up to it and so we have been looking at suffering the state of suffering that we’re in at the moment the suffering of the lower realms of rebirth and the very strong possibility of having to take rebirth in those lower realms of suffering where we’ve been before many many times we can be there again and again if we don’t have the right method to first of all achieve fortunate rebirth and then to be able to continue to achieve fortunate rebirth and to actually find a way out of the cycle of being born again and again because as long as we’re in this cycle of saṃsāra then we’re always subject to falling back and having to experience these kinds of sufferings again and also any situation within saṃsāra is unsatisfactory.
Basically we’ve been looking at it from the small scope point of view which is the point of view which focuses mainly on our future life and how to prepare for it. We’ve been mainly focusing on the possibilities of lower rebirth, the kinds of causes that we have created to have this kind of and what we can do about it and how to seek help and who can help us and the conclusion that we came to was that the Three Jewels of refuge Buddhadharma and Sangha are the ones who can help us and they have the perfect qualities to help us and so we can safely take refuge in Buddhadharma and Sangha the Three Jewels of refuge to be saved from our suffering but the Three Jewels of refuge can’t save us from our suffering just from their own side alone they have the perfect understanding they understand the path but they have to receive cooperation from our side. We have to work. We have to practice the path. Then the Three Jewels of refuge can refuge can guide us.
And we will then be able to achieve the states of happiness that they teach us how to achieve. If you had to say in a few words what our practice is all about when we take refuge we have to practice Buddha’s have to follow Buddha’s advice we have to put it into practice so what this practice is all about you could say basically that it’s working with karma and we’re working with karma so as to go beyond karma. The understanding of the topic of karma is absolutely basic to any sort of Buddhist practice. It’s something that we need to take into our lives and in order to understand how to practice karma how to observe the practice of karma we have to rely on what Buddha taught us because there are certain things that are apparent to our perception directly and some other things which are slightly hidden or obscured and that we can understand readily through logic and there are some things which are very obscured and which can only be understood by those with supernormal powers by Buddha’s omniscient mind. karma is one of the very obscured topics and if we’re going to know how to act in accordance with karma we can’t just look around us we can’t just look at our own life in this life and see karma operating because if we could do that if we could see karma in terms of cause and result if we could see how the cause has been created and how it brings about the result if we could see this directly then we wouldn’t be doing any of the things that are contradictory to Buddhist practice we’d all be practicing perfectly because if we could see the results that our actions bring about then we’d all be very carefully bringing about the actions that bring happiness and avoiding the ones that bring suffering but we don’t see this and so we get confused and we fall into mistaken actions and so we need to rely on Buddha’s wisdom to guide us Only Buddha’s can perceive karma perfectly.
We to rely on the scriptures for the time being and as we develop in our practice we will eventually come to have some direct insight into these things ārya beings actually have quite a lot of insight quite a lot of direct insight into past and future lives and they can see quite a lot of karmic cause and result but they can’t see perfectly there are some karmic causes that can be so far back so many lives ago so tiny in their beginnings that only the omniscient mind of Buddha can see them there are stories actually in the scriptures but I haven’t got time to tell you the stories tonight so we’ll have to skip that but basically so anyway basically we have to rely on the teachings until we can see these things ourselves and we should always be aware of relying on the statements about karma that are made by ordinary clairvoyance some of these people see certain things about past life they might see back two or three lives and they say karma works like this and like that but karma doesn’t do such and such and so so they might say something that’s contradictory to Buddha’s teachings but in actual fact this is simply because of these people not being able to see far enough into the past or into the future and they can’t see the full picture so we have to be careful not to rely on these unreliable guides does anybody have any questions at this point karma is only meaningful in terms of past and future lives.
Our karmic results are mostly experienced in a life which is future to the life in which it was created and so if we just look at the same life in which we create the actions we’re not going to see cause and result happening so we have to take this long term view. We have to find some sort of conviction in our minds about past and future lives and about the part that karma plays in these things and then we can observe karma very very effectively if we haven’t got this sort of conviction at the present we can at least keep an open mind about it and try to continue examining and try to bring about this sort of sureness in our mind. The word karma means action and it refers to volitional action and specifically to actions and the results which are brought about by these actions so it’s often referred to as being cause and result and it’s a natural law it’s not laid down by any sort of God or anything of that nature but in actual fact karma is a mechanism that works by means of natural law just on our own mind stream that we bring ourselves into the situations are going to bring us the appropriate result for our past karmas.
We also share karma with others. There’s such a thing as group karma. When we create karma together with a group of other people then we can experience the results together and one result of shared karma is the world that we actually live on at the present which is the result of the shared karma of all the beings who are living in it so it’s a very complex topic we perform various volitional actions that create an imprint on the mind stream or on the mental continuum and at the time we’re not aware of this karmic imprint but it has potential to produce a result in the future like a seed that has the potential when it meets the right conditions of moisture and warmth and fertility in the soil and so on to bring about a sprout which will grow into a plant so karma has the potential to bring about a result and that result will be appropriate to the actual action that’s been created. This topic follows refuge because after having taken refuge in the Three Jewels of refuge then we have to follow their advice in order to avoid suffering and to especially avoid the sufferings of lower rebirth and to eventually be able to attain liberation or enlightenment and so the first step that we have to make is following karma and if we want to attain higher rebirth then we can attain higher rebirth by following karma if we want to attain liberation and enlightenment we have to add other practices involving meditation but we also have to understand karma even more deeply and so there’s a lot to be understood about karma there’s a lot of details of the karma teachings that I won’t be able to go into today but I’m going to go into the main points and if we understand these main points then it gives us something to go to work on.
When it comes to understanding karma there’s three main divisions that we have to meditate on. The first meditation is on the general aspects there are four general aspects of karma and then the specific aspects particularly including the ten non virtuous actions and the virtuous actions and so on. Thirdly, topic of living in accordance with the law of cause and effect. The first topic, the general aspects of karma. If we understand this it gives us a more clear idea of how karma works so that we can work in accordance with it so what we’re trying to do is go beyond karma to not be within the cycle of saṃsāra but in the meantime karma can either work for us or against us and so we have to make it work for us.
These four points are first of all that karma is definite or fixed secondly that karma shows great increase or expansion thirdly that there’s no experience without having created the karma for it. And fourthly, that, karma is, never lost. So the first of these points the karma is definite and so this means that each karmic imprint will bring its own distinct result and that result will be in the case of a good or a virtuous karma it will be happiness in the case of a bad karma which usually involves hurting others suffering and there’s no way that that can be anything else but in accordance with the or the imprint that was laid on a mental continuum at the time of creating the action and also karmic results won’t get mixed up if we create an equal amount of good and bad karma in this life it’s not going to turn into something neutral and bland so that we can say oh you know we’re just sort of going to experience some sort of intermediate sort of rebirth we’re going to have to experience good results for the good actions and the bad results for the bad actions and in fact many of our actions that are created during the course of our life even during the course of one day are capable of bringing about a rebirth so we we don’t have to worry about running out of karma for rebirths this is another mistake in view if you think that you can burn up your karma and use it up simply by trying to avoid creating karma and just using up what you’ve got you’ll be forever doing that because we have countless karmas already stowed on our mind stream and it’s happening all the time.
No, it wouldn’t be any good to just sort of say take a lot of pills or something sleep it all off wouldn’t work no so basically what we have to do is work on creating the right sort of karma minimizing the bad stuff. The Jains, if I understand their approach rightly, something like that they try to avoid creating karma and to try to burn up through ascetic practices their bad karmas and Buddha thought that that is not actually an effective approach so and our karmas don’t get mixed up together so it’s like if you mix a whole lot of seeds together chili seeds and wheat seeds this was before genetic engineering so if you take a lot of chili seeds and a lot of wheat seeds and mix them all up together in the one container and then plant them the wheat seeds are going to produce wheat and the chilli seeds are going to produce chilli so our karmas are like that. I was just going to make another point about karma too, which is that karma can be classified into two types: projecting and ripening karma. The projecting karmas are those that have the power to bring about a particular rebirth state and the ripening karmas are not as complete not as fully actualized as the projecting karmas and so they have the power to bring about certain results during a lifetime.
It’s possible to have mixed karmas in that sense that you might have a bad projecting karmas but experience good ripening karmas during your lifetime yes like the story yes like a well fed pet dog would be an example of that or the other example would be the person who has a human rebirth as a result of virtuous conduct particularly following ethics or morality but because of other non virtues then they would be experiencing a lot of suffering during their lifetime they would be experiencing bad ripening karmas and of course we do tend to experience a bit of variety in our karmic experiences during life we have our ups and downs and all of us experience sufferings as well as well-being so this is something that’s particularly the case in human existence more so than in any of the other realms and it’s considered to be actually one of the fortunate points for Dharma practitioners because we don’t have unalloyed happiness in this existence we are able to practice Dharma we’re able to see the fact of suffering and to understand the necessity of practicing to overcome the cause of suffering whereas there are beings who don’t have very much suffering at all during their lifetime who have a wonderful time but they don’t practice Dharma and their good life really is wasted because they don’t make use of their good bodies to create cause for more good rebirths in the future they just use up their fortunate karma So any questions?
So do the worldly gods? And, of course, the the other unfortunate beings don’t have much opportunity at all while they’re in realms to work to create good karma so we have to take advantage of our situation in the human life to do this practice while we can so that was the first point that karma was definite the second point is that karma shows great increase or karma expands and so it’s like seeds that can be planted and then they grow they produce more seeds which are harvested and they can be planted again and again until you can start off with one from one seed having thousands of seeds from that one seed and karma is like this it increases all the time unless we bring about something to stop that increase it just keeps on increasing all the time and it can become immense and bring many many different results from the the one action and this applies to both bad karma and good karma and so what we want to do is to keep our good karma increasing but we want to stop the bad karma from increasing and regret is the thing that stops our karma from increasing whether it’s good or bad if we regret the action that we’ve created then it stops this increase and so we don’t want to regret our good actions for any reason I mean it can be the case for instance if you were to give some money to somebody who was hard up to help them and they go and spend it on alcohol or gambling then you might think I shouldn’t have given to that person well it’s too late to get the money back so it’s better to try not to regret the action and at least feel that you’ve done a good action on your side even if the other person from their side didn’t didn’t really take the opportunity that was offered to them and so in that way the action will keep on increasing with our bad actions we need to regret them because this will stop this increase and we need to in fact do this every day and that’s where the four opponent forces comes in which I’ll speak a little about a little bit further on so at least if we’ve done a wrong action if we can regret it immediately it’s going to keep the karmic results very small the third point is that there is no experience or we won’t experience anything without having created a karma for it in the past we have to create have created the karma to be having this experience to be meeting this particular event in our lives there’s no way that anything can happen to us without having created the cause in terms of karma all our experiences whether they’re happy or suffering the result of having created a karma of having created karma for this result so if something happens to us which we think is unfair if we don’t get promotion that we deserved at work or if somebody criticizes unfairly if we think that we haven’t created the cause for this or if we we’ve earned some money and then don’t get paid it due to some cause we might think all this is unfair but in actual fact it’s because we the reason we think it’s unfair is just because we can’t remember what we’ve done in the past to have this happen to us now but certainly we’ve created some sort of cause for it and the cause would be in some sort of relationship to what’s happening to us now we would have been perhaps depriving some other person of having received money that was due to them or in some other way have done something similar and so we we don’t experience any sort of random or chance events at all and we also don’t experience these things because of God or or God’s interfering with destiny and saying oh I like this person you know he’s very good looking so I’ll send him a victory in his battles or whatever like you find in the Greek epics but these things are due to our karma.
Sometimes we pray to the Buddhas to help us. The Buddhas of course would help us all the time if it was possible they would save us from all sufferings but they can only actually help us when we have the karma to be helped. Sometimes when we make strong prayers we get very remarkable results particularly sometimes when we get together in prayer as a group and make strong prayers for something to come about then it can be quite surprisingly the answers that come to your prayers but this is because the karma was there but needed a little bit of help to ripen and these prayers can help because of the concentration on our own part and the energy coming from the the holy beings then this can help to remove some sort of an obstacle or to bring about the ripening of a karma that is necessary in order to get the result we want. Is this making sense? It makes sense if we think this way to understand that we shouldn’t blame others for our suffering.
Even if these people are acting as the agents then they’re acting as the instruments of our suffering they’re not actually the cause of it they are just the instrument of our karma and the only thing that’s causing this suffering is the karma and so if we remember if we can really have a very strong conviction about karma and keep it in mind when we experience various problems then it’s it’s very very helpful for us not to get angry or jealous or depressed or to have various other disturbing emotions in relation to these sufferings and in that way we can actually remain happy in our minds and we’ll actually experience much less suffering so it’s very very helpful for us to remember karma and also it’s extremely important because it helps us to avoid retaliation and if we were to retaliate either by speech or by action hurting somebody then we would be creating more bad karma ourselves and having to experience more bad karmic results in the future and these kinds of retaliatory actions only involve us in more and more karmic interactions of a negative type we form more and more karmic links with people that have to be worked out in terms of having negative interactions with them of the kind that’s going to be unpleasant for us and it can be very very helpful I found one of the things that made a very strong impact on me was to understand that we get drawn together with other people not only by our positive karmic links but also by our negative ones for instance people often get drawn towards somebody as a partner as a love partner who they have negative karmic links with so that they can spend their married life together fighting you see lots of instances of that or you get born into a family where your parents or your brothers and sisters will be people that you have negative karmic links and you’re going to spend your family life fighting with these people and we all know that these sort of situations are not the most agreeable sort of situations and sometimes it seems that we’ve been drawn together in order to carry on our fights with each other and if we can understand that it’s not the other people doing this to us but it’s our karma then not or actually releasing ourselves from these karmic links if we can forgive the other person and actually practice tolerance towards them especially if we can practice love towards them then we’re going to be replacing these negative karmic links with positive karmic links and this is actually something good because then we can actually be helpful to them as we progress ourselves we can perhaps be influential on them in a positive direction and so even if the person from their side still feels negative towards us but if we can transform our own attitude into love then this makes a positive connection with that person to be able to help them in the future So that was the third point.
Whatever happens to us anyway, it has a calming cause. Things don’t happen by chance. Fourthly the result of our karma is not lost. We often use the analogy of seeds Ordinary seeds lose their fertility after a period of time but karma never loses its viability. It always remains capable of bringing the results unless it’s interfered with in some way.
It will remain capable of bringing the results indefinitely and so we can have karmic seeds that have been on our continuum for millions of lifetimes and which are still as capable of bringing about result as when they were first created and so as far as good karma is concerned we don’t want this result to be stopped so the thing that stops good karma is anger anger destroys our good karma or prevents it at least from ripening and so we have to avoid anger also we’re recommended to dedicate our good karma because, this stops it from being destroyed by anger. And to stop the ripening of bad karma, we can purify it with the four opponent forces. Forces. So the the four opponent forces are first of all oh, I better so the four opponent forces are a practice that we need to do every day and they are the force or the powers of first of all the basis sometimes called reliance the power or force of regret the power of refraining from misdeeds, and the power of applying the antidote. So, basically, the power of reliance there are two the power of two things concerned here.
The first one is refuge or reliance on the Three Jewels of refuge and the other is the motivation of bodhicitta. And so we’ve created our negative karmas with objects either of the holy beings the Three Jewels of refuge or with ordinary beings and so by relying on the Three Jewels of refuge taking refuge then this enables us to purify our negativities towards the Three Jewels of refuge and by cultivating love and compassion and the thought of bodhicitta towards all sentient beings and this enables us to purify our negativities towards all sentient beings. Thought of bodhicitta is a Mahāyāna thought so those who are following the Hīnayāna path would not be cultivating that thought but they would be cultivating the sort of refuge reliance on the Three Jewels of refuge but it’s much more powerful if we can cultivate the thought of bodhicitta also. So the power of regret or repudiation is particularly important because we can’t purify our negativities unless we regret our actions and it’s not to be taken as being in terms of guilt or some sort of emotional feeling of self hatred and so on because of recognizing our wrong actions but simply understanding that these actions were mistaken that they were actions that will harm us and that we need to take steps to put a stop to this sort of action and to do something about the harm that it can bring us so say for example if there were three people who were eating together eating food that had been cooked in the same pot you see that one person drops dead and the second person becomes severely ill then it’s an understanding that there’s something wrong with the food that they’ve got some sort of food poisoning that even though you haven’t come down with it yet you’re you’ve taken the same food and you’re going to come down with it and so you would immediately take steps to find medical treatment to not have to experience being severely sick or dying from this food poisoning and so in the same way when we understand the cause for suffering that we’ve created with negative karmas then we should regret them with this understanding that we’ve simply done an action that’s going to cause us suffering and so we need to take steps to to deal with that situation.
Any questions about that? Yes. You have to work it out for yourself. As Diana says, you know, you can get angry even when you’re by yourself. But on the other hand, if you find that by going out among other people you’re really engaged, know, you’re sort of being stimulated to a lot of anger, then it might be better to keep away from other people until you feel more of patience, tolerance but anyway, yes, essentially, you know, you’re a school teacher, you’re still going out and teaching people and so on, so maybe it’s not because of being alone Yes.
Well, it is. You know? And I was just going to say that life brings its different stages and if you’re being confronted with situations that make you angry at the moment then it can easily happen next year or sometime you know I mean these things you know come in their own good time you might have you you might you don’t if I mean if you feel satisfied with the way you’re living now you don’t have to go looking for somebody to live with just so that you’ll have somebody to make you angry but you might be having to deal with some other particular issue in your life at the moment more and then anger might might be something that you’ll have to deal with another time it’s these things are you know they come and go but there’s a story about somebody I think was a monk who was wanting to practice patience and he kept on getting angry so he kept on removing himself more and more from people and eventually decided to go off and live in the desert and or in the mountains somewhere where he would never see anybody and he thought then he would never get angry and one day he was going to fetch water and he carried a pot of water a long way had to go a long long way to find water and he carried his pot of water all the way back and just before he got back to his cave he dropped the pot and spilled all the water and he was so angry that the pot was all right but all the water spilled out of it so he was so angry that he picked up his water pot and threw it down and broke it and then he said well this is no use you know I’m not getting away from my anger everywhere I go I just take my anger with me so then he went back and sort of joined among people again and then he started to really seriously practice patience which he hadn’t done before and actually did start to make some progress.
Regret refraining from misdeeds yes so we also have to make a resolution to not do this wrong action again and if possible you should make a resolution not to do this for the rest of your life and if that’s too much then you should make a resolution not to do it for the next year or month or week or twenty four hours or whatever you feel that you can handle and then having done that then maybe you can extend it for another twenty four hours and another twenty four hours The next one is applying the antidotes. That means any sort of virtuous action do which we have the motivation of doing as a remedy for our non virtuous actions. If we do virtuous actions in general they don’t act as the antidote they have to be done with this motivation of making them the antidote to our negative karmas. The Lamrim Chenmo says says that if you have this thought, even the the hardships that the monks experience of heat and cold and having to going to listen to the teachings because I think sometimes they would walk some distance to to go to where the teachers were or whatever, and he was actually giving his teaching out of doors at the time he was teaching this book.
You see, it’s got the picture of the the monk sitting out of doors receiving the teaching. So there would be and cold for their outdoor conditions. So we were saying that if they made that their motivation, that they would actually be making this not only good karma in general, but it could become antidote to the non-virtue, could become this fourth power, the antidote. Generally, though, the we do actually that are specifically designed as actions for for the purpose. And the the most popular one is the the prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas of Confession, the Bodhisattva’s Confession of Royal Downfall.
So some of you will definitely use that practice, practice and even if you don’t do any other purification practices, then somebody who’s wanting to have a strong guided practice would do that. So if it’s too fast to do it twice a day, in the morning you do it to purify the negative. This is created during the sleep, and in the evening, you do it to purify the negative events you’ve done during the day. At least if you do it once during the day, then you won’t be having that you’ll be stopping that increase of the of the negativity. Another practice that’s very popular and very powerful is the practice.
And there are a number of other practices also that are used for the same purpose. Also, if you have some particular sort of karmic obstacle, sometimes your teacher will advise you to do a particular practice to overcome that obstacle. Sometimes you can get advice on a specific practice that’s most useful thing for that particular negativity. So that was the general aspects of karma. And then thinking about the specifics of karma has some sub definitions and that includes thinking about the black side of karma and thinking about the white side of karma.
And then there are some points on what makes karma stronger. So the black side anyway, this is the the important thing that we need to understand in order to understand karma, because this is the explanation of the ten non virtues which are to be avoided. And basic practice of Dharma should be the avoidance of the ten non virtues, actually. The teacher the other day was saying the other night, the practices of the small scope are taking refuge in the Three Jewels of refuge and avoiding the ten nonvirtuous actions or observing karma, I should say. And so in order to observe karma, we have to practice avoiding these ten nonvirtuous actions.
And that’s actually not only meaning that we will avoid nonvirtues. We’ll avoid a lot of negativities, but we also actually create positive virtue through this action if we’re doing it volitionally, if If actually have the motivation of avoiding these non virtuous actions, then that becomes a positive virtue. So anyway, these non virtuous yes. So the non virtuous actions we have to avoid are the three non virtues of body, the four non virtues of speech and three non virtues of mind. And so the three of body are killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct.
And the four of speech are lying, divisive speech, insulting words, and idle gossip. And the, the three of mind are, covetousness, harmful intent, and wrong views. And so these are the things that we have to avoid. So, generally, killing involves avoiding taking the lives of other sentient beings. So that is both human beings and animals.
So the most, the worst kind of killing is the, the killing of, of human beings. And then there’s all sorts of details about about sexual misconduct. Sorry. Stealing is taking something which doesn’t belong to you, which has more than minimal value. Anything, in other words, which has which has value.
And the sexual misconduct, this is well, there’s various definitions of, you know, not the wrong orifice and not the wrong time and place and so on. But essentially, what we the main concern that we need to have the line of say is to avoid actions that are are hurtful to others, such as breaking up marriages and so on. And so then divisive words lie lying, of course, is deceiving others. It’s not it doesn’t mean jokes, but Exaggeration. Yeah.
Exaggeration. I just done done sort of for effective if people know that you’re joking and you’re not really trying to deceive them. And, of course, it doesn’t include untruths that are told to avoid hurting somebody. So if somebody says, you know, what do you think of my new dress? And you say, very, very nice.
You You look very nice, isn’t it? Or if they think if they say, look at my new baby, and you say, what a beautiful baby, and you think, what an ugly little thing. You know? So it doesn’t refer to that. But it refers to, in general, lying and deceiving in order to get our own way with negative motivation.
So essentially, it’s the motivation that’s the main thing behind these negativities. And motivation can either be hatred or attachment or ignorance. And if it’s hatred is usually the the strongest negativity. If we do out of hatred or anger, then it becomes much more powerful, for instance, than if we do it out of attachment, much more powerfully negative. So then divisive words, sometimes it’s called parting friends or causing rift between people by going around and saying things.
Sometimes the word slander is used, but it doesn’t matter whether the speech is true or untrue. It can be even if it’s true, it can still be divisive speech. If it has the effect of causing trouble between people who were previously good friends, relatives, or colleagues who got on well together and so on, then if you cause deficient, then that’s this kind of negativity. Also, harsh or angry speech, insulting speech, which hurts people and which is very unpleasant when it’s experienced by the person, then this is this is this kind of negativity. And, again, it depends on the the motivation.
If it’s done out of anger, then this is the worst motivation. The Lamrim Chenmo says, if you call somebody a mangy old mongrel, then it’s much worse if you do it out of anger than if you than if you just do it out of some sort of joke or something. Like, saying, are you you how are you, old bastard? Yes. So I think a lot depends on the tone of voice, doesn’t it?
idle gossip. Sometimes we get a shock when we realize that that’s a non virtue because we think it’s pretty harmless, but it wastes a lot of time. And that’s time that we could be spending in some sort of virtuous action such as doing various different kinds of Dharma practice. And so it’s actually not not just talking, but various other forms of distracting activities that keep us from doing something that’s really meaningful. And so this is it’s the the least it’s the smallest of the non virtues, but it’s the one that wastes the most time, and so we have to avoid it.
Idle chatter, idle gossip. So we have to understand what idle gossip means, and it means wasting our time. So it doesn’t mean that every time we stop for a chat or to relax a bit that we’re engaging in this non virtue because we need to we need to relax a bit now and then. We need to keep in touch with our friends and so on. These things are alright.
It’s just that there comes a point when you’re spending too much time on it, when you’ve you’ve enough relaxation, you’ve exchanged what you you know, the time of day and so on with your friends. And you just go on and on and on for hours and hours just sitting around talking, and it becomes really trivial and meaningless, and and it’s just stopping you from doing something else that could be very beneficial. So this is this is idle gossip. And so the then the the three is mind. So first so these are actually in the reverse order.
The the other the three of body and three of speech were mentioned in order of the the most negative first, getting lighter as you go down the list. Whereas with the, the three of mine, they go in the other direction with the, the lightest first, which is covetousness or which also includes possessiveness because you can also cover things that or you can have this attitude towards your own possessions. So it’s a sort of a strong attachment wanting to have it, or if you already have it, then just being really stuck on it. So if you for instance, if you see something really beautiful in a shop and you think, oh, I must have this, and you can’t you you can’t rest until you’ve somehow scraped up the money and gone to to buy it, then this is this kind of attitude. And it’s negative because it’s based on such strong craving.
It strengthens craving. And if we see it if somebody else has it and we yeah, we can’t get it for ourselves, but we always wish we had it, you know, and we’re sort of always thinking of how we wish we had it, then that’s another example. That’s generally what the the word coveted covetousness has taken covetousness has taken to mean in English, but it also applies to these situations where you see it for sale and want to buy it or where you already have it, but you just feel very, very possessive about it. And, of course, it not only applies to material objects, but it also applies to things like your reputation, your status, your your job, and so on to to other people, to your friends, and your relationships. So to your education.
There’s so many different, things. You know? We can, have so many different areas where this kind of grasping and attachment is functioning in our lives. So, if we’re aware of this as being a negativity, it helps us to have some sort of control over it. And then the next one is, ill will or malice or harmful intent.
And this is particularly not just having anger or hatred, but having the thought of acting it out, even if you don’t actually act it out, but if you’re thinking all the time, how you could act it out, then it becomes, this negativity, and it it’s very harmful. And also wrong views. And this particularly refers to wrong views that are contradictory to Dharma practice, especially wrong views about cause and effect in past and future the our bad actions won’t bring a result of suffering, our good actions don’t bring a good result. If you hold that there are no past and future lives, particularly if you hold that there are no future lives to experience the results of our actions in this life, then this is going to prevent you from doing a spiritual practice. And so these things are are an extreme obstacle to doing to doing spiritual practice.
Also, if you were to hold mistaken views about what Dharma practice consists of, for instance, if you were to think that by sacrificing animals, would please the gods and then, in that way, ensure yourself a place in heaven or something like that. You know, this would be an example of doing this sort of holding these sorts of wrong views. Actually, yes, you if you want to experience cold sufferings while you’re taking teachings, you actually want to go to Tārā Institute in the middle of winter because actually you get these very, very cold winters there very, very cold winds there in winter. And, of course, everything’s built for the heat and everything’s nothing’s draft proof. You know, there’s all these all these louvered windows all the way around the government.
Even when you’ve closed them, the wind always finds its way through the so it gets really cold there. No heating, of course. So, yes, if you want to be comfortable in winter, go and live in a cold climate. So anyway, the the the Dharma practice thing, yes. So, essentially, it means really what really what a Dharma practice boils down to is working with the mind, transforming the mind.
And the mind is the material we’re working on. When we’re talking about karma, when we’re talking about observing karma, this is just, one aspect of working with the mind, really. Although we’re talking about our physical and, verbal actions as well, it really all stems from the mind. All our all our actions stem from the mind. Our verbal and physical actions stem from our mental actions.
And the karma is something which is laid on the mind and which is essentially arising from from volition. What we’re really about in our Dharma practice is transforming our minds so that instead of our minds being under the control of karma and disturbing emotions, we’re eventually going to have minds which are free from the disturbing emotions and which are only experiencing happiness, peace, and all these good qualities like love and compassion and so on. And when that’s perfectly accomplished, then that’s enlightenment. Anything that’s in the mind or the bridges or bonds that you’ve or that fashion the mind. Yes.
So essentially, we have to practice mindfulness. And the main object of mindfulness is just watching the state of our mind, whether our mind is in a virtuous or non virtuous state. If you keep your mind in a state of virtue, then you won’t perform non virtuous actions. And so what we have to do is watch for the arrival of any sort of non virtuous thought and try to spot it. If we wait until our nonvirtuous thoughts become very, very strong, then it’s maybe too late to prevent ourselves from acting on our negativity on our negative attitude such as criticizing somebody else or something.
And it can come up very, very quickly, of course, so we have to be aware of the first beginnings. So we need to practice mindfulness. That’s why and this is the the main practice that we have to do day by day I mean, yes, during our daily life. Of course, there’s many, many things that we can do to bring Dharma practice into our daily life, and the thought training teachings explain us explain to us how how to skillfully bring Dharma practice into all our daily activities so that we can turn our problems into help on the path. But in any case, the most basic practice we have to do is just checking our minds all the time.
And when I was at when I first did my when I did my first Kopan course, I was really struck by the fact that Lama’s favorite expression seemed to be check out. They’re they’re telling us all the time to to check up. In other words, to check our minds, to see where our minds were at, basically, and just to try to keep this practice going all the time. So, yes, basically, you just have to have some idea of what constitutes virtue and what constitutes non virtue and live your life according to that and especially to realize that the mind rather than the body and speech is what you have to be mainly concentrating on. But, of course, you can’t completely control the mind to begin with.
It’s the mind is very, very strong willed in a following its own sort of negative direction. So at least you can at you can avoid these non virtues of body and speech, and that will save you from the worst negativities. And then gradually, you can start to get control of the mind as well. Any questions? So then the white karmic process is essentially avoiding these ten non virtuous actions, but it doesn’t mean just not committing them, but understanding, identifying and intentionally avoiding them.
So there has to be this element of intention. So it’s important to understand this, that it’s that avoiding nonvirtuous actions is not just neutral. And, if we’re going about day by day, consciously avoiding them, then it’s then it’s really positive. So Also, helping others and doing other sorts of good actions are another way of accumulating merit. Doing Dharma practice such as studying and meditating on the path and so on are all things that can accumulate good karma for us.
And doing actions like making offerings to the Three Jewels of refuge, all of these things working for Buddha House, doing voluntary work for Buddha House, working for Buddha House. Yes. And so then there are some factors which also which make these karmas more powerful. So I haven’t really got a lot of time to to go through those. Well, I’ll just give one or two examples of the kinds of things that make karma stronger.
So some things are heavier by nature. For instance, killing is is heavier by nature than, than the other non virtues. And then the heavy by means of the because of the intention. So as I gave the example before, if you say you mangy old dog out of great anger, then that makes it very heavy, whereas if you make it out of some sort of light and motivation, then it’s not so heavy. Or it can be heavy because of the basis.
This is the object of the action. So for instance, it says it’s very a very heavy scene. For example, the cast dirty looks at karmically potent beings such as one’s guru or your parents. So for each of us, our parents are a strong object. And even if we don’t always get on with them, we we have this sort of very strong karmic link that makes them a very heavy object.
So something good done for your parents is stronger than quite a lot stronger than it is for an ordinary person. So those are just some examples. And, from following positive karma, then we get some ripened qualities which are very, very good. And from our bad karmas, of course, we get ripened qualities which are very undesirable, such as rebirth in the lower realms. It’s actually explained in the teachings which karmic realm which of the six realms you which of the three lower realms you are likely to be reborn in.
There are actually four different karmic results that you can have from your nonvirtuous actions. It can be rebirth in the lower realms, also rebirth after after you’ve expended that if it was which was strong enough to take you to the lower realms. And even after you’ve been reborn in the human realm, will have to experience similar results to the to what you did, having these things happen to you, such being killed or having your position stolen or whatever, also being caught up in the same sort of activities, again, drawn to the same sort of activities, which is very important result to keep in mind because it shows that if we follow our negativities and keep on creating these karmas, then we tend to get drawn into more and more of the same sort of karmic activities. And the same sort of activities can create more karma of the same sort so that our our karmic tendency to do these activities becomes very, very strong. So there’s a number of results like that.
The same thing works for good karma in a in a positive way. And, there are some particular I haven’t got time to go into all that in detail, but it’s very interesting to study these things, and it helps us to understand, how karma actually works. So for instance, the the example that’s often given for killing, if you kill a if you kill a sheep, particularly if you kill many sheep so that the imprint becomes strengthened, then you could be reborn in the lower realms, and that would be the first result. And then the second result would that be that when you become a human being again, then you would experience being killed yourself or being injured and having many, many illnesses so on. Also, you would get drawn into killing again, and you would have a a natural tendency towards it.
And, also, you would have to experience some sort of result such as a bad environment to live in being, I think, disharmony with you can’t remember the exact one, but some sort of bad result in the kind of life situation that you yourself in. I think having your crops fail and all that kind of thing. So these are all sorts of results that can come to us through these karmic causes. So with positive actions, we have ripened qualities which are very, very desirable, such as long life, particularly from avoiding killing, you get the result of long life, a good looking body, good family, wealth and prosperity, trustworthy speech. This is particularly a result of not telling lies.
So some people who’ve told a lot of lies in their past life, although they may be telling the truth, nobody really believes them. Well, they just seem to they seem to lack their their speech seems to lack a convincing quality. They they they can’t seem to speak in an influential way. And if we have if we tell the truth, then our speech will carry conviction. And this is very important if we’re to influence others in a positive direction and to teach Dharma and help others on the path.
So, also, power and fame, and the next one always upsets the ladies, and that’s the male body. But then Lama Yeshe goes on to explain that the reason why a male body is desirable is because somebody with a male body has less less cause to feel fear when they go when they’re among people, and it’s safer for them to live in in deserted places. And so, in this way, they have less hindrances to their Dharma practice and their, carrying out work for others. So, actually, in this day and perhaps these things don’t apply so much, and, we can do these things. If you can manage to do these things as a female, then, then it’s really the same.
If you have the courage to be able to do these things, then it’s the same result, really. And so it’s not saying that the thing that was so special apart from that and also having strong mind and body. Exactly. You know, you can see that there’s some sense in it that that males do have some sort of, yes, some sort of security perhaps that it’s it’s only it’s only because of all the other men. If there are any women in the world, then there’d be no particular advantage than having a male body.
So anyway, yes. But, anyway, the main thing is to have a human body. And if you’ve got a human body of any sort, then you can be very fortunate, then you are very fortunate. If you have the provided you have all the other sort of assets as well that we looked at in the section on the precious human rebirth. Oh, it’s time to stop.
So anyway, if we understand karma, then we can make our good karma really immense, and we can make our bad karma very weak. So we need to have this understanding. And another helpful point is taking vows. If we take vows to avoid nonvirtuous action, then our merit can accumulate, day and night even when we’re sleeping. So, even if we’re not intentionally following virtue, but because the vows are on our mind stream day and night, it has this effect.
Of course, if we break our then we can accumulate more negativities. But, for finance, if we, don’t break a root vow and if we, purify our vows as soon as they’re broken, then we don’t need to feel bad because we are accumulating so much virtue. And that offsets some sort of minor infringements that we might be making. So there’s some other things, for instance, particularly with bodhicitta motivation. If we can motivate with bodhicitta every day when we get up in the morning and also before engaging in virtuous activities such as Dharma teachings, meditation, and so on, then it increases the merit immensely because if we can cultivate the thought that we’re doing this for all sentient beings, then the object is very vast.
Even if we don’t have real bodhicitta yet, even if we’re just starting to develop that thought, it has a very powerful effect on increasing our merit. And then there are other skillful actions that we can do in order to accumulate merit, such as the power of the holy objects allows us to accumulate a lot of merit. And so we’re advised to do things such as the preliminary practices, making offerings and prostrations to the Three Jewels of refuge, such as making offerings to the image of Buddha. And in this way, we can accumulate a lot of merit. Also, if we dedicate our merits, they won’t be destroyed by anger.
So we we need to do this every day at the end of the day. And by purifying with four opponent forces, we lessen the imprint of non virtue and, make it very, very weak. And so we need to understand these different things. And in this way, we can be very skillful with karma so that our our virtues be our virtues become stronger, our positive karma becomes stronger, and our non virtuous karma becomes weak. And if we keep these things up, then our practice can really go ahead.
So in order to achieve enlightenment, we have to make we have to purify tremendous amount of negativities that we’ve already accumulated, which is creating a great amount of obstacles for our practice, and we have to acquire a vast accumulation of merit. So we have to begin with these things. So there’s only one thing that can actually totally eradicate the, non virtuous imprints of karma, from our mind. In fact, it can eradicate all karmas, and this is the direct insight into emptiness. But in the meantime, until we can actually completely eliminate karmic impressions and go beyond karma, in the meantime, we can work with karma in a skillful way to advance our Dharma practice.
So any questions before I finish? Mhmm. Okay. So we’ll finish there.